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dir="ltr"> <font size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/african-refugees-get-no-reprieve-israels-racist-rage/23866">https://electronicintifada.net/content/african-refugees-get-no-reprieve-israels-racist-rage/23866</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">African refugees get no reprieve from
Israel's racist rage</h1>
<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/david-sheen">David
Sheen</a></span> <span class="field field-publisher">-</span>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single"
content="2018-04-10T01:16:00+00:00">10 April 2018</span></span>
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<figure id="file-59301"><source media="(min-width:
72rem)"><figcaption><small><span></span></small></figcaption></figure>
<p>The fortunes of the African refugee community
targeted by the Israeli government for deportation
have swung wildly in recent days.</p>
<p>Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu first announced a
United Nations-backed deal to resettle some of them in
the West, but then quickly retracted the plan after
right-wing Israelis complained that the deal was too
generous to asylum seekers.</p>
<p>“I listened closely to many comments about the
agreement. As a result, after reevaluating the
advantages and disadvantages, I decided to cancel the
deal,” <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/Netanyahu/posts/10155500606907076">Netanyahu
wrote</a> on his Facebook page.</p>
<p>“Despite the growing legal and international
limitations, we will continue to act with
determination to exhaust all possibilities at our
disposal to remove the infiltrators,” he added.</p>
<p>In November, it was reported that the Netanyahu
government secured agreements with unnamed African
nations for the latter to take in many of the
approximately 40,000 refugees remaining in Israel,
ostensibly in exchange for a fee of <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-to-pay-rwanda-5-000-for-every-asylum-seeker-deported-there-1.5466805">$5,000
per head</a>.</p>
<p>But Netanyahu’s plans for expedited deportation were
quashed after protests by refugee rights activists in
Israel and abroad shamed those countries, now known to
be <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/uganda-no-deal-with-israel-for-them-to-dump-their-refugees-here-1.5976136">Rwanda
and Uganda</a>, into <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-pm-accuses-new-israel-fund-of-foiling-asylum-seeker-deal-with-rwanda-1.5975316">disclaiming</a>
the scheme.</p>
<p>Unable to deliver on his promise to quickly expel all
the Africans, Netanyahu grudgingly <a
href="https://972mag.com/israel-halts-refugee-deportation-plan-un-to-help-with-resettlement/134299/">agreed
to a plan</a> brokered by the UN refugee agency
UNHCR which, if carried out, would have seen thousands
of the refugees resettled in Western nations in the
coming years.</p>
<p>But Germany and Italy, two of the countries cited by
Netanyahu as committed to take in asylum seekers from
Israel, <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-german-officials-we-weren-t-asked-to-receive-refugees-from-israel-1.5973974">quickly
denied</a> having ever agreed to accept refugees
under the scheme.</p>
<h2>Opposition to expulsion</h2>
<p>Abandoned on all sides within hours of announcing the
agreement, Netanyahu walked back the deal, <a
href="https://twitter.com/MaarivOnline/status/980856587463090176">first
in part</a>, then in whole, <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/netanyahu-suspends-new-asylum-seeker-deal-with-un-1.5974186">suspending
it</a>, and then <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/netanyahu-nixes-deal-with-un-on-african-asylum-seekers-following-right-wing-pushback-1.5974570">canceling
it altogether</a>.</p>
<p>Although the deal would have provided political cover
for Netanyahu’s planned expulsion of the refugees, his
political camp vigorously opposed it because it also
committed Israel to allowing around 20,000 Africans –
mainly women and children – to remain in Israel <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/quick-fix-to-asylum-seeker-crisis-can-t-mask-israel-s-racism-problem-1.5974101">for
another five years</a> and to help them move to
parts of the country other than South Tel Aviv, where
most of the community is concentrated.</p>
<p>Although a <a
href="https://en.idi.org.il/articles/20735">January
poll</a> showed that 66 percent of Israeli Jews
support Netanyahu’s efforts to expel the refugees to
Africa, a recent survey found that positions are
reversed in those very areas where residents were more
