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Israelis chant \u201cSudanese Back To Sudan\u201d during a right-wing demonstration against African refugees in south Tel Aviv, 30 May 2012.<\/span><\/p>\n (Oren Ziv<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0\/\u00a0ActiveStills<\/span><\/a><\/span>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n David Sheen<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Does Israel refuse to grant equal rights to Palestinian citizens of the state because it is based on an ideology of racism towards people who are not Jewish? Or does Israel refuse to grant equal rights to Palestinian citizens because, since some of them are opposed to the Jewish sectarian nature of the state, it prioritizes state security over racial equality?<\/span><\/p>\n While this debate has raged for decades, new evidence has come to light which would seem to suggest that the former is more true. Because if Jewish Israelis are only antagonistic to Palestinian citizens because they supposedly represent security risks, then why do they also despise sub-Saharan Africans, with whom they have never had any conflict?<\/span><\/p>\n Approximately<\/span>\u00a060,000 people from sub-Saharan African countries have migrated to Israel<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0in recent years, fleeing persecution and requesting<\/span>\u00a0asylum<\/span><\/a><\/span>. Instead of providing them with aid or permitting them to support themselves, the Israeli government refuses to grant them any rights, forces them into abject poverty, and seeks to deport the lot of them.<\/span><\/p>\n Although Israel is a regional superpower, it has the second-highest poverty rate among developed countries. After last year\u2019s<\/span>\u00a0Arab uprisings<\/span><\/a><\/span>, hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets, demanding a higher standard of living. In response, public officials scapegoated the Africans for Israel\u2019s economic problems and launched a racist campaign to expel them.<\/span><\/p>\n If there is to be justice, these leaders must be brought to trial to answer for their crimes. Maybe Israelis will come to their senses, cancel all the laws that discriminate against African asylum-seekers and call for a truth and reconciliation commission. Sadly, that is unlikely to happen in the near future, because the hatred of African asylum-seekers has become so widespread in Israel.<\/span><\/p>\n Perhaps the people of<\/span>\u00a0Eritrea<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0and<\/span>\u00a0Sudan<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0will eventually overthrow their repressive regimes, install democratic governments and charge these Israeli officials in an international court of law.<\/span><\/p>\n Until that day comes \u2014 if it ever does \u2014 it is important to document evidence of the wrongdoing. In fact, this is an easy task. Since these officials are not ashamed of their<\/span>\u00a0racism<\/span><\/a><\/span>, it is all a matter of public record. Of those most responsible, these are the top twelve, Israel\u2019s dirty dozen, its axis of racism:<\/span><\/p>\n In July 2007, there was only a smattering of African asylum-seekers in the country. At that time, a group of approximately 20 genocide survivors from Darfur in western Sudan were legally living and working in an orchard belonging to a\u00a0moshav<\/em>, a small agricultural settlement, near the city limits of Hadera.<\/span><\/p>\n A proposal to Hadera city council to open the city\u2019s absorption center to these migrants was defeated by the mayor Chaim Avitan. Avitan then forged an eviction order and sent a security team in the middle of the night to rough up the Darfuris, destroy their documents, shove them onto buses and kick them out of town (\u201c<\/span>Complaint filed against Hadera mayor for expelling refugees<\/span><\/a><\/span>,\u201d Ynet, 7 August 2007).<\/span><\/p>\n Avitan announced that the city was not \u201cthe country\u2019s garbage can,\u201d called upon the government not to grant refugee status to anyone who is not Jewish and stressed that \u201cHadera will not permit a single Sudanese to enter.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Hadera is twinned with Big Spring, Texas (5 percent African American), Saint Paul, Minnesota (14 percent African American) and Charlotte, North Carolina (35 percent African American).<\/span><\/p>\n In July 2010, dozens of rabbis in<\/span>\u00a0Tel Aviv<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0issued a religious edict forbidding Jews from renting apartments to African asylum-seekers. The language of the letter included warnings against inter-racial marriages and references to Biblical passages calling for ethnic cleansing of all non-Jewish people from the \u201cland of Israel.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n This initiative was such a hit that before the year was out, hundreds of leading rabbis from throughout Israel (who also draw their salaries from the public coffers) issued a similar edict applying to the entire country.<\/span><\/p>\n The brainchild behind the edict, the man who went from rabbi to rabbi collecting signatures, calling the African presence in Israel an \u201cabomination,\u201d was the Tel Aviv city councilor representing the\u00a0<\/span>Shas<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0party, Benjamin Babayof (\u201c<\/span>South Tel Aviv realtors: we won\u2019t rent to \u2018infiltrators,<\/span>\u2019<\/a>\u201d\u00a0The Jerusalem Post<\/em>, 4 August 2010).