[News] Israeli leaders still ache to deport African refugees
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Wed Jan 16 17:12:25 EST 2019
https://electronicintifada.net/content/israeli-leaders-still-ache-deport-african-refugees/26431
Israeli leaders still ache to deport African refugees
David Sheen <https://electronicintifada.net/people/david-sheen> - 15
January 2019
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The year 2018 was one of the most critical for African refugees in
Israel. Under threat
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/african-refugees-get-no-reprieve-israels-racist-rage/23866>
of imminent deportation, the community and their local supporters took
to the streets, pleading for their rights to be recognized.
The mass deportations did not materialize.
First, it became clear that African governments were unwilling
<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/02/world/middleeast/israel-african-migrants-un-resettlement.html>
to accept refugees who had been forced out of Israel. That prompted
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, to reach a deal with the
United Nations aimed at resettling African refugees in the West.
Netanyahu scrapped that deal after being criticized
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/netanyahu-suspends-new-asylum-seeker-deal-with-un-1.5974186>
by lawmakers in Israel’s ruling coalition who viewed the arrangement as
insufficiently tough on refugees. The lawmakers objected
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/african-refugees-get-no-reprieve-israels-racist-rage/23866>
to how the deal was contingent on allowing approximately half of African
refugees to remain in Israel for five years.
Despite shelving his most merciless anti-refugee plans, Netanyahu
continued attacking Africans living in Israel. He remains among Israel’s
top 10 leaders in its war against African refugees.
10. Ayoob Kara, communications minister
In January 2018, Ayoob Kara, a government minister, suggested
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israeli-minister-dubs-african-migrants-sanitary-nuisance-1.5730429>
that African refugees were a health hazard.
He used that eliminationist language during a conference of Likud – the
party led by Netanyahu – in Eilat, a Red Sea resort. Kara was seeking
credit for overseeing a policy – then as a minister for regional
cooperation – to fire Africans from that city’s hotel industry.
The policy had been implemented after Africans across Israel went on
strike
<https://www.haaretz.com/.premium-african-migrants-end-strike-1.5310512>
in early 2014. A week-long strike was called as part of protests
<https://www.haaretz.com/.premium-asylum-seekers-protest-spreads-to-world-1.5314372>
against Israel’s jailing of refugees.
Hotel owners in Eilat lobbied
<https://www.makorrishon.co.il/nrg/online/1/ART2/538/487.html> Israel’s
government to substitute African workers with people living in Jordan.
Under the plan, permits were issued so that hundreds of workers could
enter
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/in-a-first-israel-hires-jordanians-to-wash-the-dishes-change-the-sheets/2016/05/16/0126d87c-164e-11e6-971a-dadf9ab18869_story.html>
Israel from Jordan each day and then be bussed back to Jordan in the
evening.
The Israeli government insisted that an African be fired each time a
worker from Jordan was recruited.
According to Kara, the objective of the plan was to “save tourism in
Eilat.” Its effect, he added during his 2018 speech, was that “we
expelled the illegal [African] workers that burst in here and were a
sanitary nuisance.”
Kara, a member
<https://mfa.gov.il/MFA/AboutIsrael/State/Personalities/Pages/Ayoob_Kara.aspx>
of the Druze religious minority, is now Israel’s communications minister.
9. Nissim Malka, rabbi and politician
As mayor of Kiryat Shmona – a town in northern Israel – Nissim Malka
used his position to muzzle anti-racist campaigners.
In March, staff and students at Tel-Hai College were scheduled
<https://www.haaretz.com/mayor-of-kiryat-shmona-cancels-event-in-support-of-asylum-seekers-1.5937067>
to hold a comedy evening to raise funds for fighting the deportation of
refugees. Right-wing local residents had threatened
<https://mekomit.co.il/%D7%9C%D7%A9%D7%97%D7%A8%D7%A8-%D7%90%D7%95-%D7%94%D7%A0%D7%9E%D7%A8-%D7%90%D7%99%D7%9A-%D7%90%D7%99%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%A2-%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%A9%D7%AA%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%94-%D7%91/>
to converge on the venue – a cooperative bar linked to the local
authority – and break up the event.
Rather than condemn those threats, Malka banned
<https://www.facebook.com/nisim.malka.3/posts/10216192694436604> the
event, accusing its organizers of “trying to create unnecessary
arguments and divide our city.”
It was not surprising that Malka would, in effect, side with racist
bullies. He has previously campaigned against Africans who fled
vigilante violence in Tel Aviv and moved to Kiryat Shmona.
In 2012, Malka announced <http://www.galilon.co.il/node/4429> that the
authorities “would carry out major enforcement activities” against “the
infiltrators that are living in Kiryat Shmona and are working at
businesses in town, especially in the food industry.”
Malka, who is also a rabbi, marked 10 years as mayor in 2018. He no
longer holds the post after losing <https://www.10.tv/news/176917> an
election later in the year.
