[News] Netanyahu openly boasts of Israel's war on Africans

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://electronicintifada.net/content/netanyahu-openly-boasts-israels-war-africans/19051 



  Netanyahu openly boasts of Israel's war on Africans

David Sheen <https://electronicintifada.net/people/david-sheen> 3 
January 2017

Donald Trump’s <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/donald-trump> 
election as US president has given closeted racists the license they 
have long sought to openly advocate against Muslims, refugees and people 
of color.

As progressive Americans strategize on how to defend victims of bigotry, 
they would be wise to take stock of how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin 
Netanyahu <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/benjamin-netanyahu> is 
already carrying out ethnic cleansing 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/ethnic-cleansing> similar to that 
which Trump has promised to implement.

Two incidents bookending the year capture the zeitgeist of Israel’s war 
on African refugees in 2016. In January, an African refugee family, 
whose 1-year-old baby, Kako, had been stabbed in the head, departed 
Israel 
<http://europe.newsweek.com/israel-family-stabbed-eritrean-baby-receives-europe-asylum-417337> 
after the Netanyahu government refused to help them defer the child’s 
medical bills.

And in December, the Israeli police station responsible for south Tel 
Aviv <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/tel-aviv> honored 
<https://www.facebook.com/may.golan.7/posts/10154875287483118> May Golan 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/may-golan>, a leader of 
anti-African incitement campaigns 
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/may-you-be-raped-your-grave-says-new-darling-israels-ruling-likud-party> 
that, for all intents and purposes, encourage attacks such as the one on 
baby Kako.

For the past five years, I have been compiling annual lists of the 
ringleaders in Israel’s war on Africans 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/israels-racist-ringleaders>. My 
list for 2016 incorporates almost every branch of the Israeli state.


    10. Moshe Kaspi, university dean

In February, the dean of an Israeli university gave his students an exam 
that contained a question which implicitly compared 
<http://mondoweiss.net/2016/02/african-refugees-are-likened-to-rats-in-israeli-exam-question-and-its-supposed-to-be-funny/> 
African refugees to rats.

In the test authored and administered by Moshe Kaspi, a dean at 
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/ben-gurion-university>, engineering 
students were asked to calculate the cost of removing rodents from the 
Tel Aviv area, transferring them to a holding center in the south of the 
country, and then shipping them to Africa, where they would be 
experimented on.

While the exercise did not explicitly mention African refugees, the 
analogy would have been obvious to many students, since the scenario it 
posits closely parallels political developments in Israel. For the last 
three years, the Israeli government has been rounding up African 
refugees in the Tel Aviv area and transferring them to a detention 
center in the south of the country. Following their detention, many of 
the refugees have been expelled to Africa, just like the rats in Kaspi’s 
test.

After one woman accused him of racism, Kaspi apologized for the 
question, claiming that he had intended “to insert an aspect of humor 
into the exam.”

The incident did not seem to significantly tarnish the reputation of 
Ben-Gurion University. A few months months later, the college received a 
$400 million gift <http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.726980>, the 
largest college endowment in Israel’s history.


    9. Israel Ziv, security consultant

Israel Ziv’s prior career <https://www.linkedin.com/in/zivisrael> as an 
officer in the Israeli military ended just before African refugees began 
arriving to the country in large numbers a decade ago. But since that 
time, Ziv has parlayed his army career into a successful business in the 
private sector with the security consulting firm Global CST.

In that capacity, Ziv has provided services to Salva Kiir Mayardit, 
president of South Sudan 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/south-sudan>. Kiir is responsible 
for horrific crimes against his own citizens.

Earlier this month, an Israel Channel 2 video report revealed that Ziv 
had advised 
<http://www.mako.co.il/news-israel/local-q4_2016/Article-707fc943d1ed851004.htm> 
Kiir in an effort to rehabilitate his international reputation. Kiir has 
come into disrepute for allowing his soldiers to rape 
<http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/south-sudan-army-rape-civilian-women_uk_56e3131de4b03fb88eddbb6d> 
women and young girls, in lieu of salary payment, and to castrate and 
kill young boys 
<http://www.timesofisrael.com/children-raped-castrated-thrown-into-fires-in-south-sudan-un/>.