likely to actually encounter any of them.</p>
<p>A <a
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLMGqJkIT6k">March
poll</a> revealed that in the greater Tel Aviv area,
opposition to the expulsion reached 68 percent, and in
the long-neglected neighborhoods of South Tel Aviv
with the largest African populations, it hit 71
percent.</p>
<p>On <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/over-10-000-israelis-protests-deportation-of-african-asylum-seekers-1.5846472">24
February</a> and again on <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/25-000-protest-in-tel-aviv-against-deportation-of-asylum-seekers-1.5938048">24
March</a>, some 20,000 people gathered in Tel Aviv
to demonstrate in solidarity with the refugee
community and demand that the Israeli government
cancel plans to deport them, and instead work to
improve the lives of all residents of the city’s
delapidated southern district.</p>
<p>Protesters have criticized the Israeli government for
having one of the lowest refugee acceptance rates in
the world – <a
href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/03/israel-deportation-of-african-asylum-seekers-is-a-cruel-and-misguided-abandonment-of-responsibility/">less
than 0.5 percent</a>.</p>
<p>But Netanyahu has claimed that the non-Jewish
refugees – about half Christian and half Muslim – pose
a threat to Israel’s “<a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/20/israel-netanyahu-african-immigrants-jewish">national
identity</a>.”</p>
<p>In that sense Israel regards them similarly to how it
has viewed indigenous Palestinians since its founding,
when it expelled 750,000 Palestinians from their homes
and barred them from returning because they are not
Jews.</p>
<p>And local racists have long labored to shore up
support for Netanyahu’s anti-African policies, and to
demand that even crueler measures be taken against
them.</p>
<h2>“Mortal threat”</h2>
<p>Shlomo Maslawi, representing Netanyahu’s ruling Likud
Party on the Tel Aviv city council, <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-this-is-zionism-as-racism-this-is-israel-at-70-1.5975641">told
Israeli TV</a> that he would oppose Netanyahu’s now
retracted plan, even though it included promises to
invest in the overburdened neighborhoods of South Tel
Aviv, until “the Eritreans are gone, down to the last
Eritrean – only then will there be rehabilitation.”</p>
<p>In recent weeks, as refugee rights advocates across
the country and around the world stepped up their
protests, forcing the African governments conspiring
with Israel to deny their involvement, Netanyahu
lashed out at the refugees, smearing them as a mortal
threat.</p>
<p>If he had not built a high-tech fence on Israel’s
southern border five years ago, Netanyahu <a
href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-says-flood-of-african-migrants-worse-than-sinai-terrorists/">told
an audience</a> in March, the number of Africans in
the country would be significantly higher, a condition
he deemed “much worse” than “severe attacks by Sinai
terrorists.”</p>
<p>Coming under <a
href="https://forward.com/opinion/396765/israel-is-racist-its-deportations-of-africans-should-surprise-no-one/">rare
criticism</a> from some of Israel’s staunchest
American defenders, other government officials also
doubled down to defend the mass deportations to
African states.</p>
<p>Interior minister <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/aryeh-deri">Aryeh
Deri</a> <a
href="https://twitter.com/GLZRadio/status/955746656225562624">told
Israeli army radio</a> that to take these asylum
seekers, mainly from Eritrea and Sudan, and expel them
to Rwanda and Uganda, would merely mean returning them
“to their natural place.”</p>
<p>Avraham Neguise, currently Israel’s only Black
legislator, a Jew of Ethiopian origin, also spoke out
in support of the deportation to Rwanda and Uganda, <a
href="https://pic.twitter.com/3i5DR91qG2">telling
Israel’s i24 TV</a>, “Well, they came from Africa,
and they’re going back to Africa.”</p>
<p>Yitzhak Yosef, one of Israel’s two national chief
rabbis, also heaped scorn on the Africans in a sermon
last month, in which he <a
href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/chief-rabbi-compares-african-americans-to-monkeys/">called</a>
Black people “monkeys” and the Hebrew equivalent of
the N-word.</p>
<p>His fellow chief rabbi, <a
href="http://mondoweiss.net/2013/07/when-racism-isnt-a-cause-for-shame/">Yisrael
Lau</a>, had already used that Hebrew version of the
N-world to describe Black people, on his very first
day in office.</p>
<h2>Vigilante violence</h2>
<p>These and many other incidents of anti-African
incitement have ramped up racism against the refugees.
