120 thoughts on “Tel Aviv 2012–Berlin 1938 – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
task-attention.png
Comments are published at the sole discretion of the owner.
 

  1. There is no justification what so ever for violence. But you didn’t bring the full story.
    Lately (in the last 60 days) there had been many (5) rape incidents involving African immigrants (http://news.walla.co.il/?w=%2F10%2F2529944)
    In the channel 10 morning show it was reported that the police information shows an increase of more then 200% in crime including sexual among the illegal immigrants (they illegally cross the border with Egypt) neighborhoods (hatikva, shapira and other hoods in south tel-aviv) , during the last 2 years.

    1. “No justification for violence?” Oh but there is & you’ve provided that justification. A feeble sort of justification it is. But you’re an aider & abettor or hate & violence. Good on ya!

      1. Your interpretation of my views, is very simplistic.
        I don’t think that the violence demonstrated by the residents of southern tel-aviv yesterday is justified, but you need to understand that these neighborhoods are poor places, and because of lack of government policy, the residents of those places are the one’s who left with no means and no assistance to handle this Hugh problem. Crime is on the rise, people for justified reasons are afraid to walk down the streets, and under such circumstances, tension is brewing.
        Those residents of the southern tel-aviv neighborhoods do not need your criticism, they need your help.
        Blaming them for the situation is not right and not just, they are at the receiving end of the stick.
        There is a lot of hypocrisy demonstrated groups of human right / progressive activists.
        They shine their conscious with projects like Levinski soup, but it’s one thing to come every night to deliver food to the poor refugees in the park, and when you are done with your shift you go back to your neighborhood in the northern parts of tel-aviv, and it’s a different situation to actually live in those neighborhoods.
        MK. Ben-Ari is a vile racist but he his great at organizing provocations, one morning he brought a group of refugees to Gordon swimming pool (he paid them 50 NIS each, and brought them new swim suit’s) and the people of the north tel-aviv were very reluctant to let those refugee, whom they feed almost nightly, from getting into the pool.
        http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART2/249/665.html

        Blaming the residents who are left to deal with this issue, is just not right.

        1. You claim that violent, racist Israelis who smash shop windows & assault defenseless residents don’t deserve my criticism? That they deserve my understanding, my sympathy? What do you take me for? Don’t answer that.

          I don’t just blame the pogromists. I blame the Israeli government & leadership which provoked this little pogrom. It was shameful & there’s more than enough blame & shame to go around I’m afraid.

          BTW, while you express yr derision toward NGOs offering food to refugees, what do you do to help? And yr understanding of what NGOs are doing for refugees is woefully poor. They are offering legal assistance, education, shelter, etc. Not just food (which is no small matter). All of them are performing tikun olam & sacred mitzvot. And you? What are you doing besides carping & explaining away violence?

      1. Exactly. I wouldn’t say it’s orchestrated, because I believe the media are playing the role of useful fools for the politicians, but what they all end up doing together is tell the residents, “This is how your enemy looks like.”

    2. I seem to recall the Nazis accusing Jews of molesting “our” women

      And even if true it’s a direct result of the appalling conditions we confine them to.

      If we don’t improve their socio-economic status crime will be rampant like all slum areas and like all previous aliyot of Jews (remember the Romanians, Morrocans, Russians, Ethiopians, each in turn will a large crime rate and young dropout rate?)

      1. Shmuel,
        Those confined conditions are not the fault of the residents of Hatikva & Shapira. Who are left to hold the bag, while they barley hold their own bags.
        The refugee problem isn’t a new problem, while the UNHCR was checking the status of those immigrants they found – according to a speech given by Ulmert in 10/2007 only 498 people out of 5000 that applied for a refugee status were found to be refugees. During that time the UN concluded the validation process not the state Israel.
        http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/647/517.html

        Besides, the state of Israel doesn’t have the necessary means to deal with so many Illegal Immigrants even if they were refugees. Look at the number’s of refugees accepted by similar size countries in Europe, much smaller.

        It’s not the residents fault, this is the fault of the government, i do not justify their violence i understand the roots of it.

          1. You should also be aware that the process of deciding who is to receive refugee status by UNHCR is highly arbitrary and dependent upon UNHCR’s budget. Because of the high and ever-increasing number of refugees pouring out of Iraq, Syria, Yemen and other countries, UNHCR is not inclined to bestow refugee status with as much generosity as it used to do – and this is all part of the pressure being placed on refugees to return to their home countries even if it means they will be killed there. UNHCR’s decision that only a few hundred of those Sudanese people are “refugees” means nothing at all.

        1. @ Liron
          “Look at the numbers of refugess accepted by similar size countries in Europe, much smaller”
          Do you have any idea what you’re talking about ? By the way refugees are not measured by the size of the receiving country but per 1000 inhabitants. Here’s few numbers for you.
          Syria 50,5
          Jordan 79,2
          Iran 13,2
          Lebanon 11,9
          Saudi Arabia 9,4
          Sweden 8,5
          Norway 7,5
          Germany 7,1
          Switzerland 6,1
          Netherlands 4,7
          UK 4,7
          Denmark 4,3
          France 2,6
          Israel 1,3
          Egypt 1,2
          And just in case you forgot: while Israel is pratically having no refugees compared with other “Western” countries, the State of Israel is responsible for the biggest single group of refugees in the world: THE PALESTINIANS, and for the longest unsolved refugee problem.
          Just to expose your immense hypocrisy, shared by most of your fellow citizens, and I’m not going to mention the role of super-Zionist neo-cons in the war in Iraq, resulting in millions of refugees.