<\/span><\/p>\n That same year, travel guide publishers Lonely Planet called Tel Aviv the third best city in the world.<\/span><\/p>\n Babayof continued his anti-African crusade in February 2012, calling upon the transportation ministry to run segregated bus lines for Africans, or at the very least to prevent them from riding the regular bus lines during rush hour, because \u201cthey smell bad.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n South Tel Aviv residents carrying signs reading \u201cReturn them now\u201d during a protest calling on the government to deport African asylum-seekers back to their home countries.<\/span><\/p>\n (Oren Ziv<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0\/\u00a0ActiveStills<\/span><\/a><\/span>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Weeks after the original rabbis\u2019 edict was issued, the holy war against African asylum-seekers expanded from Tel Aviv to its environs.<\/span><\/p>\n In August 2010, Rabbi Yaakov Asher, the mayor of Tel Aviv satellite city Bnei Brak, met with the minister of public security and the police regional commander to discuss the expulsion of the African population.<\/span><\/p>\n When they explained to Asher that there was no legal basis for physically preventing African asylum-seekers from moving to Bnei Brak, Asher\u2019s spokesperson announced that the municipality would use building code infractions by their landlords as an excuse to run the Africans out of town.<\/span><\/p>\n When winter came, the municipality followed through on its promise, informing asylum-seekers that they would have to vacate their apartments immediately. When an African man took his legal rental contract down to the city hall and asked to know on what basis he was being evicted, he was told that it was because he was not Jewish.<\/span><\/p>\n Many African asylum-seekers did not even receive the courtesy of an eviction notice before their water and electricity were summarily cut off. Without any way to stay warm, the asylum-seekers were frozen out of their flats and sent into the streets in the middle of the winter (\u201c<\/span>Eritreans say Bnei Brak waging campaign to run them out<\/span><\/a><\/span>,\u201d\u00a0The Jerusalem Post<\/em>, 1 December 2010).<\/span><\/p>\n While he still serves as Bnei Brak mayor, Asher also holds the number seven spot on the United Torah Judaism party list for upcoming elections to Israel\u2019s parliament, the<\/span>\u00a0Knesset<\/span><\/a><\/span>. The party has five seats in the current Knesset.<\/span><\/p>\n In 2007, African asylum-seekers began to move to<\/span>\u00a0Eilat<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0at the invitation of the local hospitality industry. They found work washing dishes and performing other menial tasks for low wages.<\/span><\/p>\n Since hoteliers expressed satisfaction with this new arrangement, and since tourism is the only significant industry in Eilat, many more African asylum-seekers have since moved to town. They now number about 10,000 residents, approximately 12 percent of the population of Eilat.<\/span><\/p>\n In January 2011, Meir Yitzhak Halevi, the mayor of Eilat, said that African asylum-seekers were coming to conquer Eilat and announced that the city was at war with them. The municipality paid for anti-African posters to be plastered across the city and for red flags to be hung throughout the town (\u201c<\/span>Eilat demands gov\u2019t action against migrant workers<\/span><\/a><\/span>,\u201d\u00a0The Jerusalem Post<\/em>,\u201d 13 January 2011). In April 2012, Halevi said that all the Africans will be gone within two years\u2019 time.<\/span><\/p>\n For years, Halevi refused to allow the children of African asylum-seekers to attend local schools, so they languished in a makeshift activity center run by sympathetic volunteers. It was only after the Israeli high court intervened and declared Eilat\u2019s segregation policy illegal that children of asylum-seekers were permitted to enroll in September 2012.<\/span><\/p>\n Eilat is twinned with<\/span>\u00a0Los Angeles<\/span><\/a><\/span>, California (10 percent African American).<\/span><\/p>\n An immensely popular preacher, Amnon Yitzhak travels all across Israel turning secular and traditional Jews on to fundamentalist Judaism. Eilat is considered to be a secular stronghold, but Yitzhak crossed its cultural divide by infusing his religious message with rabid anti-African racism.<\/span><\/p>\n In February 2012 he told an Eilat audience that the dark skin of Sudanese people is a punishment from Yahweh, the god of\u00a0<\/span>Judaism<\/span><\/a><\/span>. He further compared them to monkeys, saying that if a Jewish woman goes out with a Sudanese man, she will end up in Africa, \u201cclimbing trees and eating bananas\u201d (<\/span>\u201c\u2018Cancer in our body\u2019: On racial incitement, discrimination and hate crimes against African asylum-seekers in Israel<\/span><\/a>,\u201d Hotline for Migrant Workers, January-June 2012 [PDF]).<\/span><\/p>\n Over the past few weeks, Yitzhak founded a new political party, Power To Influence, that is now running for the Knesset. It is too early to estimate how many seats he might garner, but whether from within the Knesset or without, he wields tremendous clout.<\/span><\/p>\n Instead of using a neutral lexicon to describe African asylum-seekers, most of the Israeli media have uncritically adopted the pejorative language that government officials who are hostile to their presence use to describe them.