Brandbomber kastet ind i lejligheder med afrikanske beboere i Tel Aviv og premierminister Benjamin Netanyahu har kaldt indvandrerne fra det store kontinent for “infiltratører” – og den onde stemning er ikke af ny dato.
TEL AVIV, 17 May 2012 (IRIN) – Blessing Akachukneu was already looking for a new place to live when her south Tel Aviv apartment, which doubles as a day-care centre, was firebombed in April.
Her Israeli neighbours, she explained, had complained to the landlord about the noise from the day-care centre and she had been asked to leave. Otherwise, she had not had any problems in Shapira neighbourhood.
So Akachukneu was shocked when Molotov cocktails were thrown at her flat. Four other apartments – all home to African asylum-seekers – were targeted in the attack.
Haim Mula, a 20-year-old Israeli man Shapira residents call “quiet” and “religious”, was arrested in connection with the incident.
Police believe the attacks were racially motivated; Mula had been detained recently for throwing eggs at a Sudanese refugee.
A week later, two Molotov cocktails were thrown at the south Tel Aviv apartment of Nigerian workers.
But this was not the first time the African community was singled out for violence. In January 2011, a burning tyre was thrown into the Ashdod apartment of five Sudanese refugees. Two of the men were hospitalized.
On the same night, three teenagers – Israeli-born daughters of African migrants – were beaten up by a group of Jewish youth. One of the attackers was armed with a knife; another allegedly shouted racial slurs at the girls.
“I am afraid that something like this will happen again,” Akachukneu told IRIN.
45.000 African asylum-seekers
The incidents point to escalating tensions between Jewish Israelis and the country’s roughly 45.000 African asylum-seekers. Human rights groups say 85 percent of these men, women, and children are refugees from Eritrea and Sudan.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called African asylum-seekers “infiltrators” who are a “concrete threat to the Jewish and democratic character of the country”.
Speaking to IRIN, Ministry of Interior spokeswoman Sabine Hadad said most of the country’s “infiltrators” are work migrants who do not meet the definition of a refugee.
The country’s laws define an “infiltrator” as anyone who enters Israel other than through an official border crossing.
But according to Amnesty International, the term “infiltrators” is inappropriate because it carries connotations of threats and criminality, and fuels xenophobia (fremmedhad) and discrimination against asylum-seekers and migrants.
Human rights groups point out that the government does not process requests for asylum. But in what seems to be a nod to the dangerous circumstances they face in their home countries, Israel is not currently deporting Eritrean or Sudanese citizens.
While they are allowed to stay, Israel does not give these asylum-seekers work visas. Most take odd jobs. In historically poor south Tel Aviv, they can find relatively cheap housing.
They tend to live in cramped conditions, sometimes as many as eight to a room. Those that cannot find enough work to pay rent, end up sleeping in parks.
Locals say crime has risen as the African community has grown. They also say the increased demand for housing has driven prices up in the area. Some accuse the asylum-seekers of stealing much-needed jobs.
Protests against “infiltrators”
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