          1. the following are the numbers of refugees who found asylum in different countries generated by UNHCR website
            http://www.unhcr.org

            Country 2008 2009 2010
            Liechtenstein 26 294 113
            Iceland 77 35 51
            Luxembourg 463 477 744
            Denemark 2360 3819 4965
            Finland 4016 5910 4018
            Australia 4740 6175 8210
            Russia 5,418 5,701 3,889
            Polan 7203 10587 6534
            Israel 7738 809 1448
            Austria 12,841 15,821 11,012
            Turkey 12,981 7,834 9,226
            Netherlands 13399 14905 13333
            Switzerland 16605 16005 13521
            Greece 19,884 15,928 10,273
            Germany 22085 27649 41332
            Sweeden 24353 24194 31823
            Italy 30,323 17,603 10,052
            UK 30,475 29,830 22,085
            Canada 34760 33935 22535
            France 35404 42118 48074
            US 39362 38080 42971
            South Africa 207206 222324 180637

            what you presented is nothing but a figment of your imagination, your attempt in finding a bad meaning into everything the state of Israel does is P A T H E T I C

          2. Your figures represent refugees granted asylum which is a formal designation that requires application & acceptance by the government, not the total numbers of refugees residing in a specific country. You might want to be more careful in understanding the facts you dig up. But what your numbers do show is that with 55,000 total refugees Israel granted only 1,500 asylum, a very small number.

          3. @ Liron
            “What you presented is nothing but a figment of your imagination”.
            Here’s the link. You can check on each country yourself.
            http://www.chartsbin.com/view/p2g
            If you could give a direct link to your figures. I would like to see if your “found asylum” is actually granted asylum or simply having asked for asylum while living as “infiltrators”, but for the sake of comparison, let’s compare some of your figures.
            Sweden has around 8-9 million inhabitants, and in 2010, 31823 persons ‘found asylum’ there according to your figures. Denmark has 5,3 million inhabitants, and 4965 persons ‘found asylum’ there. Israel has 7,5 million inhabitants, and in 2010, 1448 persons ‘found asylum’ there. You want me to continue ?
            And figures from 2008, 2009, and 2010 says nothing about the number of refugees in a given country as this changes widely following internal political changes, international politics etc.
            PS. I never pull things out of my imagination, you should stick to that rule too. And I don’t have to ‘attempt’ to find bad things about Israel. It comes all by itself. Finding good things – from a non-Jewish perspective – would be hard though !

      2. Of course: race-mixing was a crime eventually. Nazis also said that the Jews carried diseases, both medical and social, precisely what the Israelis are saying about Africans. In the end, the word play about disease and disinfection became twisted and real and Jews became the bacteria that needed to be eradicated. And Israelis talk now of “containment camps” for the Africans (and perhaps any non-Jew in Israel!) The similarities with the rise of Nazism are fascinating, this long road to darkness.

        Like the Germans, Israel is caught up in the contradictions of its racism and “western values.” The process includes, as RS says, the tolerance for illegal actions like Kristalnacht and many other cases. Jewish racism is not new by any means, but it is confounded now by physical possession of a country. In my opinion, these Israelis can yell and scream and insult and segregate and “contain” all they want behind their ghetto walls, but nothing will stop the tide of history and the coming demographic comeuppance that will leave Israel simply an oddity in a future world, a bizarre, backward enclave of crazed religionists embedded in a multicultural world. I think that can happen: There will be a Jewish state that will be tiny and will be ignored by everyone everywhere.

        In the meantime, however, we have to live through this right wing racist wave and, frankly, we don’t know how far it will go before it dies of embarrassment and contradiction. The Nazis claimed, like criminals everywhere, that the Jews made them exterminate them. It was the victim’s fault. Israel is well-practiced in this kind of rationalizing and it could be used to justify ever more heinous crimes. This is very scary.

        1. The only thing scary here is your twisiting history and a sloppy “connect the dots” assumption between what the Nazis did to the Jews and what is happening in Israel with the illegal immigrants in Tel Aviv (and elsewhere).

          There is a problem, it has to be dealt with and violence and the henious acts carried out by the vigilantes in Tel Aviv is unexcusable. Their actions show their frustration at an intolerable situation, but their action is just as intolerable.

          With that, the comparison to ’38 Germany Nazi action and what those vigilantes did in TA is only similar in the actual physicial (and wrong!) acts of destruction and verbal accusations. The rationale behind it is COMPLETELY different… the Nazis were strategically waiting for the right moment to attack and acted officially (though they claimed they didn’t). There was also a whole propoganda department working daily on building up Anti-Semetic images, articles etc. There was NO effort by German police or authorities etc. to try and stem the violence the Germans rained down on the Jews. There was no government response denouncing the terrible actions in Germany, as there was in Israel.

          Your continued undermining assumptions of trying to compare Israel to Nazi Germany is insulting.

          This isn’t a simplistic one-step-answser. Why don’t you try and come up with solutions rather than simply trying to take pot-shots at a country with a very difficult problem on it’s hands? Tell me what YOU would do with this in your country, city, state, or where-every you live?