The rage against asylum seekers has grown into a
political force capable even of pressuring Netanyahu
to cancel Israel’s international agreements.</p>
<p>But the most frightening effects of increased
anti-Black sentiment are reserved for the refugees
themselves.</p>
<p>Vigilante violence against African refugees has
become increasingly common in recent years.</p>
<p>In 2012, an Israeli <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/suspect-arrested-in-south-tel-aviv-arson-attacks-1.5217877">firebombed
a daycare</a> for the young children of African
refugees, and in 2014, an Israeli man was indicted for
stabbing an Eritrean baby in the head.</p>
<p>According to prosecutors, the man <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/.premium-charge-man-tried-to-kill-black-baby-1.5312347">later
stated</a>: “I attacked Black terrorists, there was
a Black baby, they said that a Black baby, Blacks in
general, are terrorists.”</p>
<p>The firebomber received <a
href="https://972mag.com/suspect-in-arson-of-asylum-seeker-homes-reaches-plea-deal-with-no-jail-time/62561/">only
community service</a>, while the stabber was <a
href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/man-indicted-for-attempt-to-murder-eritrean-toddler/">sent
for psychiatric treatment</a>.</p>
<p>Since that time, in separate incidents, two refugees
– <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/haftom-zarhum">Haftom
Zarhum</a> from Eritrea and <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/babikir-adham-uvdo">Babikir
Ali Adham-Uvdo</a> from Sudan – were beaten to death
in public places by Israeli mobs.</p>
<p>The charges against Adham-Uvdo’s killers were <a
href="https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/comment/2018/3/2/a-reminder-of-how-little-blacklivesmatter-in-israel">reduced
from murder</a>.</p>
<p>One of the killers is a minor whose sentence for
“intentional injury” to Adham-Uvdo is yet to be
determined. The adult assailant received a maximum
jail sentence of <a
href="https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5126007,00.html">10
years for manslaughter in a plea bargain</a>,
although he will probably be released in just a few
years.</p>
<p>An Israeli court is currently offering Zarhum’s
killers <a
href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/black-lives-matter-israel-180329061234932.html">community
service</a>.</p>
<h2>Coerced to self-deport</h2>
<p>This anti-African incitement, coupled with the news
that African refugees, <a
href="http://www.unhcr.org/news/briefing/2018/1/5a548e064/unhcr-appeals-israel-forced-relocations-policy.html">including
some recently expelled from Israel</a>, have
experienced torture, extortion and detention in Libya,
where <a
href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-42038451">open-air
slave markets</a> have been documented, is taking a
toll not only <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/refugees4sale/videos/1566556886727283/">on
adults</a>, but on Israeli youth, as well.</p>
<p>In February, one <a
href="https://twitter.com/No2Deportation/status/961847599987810305">refugee
confessed</a> that a group of Israeli schoolchildren
had approached him on a public bus and asked him, “How
much can we sell you for?”</p>
<p>With the Rwanda-Uganda deal shelved in shame, and the
UN deal for resettlement in the West now derailed by
Netanyahu himself, the fate of the 40,000 African
refugees left in Israel is once again unclear.</p>
<p>In lieu of the UN deal, Netanyahu is now reportedly <a
href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/pm-seeks-to-reopen-holot-plans-new-deportation-bill-bypassing-high-court/">pressuring
coalition partners </a> to reopen the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/holot-internment-camp">Holot
internment camp</a> that it <a
href="https://972mag.com/israel-closes-holot-the-desert-detention-facility-for-african-asylum-seekers/133831/">closed
down only last month</a> in anticipation of the
planned expulsions.</p>
<p>Starting in <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/african-refugees-defy-desert-cold-israeli-internment-march-freedom/13038">December
2013</a>, Israel rounded up thousands of African men
into this detention center, in order to pressure them
to self-deport.</p>
<p>By Netanyahu’s count, the government was able to
coerce <a
href="https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/politics/1.4426118">more
than 20,000</a> to leave Israel in this way – a
third of the African refugee community.</p>
<p>When the Israeli high court forbade the government
from keeping those men incarcerated there for more
than a year, the latter <a
href="http://mondoweiss.net/2015/09/declares-southern-africans/">banned
the refugees</a> who it was compelled to release
from moving back to Tel Aviv or Eilat, the two Israeli
cities with the <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/.premium-freed-migrants-barred-from-tel-aviv-eilat-1.5390429">largest
asylum-seeker communities at the time</a>.</p>
<p>As Israel released Holot’s remaining inmates in
March, it informed them that the list of cities they
were now forbidden from living or working in had
mushroomed <a
href="https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/education/1.5870421">from
two to seven</a>, adding to the list Petah Tikva,
Bnei Brak, Ashdod, Netanya and Jerusalem.</p>
<p>Now Netanyahu’s coalition partners say they may now
pass an <a
href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/pm-seeks-to-reopen-holot-plans-new-deportation-bill-bypassing-high-court/">even
harsher version</a> of the so-called
Anti-Infiltration Law which they have used to
criminalize refugees.</p>
<p>The new bill would build in measures to insulate it
from being overturned by the high court.</p>
<p>If they follow through on their threat to neuter the
court’s powers, there would no longer be any legal
impediment to jailing the African refugees
indefinitely in Holot until they agree to self-deport
to whatever destination Israel coerces them to go to.</p>
<p><em>David Sheen is an independent writer and
filmmaker. Born in Toronto, Canada, Sheen now lives
in Dimona. His website is <a
href="http://www.davidsheen.com">www.davidsheen.com</a>
and he can be followed on Twitter: <a
href="https://twitter.com/davidsheen">@davidsheen</a>.</em></p>
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