Tel Aviv race riot flags bitter immigration dispute
Posted: 25 May 2012 0341 hrs
TEL AVIV: Violent race riots that shook south Tel Aviv overnight sparked shock in Israel on Thursday, but also prompted top-level calls for the immediate arrest and expulsion of tens of thousands of African migrants.
The latest unrest to sweep the impoverished neighbourhoods around Tel Aviv's central bus station erupted when a demonstration of around 1,000 people who were protesting against the rising number of Africans moving into the area, turned violent.
"Shock, violence and hatred of foreigners in Tel Aviv" was the headline in the Maariv daily, which described scenes of chaos as demonstrators went on the rampage with sticks and stones, attacking African-run shops and smashing up a car driven by two African men.
"Blacks out!" shouted demonstrators in the crowd, while others yelled: "Send the Sudanese back to Sudan," several news reports said, as other protesters derided the "bleeding-heart leftists" working to help them.
Most reports said the rally turned nasty after the crowd was whipped up by several racist speeches by right-wing MPs, several of them from the ruling Likud party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"The infiltrators are a cancer in our body," Likud MP Miri Regev told the crowd, as fellow MP Danny Danon shouted: "The infiltrators must be expelled from Israel! Expulsion now!"
Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who has frequently tried to expel non-Jewish immigrants sparking accusations of racism, demanded that all Africans living illegally in Israel be put "behind bars."
"We must put all these infiltrators behind bars in detention and holding centres, then send them home because they come and take work from Israelis," he told army radio.
Unless the government took urgent action, there would "soon be half a million to a million, and we cannot lose our country to this," he said.
Residents of south Tel Aviv accuse the immigrants of bringing a wave of theft and violent sex crimes to the area, and have expressed fury over what they see as government inaction.
In a move sure to further raise tensions, a Tel Aviv court on Thursday indicted two African migrants from Sudan and Eritrea on suspicion of raping a woman near the central bus station last week.
And last week, an Israeli was charged with arson after hurling Molotov cocktails at the homes of African migrants in a move reportedly connected to the arrest of three Eritreans in connection with another rape involving a 15-year-old Israeli girl.
-AFP/ac
Posted: 25 May 2012 0341 hrs
TEL AVIV: Violent race riots that shook south Tel Aviv overnight sparked shock in Israel on Thursday, but also prompted top-level calls for the immediate arrest and expulsion of tens of thousands of African migrants.
The latest unrest to sweep the impoverished neighbourhoods around Tel Aviv's central bus station erupted when a demonstration of around 1,000 people who were protesting against the rising number of Africans moving into the area, turned violent.
"Shock, violence and hatred of foreigners in Tel Aviv" was the headline in the Maariv daily, which described scenes of chaos as demonstrators went on the rampage with sticks and stones, attacking African-run shops and smashing up a car driven by two African men.
"Blacks out!" shouted demonstrators in the crowd, while others yelled: "Send the Sudanese back to Sudan," several news reports said, as other protesters derided the "bleeding-heart leftists" working to help them.
Most reports said the rally turned nasty after the crowd was whipped up by several racist speeches by right-wing MPs, several of them from the ruling Likud party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"The infiltrators are a cancer in our body," Likud MP Miri Regev told the crowd, as fellow MP Danny Danon shouted: "The infiltrators must be expelled from Israel! Expulsion now!"
Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who has frequently tried to expel non-Jewish immigrants sparking accusations of racism, demanded that all Africans living illegally in Israel be put "behind bars."
"We must put all these infiltrators behind bars in detention and holding centres, then send them home because they come and take work from Israelis," he told army radio.
Unless the government took urgent action, there would "soon be half a million to a million, and we cannot lose our country to this," he said.
Residents of south Tel Aviv accuse the immigrants of bringing a wave of theft and violent sex crimes to the area, and have expressed fury over what they see as government inaction.
In a move sure to further raise tensions, a Tel Aviv court on Thursday indicted two African migrants from Sudan and Eritrea on suspicion of raping a woman near the central bus station last week.
And last week, an Israeli was charged with arson after hurling Molotov cocktails at the homes of African migrants in a move reportedly connected to the arrest of three Eritreans in connection with another rape involving a 15-year-old Israeli girl.
-AFP/ac