          I agree the Israel government has swept this issue under the carpet. It’s an upsetting scene and dangerous left unchecked. I don’t suggest to have the answers, but I’m more concerned about finding the answers and solutions than making up a fabricated connection between what the Nazis did and what Israel is doing. Cheap shot.

          The other David

          1. It is a huge logistical problem that Israel is unable to cope with. Israel is disabled in this regard because of its racist tenets and its economics, i.e. the distribution of wealth. The country cannot cope with emerging demographics of this century. It is afflicted with economic and moral paraplegia, stunted by its intractable ideas of race and Jewishness. And it, like another state in mid 20th century, is being led directly into the abyss.

            Too bad you don’t like the analogy, but there is something of value in the comparison. Many of the motives are identical, no matter what you say. The bad guys bring with them crime and disease and they have “no place” in the Jewish state. German policy was dedicated to emigration for a long time, as well.

            I suppose the Israeli economy cannot (or will not) provide jobs and productive lives for these non-Jews. It cannot provide very well for its own middle class and now these momzers want a piece, heh?

            Fix it? You wouldn’t like my ideas about fixing it but it would involve multiculturalism, true democracy and reparations, to give you some idea.

            David

          2. Why is the existence of African refugees in Israel “intolerable?” I’d say it’s quite tolerable & I’ve never seen any example of a nation destroyed by illegal aliens. We were illegal aliens (“Strangers in a strange land”) in Egypt? Or have you forgotten?

            In regard to the claim that Kristallnacht was an “official” government action while Tel Aviv’s African Kristallnacht wasn’t…I was of the impression that Danny Danon, Miri Regev & the other pogrom leaders were MKs from the country’s ruling Likud party. Or correct me if I’m wrong (I’m not)? Further, I’d say with the attorney general & interior minister gearing up to expel African refugees in their hundreds, that this constitutes a “propaganda department” working to building up anti-immigrant images, articles, etc.

            As for the alleged Israeli police response “to try and stem the violence” I must’ve missed that. Were there brave police officers putting their bodies between those rocks & those shop windows smashed and the Africans dragged from taxis & beaten? Granted the police weren’t as bad as they are when settlers engage in pogroms on the West Bank, but they certainly didn’t act decisively against this despicable T.A. pogrom.

            As for the Israeli government’s “response” to the riots…they did indeed respond…by announcing the planned expulsion of hundreds of African refugees. At least they’re not sending them to concentration camps as the Nazis did. Just sending them off to traipse back to South Sudan through the Sinai desert. Thank God for that difference.

            BTW, we here in the U.S. do deal with illegal immigration far better than Israel does though admittedly our system is far from perfect. We have citizenship programs that allow many of these illegals to become citizens. We have support networks on their behalf. We allow (most of the time) for them to work and for their children to get an education. Except in rare circumstances (i.e. the Tea Party) we don’t beat the crap out of them or drag them from their cars or call them “cancers in the body politic.” Those who do abuse such immigrants are prosecuted for their crimes unlike in Israel where those arrested yesterday will likely face little or no punishment. In fact, the far right will pin medals on all of them.

  2. Here is a small part of what’s going on:
    1. May 10, a Sudanese is being prosecuted for rape in jerusalem http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4227376,00.html
    2. May 17, 3 Eritrean’s are being prosecuted for a gang rape of a 15 years old girl – http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4230594,00.html
    3. January 9, an Eritrean was prosecuted for raping 2 and an attempt to rape another – http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART2/324/781.html
    4. May 16, a Sudanese is being prosecuted for raping a women while she was sleeping
    http://www.mivzaklive.co.il/archives/22986#.T73Z4NVK0V8

    and this is mostly from the last month, would like to raise your kids in such atmosphere ? were the Jews in 1938 behaving this way ? At least make an attempt to cover the entire story.

    1. These are the cries of fascists the world over whether it’s Anders Breivik, Marie Le Pen, or England’s neo-Nazi EDL. The foreigners are the evil, violent, lazy, debauched undifferentiated mass. While we, we pure ones. We are the ones whose girls are being raped, the honor & virtue of whose women are being defiled.

      Mazel tov, you’ve joined the ranks of apologists for Jewish hate, racism and pogromism. Your mother would be proud.

      One comment rule: do NOT repeat yourself (as you have done here). Do not say virtually the same thing twice. If you do your comments may be moderated once again.

      1. “Were the Jews in 1938 behaving this way”
        Wow, Liron is a genuine racist, making a whole group responsible for the acts of a few.
        I’ve heard that Germans blamed “the Jews” for the economical crisis in Germany in the ’30’s. I guees if Liron were a German in those days he would have “rationalized” the anti-Jewish mob then too.

    2. yes, nit wit, the nazis were making similar accusations against ‘the jews’; that the collective ‘they’ were spoiling aryan women; that the collective ‘they’ were swindlers; that the collective ‘they’ were polluting the pristine aryan ‘atmosphere’ of what otherwise would be the perfect, pure state if not for those filthy, money grubbing, race mixers.

      don’t kid yourself. deep down you know what you are: an admission will be liberating and will allow you to reach even greater heights of atrocious behavior.

    1. So you believe, James, what’s written in the Bible? Then you must accept that the big man in the sky also gave the land of Israel to the Jews and told them to drive out the other nations. And that he will never break his covernant with the Jews.
      Kahanah would have loved to shake your hand!