8. Gadi Yarkoni, local authority chief
Gadi Yarkoni, head of Eshkol regional council in southern Israel, was
instrumental in having Africans moved from accommodations provided to them.
During 2018, 15 students from South Sudan were housed
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israeli-residents-protested-south-sudanese-students-will-be-booted-1.6414310>
in Avshalom, a short distance from Israel’s boundary with Gaza. They
were studying agriculture in Ashkelon Academic College as part of a
program sponsored by the Israeli government.
It was something of an exception: Israel had begun deporting
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/rehearsal-mass-expulsion-palestinian-citizens-israels-deportation-south-sudanese>
refugees from South Sudan /en masse/ in 2012 – less than a year after
that state was established. Yet even this rare act of official
benevolence was too much for Israelis living in Avshalom, who closed the
gate to the village, preventing the African students from entering it.
One resident went so far as to describe the students as “human trash.”
Although the police ordered the gate’s reopening, Yarkoni intervened to
urge the college authorities that the students be moved. Deceptively, he
suggested that local residents were simply afraid of having 15 young men
living in the same house and would have reacted the same way if the
students were Israeli.
7. Amir Ohana, lawmaker
Relations between Eritrea and Ethiopia – neighbors at loggerheads, often
violently, for more than two decades – may finally be improving. Leaders
of the two countries held talks
<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/08/world/africa/ethiopia-eritrea-peace-talks.html>
in July, committing themselves to a peaceful future.
Despite the breakthrough, Eritreans – who comprise the majority of
Africans living in Israel – would face considerable risks if they were
expelled by Israel. Their country remains a dictatorship.
Amir Ohana, a Likud member of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, has
implicitly recognized such concerns are valid by saying that the
situation in Eritrea could deteriorate. His “solution” is “removing the
infiltrators” before the situation in Eritrea “changes for the worse again.”
Speaking at a Knesset committee meeting
<https://main.knesset.gov.il/Activity/committees/InternalAffairs/News/Pages/25718.aspx>
during the summer, Ohana said
<https://www.facebook.com/davidsheen411/posts/957113571137184> “we’re
going to push with all our might” for the mass expulsion of Eritreans.
6. Baruch Marzel and Itamar Ben Gvir, pranksters
Followers of the late Meir Kahane – a notorious firebrand who urged that
all Palestinians be expelled from their homeland – are known for their
extreme violence. Baruch Goldstein, who committed the 1994 massacre
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/hebron-still-under-siege-20-years-after-ibrahimi-mosque-massacre>
in Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque, drew inspiration from Kahane.
Two of Kahane’s most high-profile followers displayed a warped sense of
humor during 2018.
As the Netanyahu government announced
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/thousands-of-asylum-seekers-to-be-given-90-days-to-leave-israel-1.5629824>
plans – subsequently dropped – to force 37,000 Africans out of Israel
early in the year, some extremists sought to worsen the confusion which
the refugees encountered.
Itamar Ben Gvir and Baruch Marzel, leaders of the party Strength for
Israel, plastered signs across south Tel Aviv, in neighborhoods with
high concentrations of Africans. The posters offered aid to people
facing deportation.
מה שנראה כתעלול על חשבון אריתריאים של איתמר בן-גביר וברוך מרזל,
הסתיים במבול שיחות לחברת מערכת "כאן חדשות" @Shira_HN
<https://twitter.com/Shira_HN?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>. איך זה קרה? צפו
pic.twitter.com/DEQEzxzEDY <https://t.co/DEQEzxzEDY>
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) January 29, 2018
<https://twitter.com/kann_news/status/958047610354503682?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>
Eritreans who read the notices, which were printed in their native
tongue Tigrinya, were led to believe that they were being promised
refuge in the homes of Israeli citizens.
But when the Eritreans dialed up the phone numbers on the posters, their
calls were answered by Israelis who had no knowledge of what they were
attempting to communicate.
It appears that the whole thing was a prank orchestrated by racists, who
wished to make fun of people in distress.
5. May Golan, campaigner
May Golan, a political activist in Tel Aviv, once declared
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/may-you-be-raped-your-grave-says-new-darling-israels-ruling-likud-party>
she was “proud to be a racist.”
In 2018, the newspaper /Haaretz/ exposed
<https://www.haaretz.co.il/blogs/eishton/.premium-1.6099143> how she had
fabricated data about the number of Africans entering Israel for
scaremongering purposes.
Golan – another follower of Meir Kahane – conceded
<https://www.facebook.com/Eishton.Blog/videos/1520100014762028/> as much
in a follow-up interview with the TV channel Reshet 13.
Time will tell if being outed as a liar causes any damage to Golan’s
political ambitions. She is hoping
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-press-review-attorney-general-threatened-over-netanyahu-corruption-probes-1669878507>
to be selected as a Likud candidate in April’s parliamentary elections.