Israel is a significant supplier 
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/israeli-arms-fuel-atrocities-africa/14844> 
of weapons to South Sudan.

According to the Channel 2 report, Ziv hired Ron Prosor 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/ron-prosor>, a former Israeli 
ambassador to the United Nations, as part of his work. One idea 
considered was that Kiir would make a speech at the UN, flanked by a 
woman who had been raped by soldiers from South Sudan.

Is it inherently racist of Ziv to want to profit from whitewashing a 
criminal despot like Kiir? Or did Ziv only take advantage of a global 
white supremacist system where Black lives matter so little that their 
mass rapes and castrations can be covered up, guilt free?

Either way, Ziv’s conduct was deplorable.


    8. Eliyahu Asulin, rabbi

Hatred for African refugees extends even to their children.

In May, the spouses of foreign ambassadors serving in Israel volunteered 
to help clean up the outdoor play area of a Tel Aviv nursery for African 
children. Their aid had become necessary because Israelis had defiled 
<http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Diplomatic-spouses-rally-to-help-migrant-children-in-south-Tel-Aviv-455597> 
the playground with dead animals, garbage and feces.

Refugee children playing in public parks are regularly harassed. In 
addition to cursing the kids, their harassers make a show of 
distributing condoms 
<https://twitter.com/davidsheen/status/718457260968697856/photo/1> to 
African refugees, apparently thinking this is a clever way of saying 
Africans should not bear children, as long as they live in Israel.

But while ordinary Israeli citizens are trying to shame Africans into 
foregoing their reproductive rights, leading religious figures have been 
actually harming the reproductive organs of newborn babies.

In November, it emerged that Israeli circumcisers allow trainees without 
the necessary experience to practice their cutting techniques on the 
genitals of black and brown babies.

An exposé by Israel’s new public broadcaster Kan revealed that – for an 
$11,000 fee – Eliyahu Asulin, a popular rabbi, would allow 
<http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.756059> novices who had not 
completed their professionally mandated studies to perform circumcisions 
in his stead on infants from African and Asian families.

Unaware that an undercover journalist was filming 
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ5znQNcIog> him, Asulin urged his new 
“apprentice” to carry out a circumcision ritual on the son of a Filipino 
woman. The baby’s mother had been misled as she had only consented to a 
circumcision undertaken by a professional.

In the video, Asulin describes African babies as “cannon fodder.” He 
says: “Even if your cut isn’t straight, they won’t say anything, because 
they don’t understand anything.”

After Asulin’s misconduct was publicly exposed, Israel’s chief rabbinate 
punished him lightly. Asulin was forbidden from training others for 
three years, but was still permitted 
<https://twitter.com/uriyaelk/status/808382336287047680> to practice 
circumcision himself.


    7. The Petah Tikva killers

In November, 38-year-old Sudanese asylum-seeker Babikir Adham-Uvdo was 
beaten to death 
<https://972mag.com/israeli-teens-charged-for-brutally-beating-asylum-seeker-to-death/123494/> 
by two Israeli youths outside of the city hall in Petah Tikva 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/petah-tikva>, a town near Tel Aviv. 
Security camera footage 
<http://www.mako.co.il/news-law/crime-q4_2016/Article-8a4fff2faafd851004.htm> 
of the incident revealed that the youths beat Adham-Uvdo for more than 
an hour. He was brought to hospital but never recovered, and was 
disconnected from life-support systems days later.

Although the killing bore similarities to other attacks on Africans, an 
article <http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.754734> in the 
Israeli newspaper /Haaretz/ stated that “people close” to a suspect in 
the killing believed it was not a racist incident. Relying on those 
sources, /Haaretz/ suggested that Adham-Uvdo may have been killed 
because he “made insulting comments to girls.”

Adham-Uvdo was seen <http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.756950> 
walking and then stopping in front of three 16-year-old girls. The girls 
shouted at him to leave, and within seconds of first encountering them, 
Adham-Uvdo raised his hands and walked away.

The 16-year-old boy then attacked Adham-Uvdo from behind; another youth 
soon joined in, kicking Adham-Uvdo as he lay on the ground.

The video footage also shows that paramedics arrived on the scene midway 
through the beating. In the video, they are seen tending to Adham-Uvdo 
but, after a short while, leave him to fend for himself, seemingly 
satisfied that he no longer requires their aid. Within seconds of their 
departure, the two young men return and continue the beating.