    2. “Read Deuteronomy and Joshua. Genocide is a Jewish tradition.”

      Yes the same God who commanded “Thou shalt not kill”. No, the problem are human beings who commit evil acts in defiance of morality and ethics. Genocide is the amalgam of arrogance and the corruption of power. These fascistic impulses have been observed in many contexts.

  3. Liron and Vova,

    Rape exists everywhere and in Israeli society as a whole is a problem. To focus soley on the blacks doing it, is just racism,

    If you recall, these types of accusations were made against American Jews when they came in droves at the ends of the 1800’s from East Europe and Russia to settle in the USA. The first group had a high rate of crime and rape, because in those days discrimination was rife, and Jews were shunned,

    The same scenario is what these immingrants in Israel are experiencing.

    All new immigrant groups anywhere go through an adjustment period, and resort to crime especially if the mainstream society shuns them,

    That said, misogyny is rife in Israel today,

    —————–

    ‘Nice girls don’t get raped’ By RUTH EGLASH

    03/08/2010 10:31

    On International Women’s Day, three Israeli women discuss common myths about sexual violence in their distinctly different communities.
    http://www.jpost.com/Features/InThespotlight/Article.aspx?id=170459
    One in every three Israeli women has been raped or sexually assaulted, according to the latest statistics from the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel (ARCCI).

    Levels of Sexual Violence in Israel

    https://www.richardsilverstein.com/2011/04/26/levels-of-sexual-violence-in-israel/

  4. Richard, there was a good piece by Yossi Gurvitz at 972.mag too about rape being used as a cover for racism.

    It’s the same trick the religous who don’t believe in intermarriage use, they ignore the rape of Jewish girls in their own community, yet cry Rape if the rapist happens to be Palestinian

    I sometimes think 972.mag should open an edition in the USA, to educate the ignorant Americans. Haaretz, 972.mag, stand head and shoulders above any crap media in the America.

    Liron and Vova, read and weep!

    http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/study-61-of-men-don-t-see-forced-sex-with-acquaintance-as-rape-1.337637?localLinksEnabled=false

    Over half of Israeli men – 61 percent – do not consider forcing sex on an acquaintance as rape, a study conducted by Tel-Hai Academic College recently found. Moreover, 41 percent of Israeli women share that view.

    The study was conducted last fall by Dr. Avigail Moor, a clinical psychologist who specializes in treating victims of sexual violence.

    ———

    Saturday, May 19 2012|Yossi Gurvitz

    Using rape to justify racism

    http://972mag.com/the-black-haired-youth-stalking-the-golden-haired-girl/46239/

    So why do the media and the government focus on the few rape incidents attributed to refugees? After all, if the goal is rape prevention, then by Yishai’s standard we should arrest all of the men of Kiryat Malachi, or at least those with political pretensions – one of the town’s mayors is now suspected of rape, and another (former president Moshe Katsav) was convicted of it – and find a country dim-witted enough to take them.

    None of this is likely to happen, and with good reason. When it comes to Jewish men, they enjoy – again, with good reason – the presumption of innocence, even though they are much more of a risk to Jewish women than refugees are. The rate of yarmulke-wearing males among rapists is a phenomenon; I still laugh when I remember the pedophile rapist coming to court with a “Jehova is the King” t-shirt. Ultra-Orthodox Bnei Brak has already earned the sobriquet “Israel’s pedophilia capital” (Hebrew). Jurist Dr. Aviad Hacohen insists (Hebrew) that 95 percent of the sexual attacks in Jerusalem are carried out by Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jewish men. Would Eli Yishai support detaining all Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox men in concentration camps – errr, sorry, “detention facilities?” Of course not.

  5. In all fairness, I have to add this problem isn’t soley confined to Israel.

    The neigboring countries are no better. Happy to cover when a native rapes, but if it is someone outside the tribe, everyone rises to cry Rape.

  6. Liron and Vova, I didn’t even mention incest and the forced rape of traficked women into Israel. In the Middle East, Dubai and Israel have a hugh market in traficked women who are FORCED into prostitution.

    Not to downplay rape by these African immigrants, of course it’s a crime they should be punished for, but did, Michael Ben Ari, Itamar Ben Gvir and Baruch Marzel hold marches to decry incest, rape by Jewish men, or forced prostitutuion in Israel? After all even the US has warned Israel to get it’s act together where forced prostitution is concerned.

    Epic fail!

    ———-

    Did rabbi downplay incest rape?

    http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4175496,00.html
    Brothers molest kid sister for years, after rabbi advises parents against involving police, telling them such abuse is common

    ————-

    http://abcnews.go.com/Health/switzerland-considers-legalizing-consensual-incest-columbia-professor-accused/story?id=12395499

    Consensual incest is legal in China, France, Israel, the Ivory Coast, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain and Turkey, according to a 2007 report from the Max Planck Institute in Germany.

  7. A video of the demonstration in Hebrew,

    Published on May 23, 2012

    זעם השכונות – Rage vs Africans erupts
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KiahzVgSCE&feature=player_embedded

    Following a wave of rapes, murders and robberies by illegal African migrants, the Jewish people of South Tel Aviv, Israel, have decided to take on to the streets. Hereby the results of the ensuing rage.
    בעקבות מעשי הרצח, האונס והשוד של המסתננים – אנשי השכונות יצאו לרחובות. זה מה שהיה שם. גם בהפגנה המרכזית וגם בפגיעה במוסדות התעסוקה אחריהם

  8. Notice that this incident comes a day after Bob Simon “Goldstoned” by airing a very flattering coverage of Tel Aviv as a city of tolerance and pluralism, noting that “everybody seems to get along in Tel Aviv”…

    Simon “Goldstoned” and felt compelled to “balanace” obviously because of his earlier “Christians in the Holy Land” segment.