4. Oren Hazan, lawmaker
In early 2018, Oren Hazan, a novice lawmaker, received
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/bad-boy-likud-mk-slapped-with-6-month-ban-on-knesset-activities/>
a six-month ban from taking part in Knesset debates. He was punished for
a series of insults directed at fellow politicians.
Hazan, who represents Likud, has proven adept at finding platforms other
than the Knesset chamber for airing his bigoted views. He is perhaps
best known for boarding
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/video-israeli-lawmaker-insults-palestinians-insects-and-dogs>
a bus transporting Palestinians to see relatives in prison during 2017,
telling one woman that her son was a “dog” and an “insect.”
Interviewed by an Australian activist in 2018, Hazan described Africans
who had come to Israel as “fake refugees,” alleging they “don’t even
have culture.”
“In the end of the day, those people that came from the black lands,
came from Africa, all the way to Israel, they did it only for one
reason. They came here to search for work, for jobs, they came here to
search for a future,” he said.
Complaining about how Africans were having babies, Hazan concluded the
interview with eliminationist language.
“If you will not deal with the problem right now, you will suffer in the
future,” he said. “If you will not kick them out right now, they will
kick you out in the future. If you will not wake up, you will wake up
not just in a dream – in a nightmare. You need to destroy the problem
when it’s still small.”
Hazan is a resident
<https://www.knesset.gov.il/mk/eng/mk_eng.asp?mk_individual_id_t=924> of
Ariel, an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank.
3. Moshe Edri, police chief
In late January 2018, just before he stepped down as Tel Aviv police
chief, Moshe Edri issued a frightening directive. Expecting that
Africans would be rounded up for expulsion, Edri told police officers
that they would soon be unleashing physical force
<https://www.10.tv/news/154220> against the refugees.
“The scenario that really worries me the most is large public
disturbances. We have absolutely no advantage over them, and therefore
the swath of police tools must be available to the station. In other
words, very quickly we will have to switch to shock grenades, water
cannons, exerting force,” said Edri, according to Israel’s Channel 10.
Edri suggested that the police were powerless against the Africans, and
that their only option left was to use lethal force. “They take stones,
rocks, rods, sticks, and beset you, and the only thing left for you to
do is to shoot live fire,” he said.
Fortunately, the plans were not implemented – as the mass deportations
were called off.
Later in 2018, Edri took up a top-level post
<https://www.gov.il/en/Departments/People/moshe_edri> in the public
security ministry, which oversees Israel’s prisons and police.
2. Aryeh Deri, interior minister
As interior minister, Aryeh Deri has overseen Israel’s war against
African refugees.
He played a central role during the early months of 2018 in trying to
push forward the mass deportation plans. Before those plans were
scrapped, he went on radio telling
<https://twitter.com/GLZRadio/status/955746656225562624> refugees that
they must go back to Africa, as the continent was their “natural place.”
Deri has dodged accountability. When activists challenged his
deportation drive in a religious court during 2018, he refused
<https://www.kikar.co.il/abroad/268449.html> to cooperate.
He even declined to recognize the court, despite how his party Shas only
regards <https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/education/1.1804484> religious
courts as legitimate.
Towards the end of 2018, Deri was charged
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/police-charge-minister-dery-with-fraud-breach-of-trust-and-tax-offenses-1.6673436>
with fraud and tax-related offenses.
The allegations may not spell the end of his career. He has previously
proven capable of making a political comeback after being imprisoned for
taking bribes.
1. Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister
In March, Benjamin Netanyahu praised
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-says-flood-of-african-migrants-worse-than-sinai-terrorists/>
the wall that Israel has built along its boundary with Egypt. Without
it, he claimed, Israel would face “severe attacks by Sinai terrorists,
and something much worse, a flood of illegal migrants from Africa.”
That same month, Israel put into effect part of a secret deal
<https://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-5224210,00.html> to provide at
least one African nation with military aid. Netanyahu wanted that
country – which has not been named – to accept refugees that Israel is
seeking to deport.
Eventually, Netanyahu was forced to admit failure; no less than five
African nations ultimately turned down
<https://www.kan.org.il/item/?itemId=30003> his demand that they take
refugees expelled from Israel.
For the time being, Netanyahu’s efforts to expedite the deportations
have been thwarted. But his draconian anti-refugee policies have already
had a pronounced effect.
Tens of thousands of Africans have been removed
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/african-refugees-get-no-reprieve-israels-racist-rage/23866>
from Israel since Netanyahu became prime minister.
The crisis of African refugees may have fallen from the headlines. That
does not mean it has gone away.
If Netanyahu heads Israel’s government after April’s election, it is a
tragically safe bet that he will continue pursuing his racist objectives.
/David Sheen is an independent writer and filmmaker. Website:
www.davidsheen.com <http://www.davidsheen.com/>. Twitter: @davidsheen
<https://twitter.com/davidsheen>./
--
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