Two persons have been charged 
<http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.756950> in relation to the 
incident: one is Dennis Barshivatz, a Petah Tikva local, now aged 20; 
the other is a 16-year-old, whose name has not been published. An 
Israeli prosecutor has decided to charge the two with manslaughter, 
rather than murder.

Some observers noted the parallels between the deaths of Adham-Uvdo and 
Emmett Till. Till was an African-American teenager who was murdered 
<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/till/timeline/timeline2.html> in 
Mississippi, beaten until he was unrecognizable, ostensibly for flirting 
with a white woman.

Till’s killing occurred in 1955, a year after the US Supreme Court 
declared 
<http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/17/may-17-1954-supreme-court-declares-school-segregation-unconstitutional-in-brown-v-board-of-education/> 
segregated schools to be unconstitutional. Yet in Israel, segregation 
remains widespread 
<http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/schools-for-jews-and-arabs-separate-but-definitely-not-equal-1.443811>.

Just three months ago, an Israeli court was told that the Petah Tikvah 
municipality had hindered 
<http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.741046> African refugees 
from registering their children for pre-schools in town.

Since the killing of Adham-Uvdo, dozens of African refugees have been 
arrested 
<http://www.mako.co.il/news-channel2/Channel-2-Newscast-q4_2016/Article-e42f6423da14951004.htm> 
in Petah Tikva. The local mayor, Yitzhak Braverman, has approved the 
arrests.


    6. Tal Schwartz, judge

Babikir Adham-Uvdo was the latest, but not the first, African refugee to 
be lynched in Israel. In October 2015, after a gunman shot and killed an 
Israeli soldier and wounded about 10 other bystanders in the central bus 
station complex in Bir al-Saba 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/bir-al-saba> (Beersheba), a mob of 
Israelis attacked 
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israeli-mob-attacks-dying-eritrean-refugee-after-soldier-killed> 
29-year-old Eritrean refugee Haftom Zarhum.

Those who took part in the killing included Israeli soldiers, police 
officers and a prison warden.

In June this year, an Israeli tribunal ruled 
<http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.727579> that prison warden 
Hananiya Shabbat would not be charged for beating Zarhum with a bench.

Rather than reprimanding Shabbat, Tal Schwartz, a judge in the tribunal, 
complimented <http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4821468,00.html> 
him. Schwartz stated that Shabbat had “acted in a way that is expected 
of a prison guard, that which is needed to contribute to the positive 
image of the prison service.”


    5. Zion Amir, lawyer

Zion Amir is a lawyer who has defended 
<http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/defense-attorney-zion-amir-will-your-client-moshe-katsav-be-found-guilty-of-rape-1.308906> 
the rapist 
<http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-president-moshe-katsav-released-jail-rape-five-years-seven-years-parole-a7483041.html> 
and former president of Israel Moshe Katsav.

Amir has represented some of the Israelis accused 
<http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Shin-Bet-Jewish-terror-suspects-being-interrogated-over-Duma-attack-436176> 
of firebombing a Palestinian family in the occupied West Bank. Ali 
Dawabsha <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/ali-dawabsha>, an 
18-month-old baby, and his parents were fatally injured 
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/charlotte-silver/two-israelis-charged-firebombing-killed-palestinian-family> 
in that attack.

So it should come as no surprise that Amir is also defending 
<http://news.walla.co.il/item/3004137> some of the Israelis charged with 
the lynching of Eritrean refugee Haftom Zarhum.

In March, Aryeh Deri <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/aryeh-deri>, 
Israel’s interior minister, announced 
<http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.706608> that he would 
appoint Amir to head the government’s advisory panel on refugees.

After Amir had been on the job for four months, /Haaretz/ reported 
<http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.732150> that not even one 
asylum request had been approved. In that time, more than 1,000 asylum 
requests were rejected.


    4. Roni Alsheikh, police chief

In the year he has occupied the post, Roni Alsheikh 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/roni-alsheikh>, head of Israel’s 
police, has advanced the idea that African refugees are inherently 
criminal, giving his officers a green light to attack them.