    1. Exactly. The whole is stigmatized by the actions of a few. A few Jewish Israelis have commited fraud and been jailed. Are all Jews bad news? Do Israelis commit crimes? Any at all? So, there.

      Liron is the genuine article.

  9. i didnt justify anything, i didnt even comment on the subject. i was just saying richard is showing a partial story on a daily basis. and he usualy uses some lies also.

  10. I don’t read Hebrew, but I guess this is the translation of Haggai Matar’s article that he’s posted on 972 mag.
    God bless that man. He writes wonderful articles, and someone who spent two years in Israeli prisons for refusing to serve in the army has my deepest respect.
    http://972mag.com/how-i-survived-a-tel-aviv-mob-attack/46587/

    On Ibn Ezra aka Joseph Dana’s Twitter, one can read that shops owned by Ethiopian Jews in South Tel Aviv were targeted too. Weren’t they brought to The Promised Land on a Flying Carpet under much media attention ? (That was a rhetorical question)

    1. Yossi Gurvitz, another brave Israeli, went to a demonstration on Tuesday with his girlfriend Galina. After a while, Michael Ben-Ari’s hate speech was too much for her and she shouted back.
      A description of the events and a video of what happened to Galina (the rude part starts at min 0:45). I start wondering: are the sexual frustrations is Israel THAT big ?
      http://972mag.com/thoughts-on-an-attack-by-a-jewish-mob/46684/

      1. The Israeli far right is obsessed with sexualizing the conflict and using sex whenever possible to show Israeli dominance and Palestinian/leftist submission or humiliation. I even wrote a post about this a few yrs ago.

        1. Sex is a main concern of racists. KKK has always cited “mongrelization” of the races as a cause for white supremacy. Sexual explicit epitephs are commonplace apparently in Israel, going beyond the casual “F…You!” It is striking the connection of the right to sexual images.

  11. Of course this is racism and completely unacceptable.

    Government policies are to blame for letting this get completely out of hand. There is no policy in place to question those crossing the border illegally or to decide who should have refugee status. Thus both refugees and migrant workers are flooding into the poor neighborhoods of South Tel Aviv. Since these migrants have no rights, no money, no benefits, and no balanced mix (most are young men) crime begins to rise. Israelis living in the area are afraid to leave their homes (especially women alone) and thus the place is at boiling point.

    It’s urgent to find a solution and to stop more illegal immigrants flooding into the country. It’s even more urgent to find a process to determine who can’t be safely returned to their country and thus should receive refugee status and help to settle here. Note that there are politicians trying to help with this, just as there are those that incite to hatred. They simply aren’t mentioned in this article.

  12. I am truly stunned that you would make this comparison, especially in light of your comment rules.

    During those two days in 1938 that you reference, almost 100 Jews were killed, 30,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps (where over 2,000 of them died within the next three months), over 1,000 synagogues were burned, and over 7,000 Jewish-owned businesses were destroyed or damaged. Nearly every synagogue in Germany was either totally destroyed or significantly damaged. (The Jewish community was incidentally then forced to pay for the damages).

    To compare this incident in Tel Aviv, disgusting as it was, to the events that took place in Germany in 1938 seems both grossly inaccurate and decidedly unhelpful to the causes that you seem to hold dear (other than perhaps generating traffic to your blog).

    You had the opportunity to draw attention to this horrendous incident in a way that could have galvanized liberal Zionists, American progressives and even apathetic fence sitters to truly look at this ugly behavior and take action to stand up for human rights and values. Instead, you’ve gone to the ridiculous and insulting extreme of comparing Israel to Nazi Germany.

    I cannot understand why you would do such a thing.

    1. The key is the government condoned and encouraged racist actions with police standing by idly. If this comparison is scalable, then we have something important here and now and RS is right to note it.

      As I understand it, SA dressed in civilian clothes to provoke more action. I wonder if we will find Israeli govt agents among the rioters.

      I am insulted that you do not recognize the common historical thread here, period. Recognition might just be painful. It is for me.

      “decidely unhelpful?” I think it is decidedly helpful.

  13. Bob Mann,

    LOL, get off your high horse man. Perhaps you missed this bit

    I’m not predicting genocide in Israel against foreign workers.

    Better yet, how about you give us an example. How would you have written it to ‘galvanise liberal Zionists?”

    LOL

    1. You’re right. That was an overreaction. I am off my high horse now. Having reconsidered the context and the content, I withdraw my post. Thanks for the dose of reality. I deserve the derisive internet laughter. The post was ridiculous. This incident is disgusting. On that we can all agree.

      1. Bob, you are pardoned. You may retreat. Now get outta my face 🙂

        Seriously, though, it’s apathy and a lack of integration that is at fault here. All the refugees shouldn’t have been bundled into one place with no hope for jobs or anything. It’s a recipe for disaster.

        They have some valid complainst after all thousands of refugees with no jobs are bound to cause problems. The thing is, you have here 3 obnoxious characters (far right extremists, racists, kahanists) speaking out and they discredit any legitimate concerns you may have.

