Anti-African violence in Jerusalem

This video from Israel says about itself:

After the Israeli government announces plans to deport all people originally from South Sudan, the community holds a protest in Tel Aviv, pleading that they be allowed to stay until the situation improves there.

Israel Opens Doors to Push South Sudanese Out: here.

By Tom Mellen:

African migrants’ flats firebombed

Tuesday 05 June 2012

Suspected right-wing extremists set fire to a block of flats housing African migrant workers in Jerusalem yesterday, a day after PM Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the “swift deportation” of 25,000 undocumented migrants.

No-one was killed in the arson attack on the building on Jaffa road, but four of the 10 Eritrean people who lived there suffered burns and smoke inhalation. The attackers daubed “Get out of the neighbourhood” on a wall.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement condemning the attack. “There is no justification for such a heinous crime that endangers people’s lives,” it said.

Migrants in Tel Aviv have been targeted by a series of fire bomb attacks in recent weeks but yesterday’s assault was the first in Jerusalem.

The right has sought to shift mounting public anger over deteriorating welfare services and the rising cost of living in Israel onto the estimated 60,000 African people who are believed to have illegally entered Israel over the last few years.

Addressing a large far-right rally in Tel Aviv a fortnight ago, Likud MP Miri Regev said: “The Sudanese are a cancer in our body.

“We will do everything to send them back where they came from.”

The crowd responded by chanting: “The people want to expel the Sudanese.” They then went on a rampage in which African-owned shops were vandalised and looted and Sudanese bystanders beaten up.

Mr Netanyahu criticised the violence. But on Sunday he sought to appease the mob by ordering the “swift deportation” of 25,000 so-called illegal immigrants.

Addressing his cabinet, Mr Netanyahu conceded that Israel cannot deport Eritrean and Sudanese people who have escaped persecution in their home countries because Israel is a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention.

He said his government will accelerate construction of a detention camp to house 10,000 undocumented migrants in the Negev desert.

Sunday also saw a law go into effect that empowers Israeli authorities to jail undocumented migrants for up to three years.

Just two of the 1,500 requests for asylum registered with the Israeli government between 2009 and 2011 were accepted.

Ethiopian Israelis slam attacks against migrants: here.

SOUTH SUDAN: Maternal morality: The biggest threat to a woman’s life: here.

UN: The refugee agency warned today that health problems tied to poor weather and lack of sanitation are acute among 170,000 refugees living in camps in South Sudan: here.

Planned Israeli Detention Camps for Africans Draw Human Rights Protests: here.

Saturday, June 9 2012|Yuval Ben-Ami. Why was the police violent with me at Tel Aviv gay pride? Here.