In August, Alsheikh made his anti-African bias explicit when he told 
<http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4848297,00.html> a conference 
of the Israeli Bar Association: “In all criminological studies 
worldwide, it has been proven that immigrants are more involved in crime 
than others.”

Alsheikh’s comments drew strong criticism 
<http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.739461> from Israeli 
citizens of Ethiopian descent. “With one sentence, the police chief has 
summarized and confirmed all of our complaints [about police racism],” 
Ethiopian-Israeli activist Inbar Bugala said, according to /Haaretz/.

Israeli police seem to be especially bothered by communities of color 
finding common cause in the struggle against Israeli racism.

When Haftom Zarhum was killed by a mob of Israelis in 2015, Bugala wrote 
on Facebook that a racist lynching had occurred. “Black people have 
become terrorists – there was no mistaken identification,” she wrote.

Minutes after posting the message, the Israeli police contacted Bugala 
and demanded <http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.701662> that 
she delete it. The post disappeared from her Facebook page, and though 
she re-posted it several times, it was taken down after each instance.


    3. David Amsalem, lawmaker

While some Israeli officials discriminate against all Africans in equal 
measure, others advocate opposing policies for Black people, depending 
on whether the people in question are Jews. Such is the case with David 
Amsalem, a rookie lawmaker from Likud 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/likud>, the largest party in 
Israel’s ruling coalition.

Amsalem labors to bring Black Jews to Israel, while working 
simultaneously to expel Africans who are not Jewish.

In March, when Israeli officials reversed a 2015 decision to facilitate 
the immigration of 9,000 Falashmura, the extended family members of 
Ethiopian-Israelis still living in Ethiopia 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/ethiopia>, Amsalem accused 
<http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.707326> the government of 
racism. “They don’t want to bring Black people to the country from a 
troubled place,” he said.

In protest, Amsalem refused to vote in favor of government-sponsored 
legislation, until the Falashmura were allowed to immigrate. The 
government eventually allowed some Ethiopians to enter Israel. But as 
punishment for disobeying party discipline, Amsalem was temporarily 
blocked <http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4788826,00.html> from 
proposing laws or speaking in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/israeli-knesset>.

As chair of the Knesset’s interior and environment committee, however, 
Amsalem worked to make the already precarious lives of non-Jewish 
African refugees much more difficult. In November, Amsalem secured 
committee approval for an amendment to Israel’s Anti-Infiltration Law 
which would automatically deposit 
<http://www.news1.co.il/Archive/001-D-385005-00.html> part of the wages 
paid to African refugee workers in a fund. The refugees would only be 
able to access the money taken from them when they leave Israel for good.

Refugee advocacy groups have warned 
<http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.741726> Amsalem that the 
move would further impoverish African refugees, potentially triggering a 
humanitarian crisis. In a complaint, the groups wrote: “Asylum seekers 
are liable to find themselves on the streets, children will go hungry, 
women may turn to prostitution and more.”

Amsalem casually dismissed these appeals, asserting that Africans should 
be able to survive on their reduced salaries.


    2. Aryeh Deri, interior minister

Ever since Benjamin Netanyahu’s 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/benjamin-netanyahu> re-election as 
prime minister in 2009, the post of interior minister has been filled by 
a steady stream of unabashed racists.

Aryeh Deri, the current incumbent, returned 
<http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/the-return-of-the-king-arye-dery-s-unlikely-redemption.premium-1.476627> 
to politics in 2012 after a 13-year absence, two of which were spent in 
prison for corruption. He has developed a reputation for defending 
Israel’s downtrodden.

Deri’s compassion does not extend to Africans, however. In his first 
year on the job as interior minister, a post he also held before his 
downfall, Deri has campaigned <http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.706977> 
with as much enthusiasm as his predecessors to expel African refugees.

In March, Deri told 
<http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.706608> the Knesset’s 
interior and environment committee that if Israel’s high court 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/israeli-high-court> won’t permit 
him to deport African refugees against their will, he would order the 
construction of an additional facility to imprison them. Since 2013, 
Israel has held <http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.758400> 
10,000 African refugees in Holot 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/holot-internment-camp>, a desert 
detention center.

In April, Deri’s ministry launched 
<http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.712823> an advertising 
campaign warning Israeli citizens not to hire non-Jewish African 
refugees, even though a high court ruling allows them to work in Israel.