        1. I know there are some voices who are speaking up in favor of finding jobs for these asylum seekers, but they are drowned out by the shriller voices on the right.

          I guess I am still holding out hope for a resurgence of the left in Israel, but signs certainly do not point in that direction.

          Maybe this horrible incident will serve as a wake up call or galvanizing force of some kind – I guess that’s what I was trying to get at initially.

  14. “It’s urgent to find a solution and to stop more illegal immigrants flooding into the country.”

    There is a “fractured fairy tale” in which Sir Walter, while on a quest, finds a crystal coffin with a sleeping princess that can be awaken with a kiss. His first impulse was to do exactly, that, but he reconsidered: “Awake, she is just another princess, asleep, she is worth a fortune!” and build a theme park around her (cf. Walter Disney).

    So you hard hard-core right in solidarity with soft fascists making a rally against immigrants and … after all, who cares about the immigrants? … Jewish Fifth Column that prevents the solution, and then a little hunt on the leftist reporters as alleged stone throwers. I think that Giovinezza is translated into Hebrew.

    1. Why should that comment be called out? What country allows people to illegally enter its borders? Israel will put immigration controls in place on its southern border just like Europe or the US.

      Israel doesn’t need to invent the wheel here. International law defines refugee status. Certainly most of those who have illegally entered Israel are from Eritrea and I believe refugee status applies to them. I saw on the news tonight that probably 67,000 of the estimated 70,000 people already here cannot be sent back to their home countries for fear of their lives.

      This makes it even more urgent to implement clear policies. If we do nothing as is happening now, these people will continue as displaced with no legal rights or chance of work, let alone absorption into Israeli society.

      1. Sorry, I was not criticising you, but the demagogues for whom a problem than can inflame people is like sleeping princess for Sir Walter.

        Ultimately, refugee problem can be best addressed closed to the source, e.g. in Ethiopia and South Sudan, which requires humanitarian diplomacy, probably a combination of adequate aid to refugees in camps on Ethiopian border, aid to Ethiopia as such. If refugees get some kind of status and registration in Ethiopia, they may be deportable to Ethiopia. For that the status of registered refugee in Ethiopia would need to be somewhat attractive, so they could get some jobs created near the camps, and be eligible for temporary worker visas in Israel with some quota.

        I do not know what are the Sudan issue. Eritrea seems to be a local version of North Korea.

      2. Almost every country in the world with decent economic conditions faces illegal immigrants. Many are guilty of the same racism & violence as Israeli Jews. But few have the history of suffering & oppression Jews have had over the centuries. Few have as many reasons to approach this differently, more compassionately, more tolerantly. Israel should be ashamed of what it allowed to happen yesterday, indeed what it’s most noxious MKs & far right ultranationalists provoked.

    1. Haha, Rain’s comment is particularly revealing. I’ll post the comment of “Palestinian”, a Palestinian guy whose family was expelled from Lifta in ’48 and who wrote this on +972mag:
      “If that’s how “civilized” educated people of a socalled democratic country behave when few thousands settle in their country as asylum seekers, what would they do if hundreds of thousand of people flooded to establish their state on top of Tel Aviv or Haifa. I guess we know the answer”.
      Amazing how quickly some Israelis ‘forget’ what was done to establish their state, but, contrary to what Ben Gourion thought, the Palestinians won’t forget. Never !

      1. You are absolutely right Deir Yassin… Jews have committed massacres against Palestinians, killed elderly, raped pregnant women , killed children … when the Haganna gangs attacked innocent civilians atrociously and kicked them of their proven thousands of years ancistors homeland ,let alone the brutality they are practicing everyday against civian Palestinians, the killings of those savage settlers, the daily unjust robbing of Palestinian land, the demolishing of Palestinians home, the list can be endless…. everyone knows now that they robbed this country from their own people , and yet now they claim to be the most democratic and civilised people !!!! Israel won’t last forever, land must be returned to its original people !

        1. Nice one-sided and inaccurate picture.

          Sure… and the Palestinians never lifted a finger to hurt the Jewish pioneers as far back as in the late 1800s, early 1900s… NOT.

          They attacked Jewish homes, stole their animals, murdered innocent men, women and children. What of the pogroms and murders/rapes in Jerusalem, Hebron, Tfat by Arab mobs? What about the massacre at Tel Chai? What about the brutal acts by Palestinians to Israelis? The scores of people murdered in planted bomb attacks, sucide bombers, terrroists who enter homes an shoot innocent children and women in their bed? The Palestinians who butchered and blugeoned to death children like Koby Mandel? And the list goes on.

          I won’t try and say Israel is pure and innocent and without fault. The I/P issue has various sides and hopeful solutions.

          But don’t sit their and try and laundry-list acts of violence without including the henious crimes committed by Palestinians. And don’t DARE try and justify those acts of violence- I could do the same thing about what you’ve listed above. But plain and simple…. there is no excuse for violent actions upon innocent people (Palestinian or Israeli).

          1. Do we really have to go back & refight the 1929 Riots? Really? Please stay on topic & don’t regurgitate ancient history esp. not fr such a 1 sided perspective. If you come here to score hasbara propaganda pts you won’t last very long.

            As for “hopeful solutions” for the IP conflict…in which universe?