<\/span><\/p>\n But the mainstream journalist who has spread the most lies about African asylum-seekers in order to stoke fears and incite hatred of them is the opinion page editor of the popular daily paper\u00a0Maariv<\/em>, Ben-Dror Yemini.<\/span><\/p>\n Some Western countries grant refugee status to between 80 percent and 90 percent of East African asylum-seekers. But in December 2011, just before the right-wing-dominated Knesset voted to criminalize asylum-seekers, Yemini provided them with the ideological ammunition to do so by printing the vicious lie that none of them are refugees, only work migrants.<\/span><\/p>\n An official Knesset report from May 2012 stated that the proportion of asylum-seekers out of the entire population of Israel is low compared to Western countries. But only days later Yemini published a column saying that Israel would soon have the largest proportion of asylum-seekers of any country in the world.<\/span><\/p>\n Tzipi Livni<\/span><\/a><\/span>, Israel\u2019s former foreign minister, recently offered Yemini a prominent spot on her Movement Party list for the Knesset elections. Whether he accepts her offer or not, the mere fact that he was invited is a testament to his widespread influence.<\/span><\/p>\n Michael Ben-Ari rallies the crowd during a protest against African refugees and asylum seekers in Tel Aviv\u2019s Hatikva neighborhood, 23 May 2012.<\/span><\/p>\n (Oren Ziv<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0\/\u00a0ActiveStills<\/span><\/a><\/span>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Although he lives in an<\/span>\u00a0Israeli settlement in the West Bank<\/span><\/a><\/span>, Michael Ben-Ari opened up a parliamentary office in south Tel Aviv, where more than half the Africans in Israel live, in order to mobilize residents opposed to their presence.<\/span><\/p>\n While other politicians draw complaints for only visiting the area and surrounding themselves with bodyguards when they finally arrive, the charismatic<\/span>\u00a0Ben-Ari confidently leads the community in anti-African street marches<\/span><\/a><\/span>. He has also established an anti-African neighborhood watch posse there, earning the admiration of locals.<\/span><\/p>\n Ben-Ari has also called for Israeli soldiers to kill in cold blood any African person approaching the border to request political asylum. Ironically, when I interviewed him in the summer of 2010, he admitted that Israel was responsible for mass slaughter in Africa because it exported killing machines to Africa for profit.<\/span><\/p>\n Ben-Ari was refused admission to the United States in February 2012 because he was a member of Rabbi Meir Kahane\u2019s now-defunct Kach organization, considered to be a Jewish terrorist group by the<\/span>\u00a0State Department<\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n In the current Knesset, he belongs to National Union, the only party that was too right-wing for the governing coalition. For the upcoming elections, he started a new party called Strength For Israel that is expected to pass the minimum threshold for Knesset representation. Ben-Ari may be an outlier, but he is pulling the entire political spectrum to the right.<\/span><\/p>\n On 23 May 2012, a thousand Jewish Israelis ran rampant throughout Tel Aviv for hours, attacking any dark-skinned person \u2014 or property of dark-skinned people \u2014 they could find. They set off on their campaign of terror after being whipped into a frenzy by members of Knesset.<\/span><\/p>\n One of those parliamentarians whose comments were most incendiary was<\/span>\u00a0Miri Regev<\/span><\/a><\/span>, a lawmaker with the main government party,<\/span>\u00a0Likud<\/span><\/a><\/span>. She told the assembled crowd that African asylum-seekers were \u201ca cancer in the body\u201d of the nation.<\/span><\/p>\n After news of her racist comments and the pogrom that followed it was published the following day, she took to YouTube to make a public apology \u2014 but not to Africans for comparing them to cancer, but rather to Israeli cancer victims, for minimizing their suffering by comparing it to Africans (\u201c<\/span>Israeli MK: I didn\u2019t mean to shame Holocaust by calling African migrants a \u2018cancer<\/span><\/a><\/span>,\u201d\u00a0Haaretz<\/em>, 27 May 2012).<\/span><\/p>\n A professional survey conducted just days after the pogrom confirmed that 52 percent of Jewish Israelis identified with Regev\u2019s contention that Africans are akin to cancer, and 33 percent of Jewish Israelis identified with the vigilante violence perpetrated against them.<\/span><\/p>\n Although Likud\u2019s list for the forthcoming election must still be combined with that of its coalition partner\u00a0<\/span>Yisrael Beiteinu<\/span><\/a><\/span>, Regev has already surged into its upper ranks, moving from number 26 to number 13 on the strength of these and other racist statements.<\/span><\/p>\n A section of the new detention camp for asylum seekers under construction in the Naqab\/Negev Desert near the Egyptian border, 7 November 2012.<\/span><\/p>\n (12. Chaim Avitan<\/span><\/h2>\n
11. Benjamin Babayof<\/span><\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\n\n10. Yaakov Asher<\/span><\/h2>\n
9. Meir Yitzhak Halevy<\/span><\/h2>\n
8. Amnon Yitzhak<\/span><\/h2>\n
7. Ben-Dror Yemini<\/span><\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\n\n6. Michael Ben-Ari<\/span><\/h2>\n
5. Miri Regev<\/span><\/h2>\n
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