A week later, the ministry clarified 
<http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.713748> that it would not 
issue temporary residency visas to the teenage children of African 
refugees. African teens need these documents because they can be easily 
mistaken for adults and detained by immigration police who patrol 
Israel’s cities.

After a migrant rights lawyer appealed against the policy in court, Deri 
agreed <http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.736753> in 
principle to issue visas for African teens. The lawyer who challenged 
the policy, Osnat Cohen-Lifshitz, has predicted that it may take a long 
time before Deri’s agreement is implemented.

In September, a Jerusalem tribunal ruled 
<http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.740249> that fleeing 
forced service in the Eritrean army can be grounds for refugee status. 
Determined to deport all Eritreans, who constitute a majority of the 
African refugees in Israel, Deri protested 
<http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.740469> that the 
tribunal’s decision would cause “endless trouble” and ordered an 
immediate appeal.


    1. Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister

In 2016, Benjamin Netanyahu held 
<http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Netanyahu-delays-allocating-portfolios-440654> 
five separate cabinet portfolios, as well as the prime minister’s post. 
He used the powers at his disposal to deport thousands of African 
refugees. Without question, the worst of these were the powers Netanyahu 
continues to wield as Israel’s foreign minister.

When the first wave of refugees from war-torn Darfur 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/darfur> started to arrive in Israel 
10 years ago, the government argued 
<https://www.knesset.gov.il/mmm/data/pdf/m01790.pdf> that they couldn’t 
be trusted to live in the country because they were from Sudan, a 
country that does not have 
<http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.642395> diplomatic 
relations with Israel.

This argument has never made sense, as Darfuri refugees first fled to 
Israel precisely because they and their families were victims of the 
Sudanese regime, not supporters of it.

Paradoxically, in September, it emerged that Israel’s foreign ministry 
has been quietly lobbying the US 
<http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.740676> to forge closer 
ties with Sudan.

Israel reportedly favored this move because Omar al-Bashir’s government 
had distanced itself from Iran <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/iran>.

Just two weeks after Netanyahu’s shilling for al-Bashir made news 
headlines, Amnesty International 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/amnesty-international> revealed 
<http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/.premium-1.745051> that the Sudanese 
leader’s long list of war crimes now also includes the use of chemical 
weapons in Darfur.

In the past three years, Netanyahu’s government has spent 
<http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.758400> $260 million to 
round up African refugees and bring them to desert detention centers. 
Israel has the gall to categorize 
<http://www.haaretz.co.il/magazine/tozeret/.premium-1.2914750> this 
massive expenditure as “foreign aid.”

In late September, Netanyahu marked the Jewish new year of Rosh Hashanah 
with a self-congratulatory address to members of Likud, summarizing his 
supposed successes from the previous 12 months. Netanyahu boasted 
<http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/218361> of his efforts 
to deport African refugees.

“Sixty thousand illegals entered,” he said. “Until today we have already 
removed 20,000, and we will remove another 20,000. We’ll remove all the 
illegal aliens because they are illegal, even the ones in southern Tel 
Aviv.”

Netanyahu has made similar boasts 
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/ethnic-cleansing-africans-israel/15099> 
in the past. But what set 2016 apart from previous years was his new 
willingness to not only point out his anti-African policies to Israelis 
in Hebrew, but also to proudly announce them in English.

Apparently confident that his efforts would be admired abroad, Netanyahu 
tweeted <https://twitter.com/IsraeliPM/status/715608794911412224> in 
March: “A strong Israel prevents the passage of masses of refugees to 
Europe. The world would be different if we were not here.”

In a year-end opinion piece, the editorial board of /Haaretz/ stated 
<http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.759129> that Netanyahu “should be 
ashamed,” adding, “Israel can and must accept the 40,000 Africans living 
here today, along with the 6,000 children who were born here.”

For the eight years that the United States was led by a president of 
African descent, Netanyahu felt no need to rein in Israel’s war on 
Africans. Now that Donald Trump, the darling of white supremacists, has 
been elected to the Oval Office, we can only expect Netanyahu to ramp it 
up into an even higher gear.

/David Sheen is an independent writer and filmmaker 
<http://www.davidsheen.com/>./


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