          2. @ DavidL
            “I won’t try and say Israel is pure and innocent and without fault”
            That’s in fact what you’ve been doing since I read you here, and you can name all the Palestinian actions against what you call the Jewish pioneers, the fact is that THEY came to Palestine, the Palestinians didn’t invite them.
            The Jewish “pioneers” didn’t come with the intention of settling down among the Palestinians but with the goal of taking over the land. You can “explain” all you want but that’s a fact. And dozens of super-Zionists have dumped exactly the same spin here before you.

      2. So how do you see things working out in the future for Israelis and Palestinians? What will the eventual resolution of the conflict be, and how do you see it coming to pass?

        1. @ Bob Mann
          I don’t know if your question is to me but if it is, I’ve stated so on many occasions, though I don’t think it’s going to happen in my lifetime and I’m still young…. relatively.

          Listen to this absolutely wonderful new song by Phil Monsour feating Rafeef Ziadeh “The ghosts of Deir Yassin”.
          The text is in the “full” under the video.
          My favorite lines:
          //Of the old ones now passed on / But it’s their blood our hearts are pumping / They will walk with us when we return to their towns / Whose names will live again / You see that we are rising / Our day is surely coming / No longer in the shadows of Deir Yassin / You see that we are rising / You know the fear is gone / WE WILL RETURN//

          But more than the music, it’s the video-clip, it’s wonderful, I cried the first 10 times I saw it: Look at all those faces, particularly the old ones at the end, and tell me “straight into the eyes” that these people don’t have the right to return home.
          In the palms are written the name and villages from where people come or were expelled from: Haifa, Gaza, Khan Younes, al-Kabri, al-Birweh, Safed, Nablus, al-Ramleh, Tulkarm, Rafah, Bir al-Saba’, Yafa, Akka, Lydda, Jenine etc
          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vJR3yss04M

      3. Actually, this isn’t a great quote since you should bear in mind that it’s not a few thousand.

        High estimates put the number at 100,000. In terms of the percentage of the population that’s a huge number for any country to deal with. Just scale the numbers into the same percentage in any European country, or the US – and you will get some idea of the logistical problem involved.

          1. But the fact is that 1 million Russian Jews had legal entry into the country.

            Without getting into the legal aspects of Israel’s immigration laws and who is a jew, the Russian legal immigration and illegal entry into Israel from Africa are two completely different things.

            I’m not sure why you think that an Israeli immigration policy = Israeli racism. Does illegal entry of Mexicans into the US = American racism? Obviously the government must work against racism that those here are facing, find ways and budget to help them find their place here, but at the same time Israeli like any other country has a right to implement a clear process for handling immigration. And the upshot of that process, like elsewhere, will be that people are kept out.

        1. logistical problem involved ?????

          What logistical problem are those 60.000 refugees? Most of them cross the border without any Israeli “logistical efforts”. Israel is used to crowd control and has many million people locked in open air consternation camps and isolated ghettos. Israel has hundreds of thousands of non-productive religious “scholars” and numerous settlements on foreign soil, so even feeding those 60,000 Africans is no problem to “the only democracy in Middle East”, or is it?

          Israel has 300,000 foreign workers, most of them Filipinos. Five times more than those African refugees. In 2001 in Israel were 23,000 Chinese workers.

          The irony is that most of the African refugees come from countries with which Israel has pretended to be a friend. Eritrea and South Sudan. Some friend.

          By the way what are you going to say when next time ships full of Jews are sailing around the world and asking to be accepted? Israel is an incredible racist country, besides own Jewish subgroups they seem to hate everybody else, Africans, Europeans etc. Well a mass deportation of poor Africans will only decrease Israel’s reputation and increase the support for Palestine and bring the day closer when hundred of thousands of Jews (=settlers) need a new home.

          1. “What are you going to say when next time ships full of Jews are sailing around the world and asking to be accepted…”

            That’s kind of a disgusting comment.

          2. Bob Mann why is it disgusting? What on earth do you believe that the present Israeli Jewish behavior “plants”? Do you in earnest believe that there is no price to be paid. Eventually. This time Jews (in general) are not the innocent bystanders or targets. They are the aggressors and oppressors.

            Look how thousands are shouting Mohamed is dead and Death to Arabs. How long do you think it can continue?
            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTwWKdfi8G8
            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNd-FPBNeig

            There is no reverse gear in a so widespread aggressive nationalism “movement”. It is hardly possible for Israel to say we are sorry and lets be now friends. Even the Palestinians would accept it, the nationalistic Israeli Jews and their extreme supporters will not allow a balanced compromise. It is almost impossible to predict with some intellectual “honesty”, that this will end in a peaceful way. What happened in South Africa will not be repeated, more likely is that it will end like it ended with the fascistic states in WW2.

          3. So it’s OK to kick out poor Africans while continuing to encourage and accept any Jews worldwide to make aliyah? Sounds like bigotry to me.

    2. Please elaborate when was this country was created ?
      the only legal binding document regrading Palestine was established at the San Remo conference in which the territories of the Ottoman Empire were divided and countries of the middle east created, as part of the agreement the Brits received and established the mandate over Palestine with the intention of creating a home for the Jewish people based on the Balfour deceleration of 1917. This is the same agreement which governed the creation of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and few other places over there.

      So your answer is simply not correct.

      1. “So your answer is simply not correct.”

        Back atcha’

        You mistake is here:
        “established the mandate over Palestine with the intention of creating a home for the Jewish people based on the Balfour deceleration of 1917”

        That statement is quite incorrect.

        The Mandate for Palestine was established with the intention of fullfulling Article 22 of the League of Nations Covenant.

        The creation of a Jewish national home **in** Palestine (note: not the JNH **of** Palestine) was a secondary consideration tacked onto this Mandate (and only this Mandate, there were many others) because the British made an unwise promise to Rothschild.

        You can see that by simple reference to the preamble to the text of the Mandate for Palestine i.e. the reference to Article 22 comes first, and THEN it goes on to talk about ALSO creating that JNH **in** Palestine.

        You. Are. Wrong.

        1. That & more. The British government also offered the Palestinians their own affirmations and promises of help toward fulfilling their aspirations. The Brits were playing their typical double game & screwing everyone in the process.

      2. Oh stop with the San Remo crap again. You’re dredging this up from the same far right sources who’ve been peddling this crap for ages. Palestine is a country there is a Palestinian people there will a country some day (soon) called Palestine. If you want to be a Palestine denier (or Israel-or Holocaust-denier) you’ll be booted out of here on yr tush. Read the comment rules!

        1. You think that someday soon there will be a country called Palestine? That’s the most optimistic comment I’ve seen from you on that score in a long time! Can I ask what inspired this change?

      3. Are there stamps and official coins and banknotes with the text Israel before 1948? There are with the text PALESTINE. 20 years before the Jewish notes.

        http://www.drberlin.com/palestine/

        It is idiotic constantly to claim that there never existed an areal and “political” entity named Palestine. Balfour Declaration was simply a rather unclear political promise to establish national home for the Jewish people IN Palestine. The letter also says “it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

    1. Simply read the Book ” The Invention of Jewish People” by the Jewish University Professor and best seller book Shlomo Sand ! Sand began his work by looking for research studies about forcible exile of Jews from the area now bordered by modern Israel, and its surrounding regions. He was astonished that he could find no such literature, he says, given that the expulsion of Jews from the region is viewed as a constitutive event in Jewish history. The conclusion he came to from his subsequent investigation is that the expulsion simply didn’t happen, that no one exiled the Jewish people from the region, and that the Diaspora is essentially a modern invention. He accounts for the appearance of millions of Jews around the Mediterranean and elsewhere as something that came about primarily through the religious conversion of local people, saying that Judaism, contrary to popular opinion, was very much a “converting religion” in former times. He holds that mass conversions were first brought about by the Hasmoneans under the influence of Hellenism, and continued until Christianity rose to dominance in the fourth century CE. Sand argues that it is likely that the ancestry of most contemporary Jews stems mainly from outside the ancient Land of Israel and that a “nation-race” of Jews with a common origin never existed. Just as most contemporary Christians and Muslims are the progeny of converted people, not of the first Christians and Muslims, Judaism was originally, like its two cousins, a proselytising religion. Many of the present day world Jewish population are descendants of European, Russian and African groups.According to Sand, the original Jews living in Israel, contrary to popular belief, were not exiled following the Bar Kokhba revolt. Sand argues that most of the Jews were not exiled by the Romans, and were permitted to remain in the country. Many Jews converted to Islam following the Arab conquest, and were assimilated among the conquerors. He concludes that the progenitors of the Palestinian Arabs were Jews. Sand writes that the story of the exile was a myth promoted by early Christians to recruit Jews to the new faith. They portrayed that event as a divine punishment imposed on the Jews for having rejected the Christian gospel. Sand writes that “Christians wanted later generations of Jews to believe that their ancestors had been exiled as a punishment from God.”

      1. While I have not read Sand’s book &, from what I have heard about it, might have issues with some of his ideas, his argument about Exile is persuasive. As Jerry Haber wrote so powerfully, there was never a Roman act exiling Jews from Judea after the destruction of the Temple. While the Romans did punish the Jews and take away their right to self-government & destroy the Temple, they didn’t forcibly exile them. Probably, after the destruction of Judea many Jews simply migrated elsewhere where economic conditions were more positive. This certainly was a painful episode in Jewish history & the Romans deserve their share of blame for the fate of Judea & its Jews. But it wasn’t a forced expulsion. In part, that’s why there has been continuous Jewish presence in Judea/Palestine for several thousand yrs.

  15. Reply to David L) “the Jewish pioneers”.

    JEWISH PIONEERS?!?!? Never thought I’d see the day anything israhel related would make me smile. You’ve just proved me wrong. As for the rest of your garbage, not even worthy of a response.

    1. Mhara- you want to explain why the facts I mentioned are garbage? You may not agree with what I say, but refering to my comments as garbage reflects more on what you seem to be than what I comment on.

        1. If you won’t explain then you should retract your reference to my comments in such derogatory form. Otherwise you simply “sling mud” and your lack of explanation simply shows you know them to be true statements, but have no answer.

          1. “If you won’t explain” -or what? Don’t try to bully me. Get over yourself.

            Speaking of ‘derogatory form’ “garbage reflects more on what you seem to be than what I comment on”.

            You consider THAT acceptable??? I said your WORDS were garbage, I didn’t refer to you as such.

            I have NO intentions of entering into any further dialogue with you. Why would I dignify your hasbara lies?

          2. Miss C-

            I stand by what I say… no bullying.

            The point of this blog is to discuss the issues not call people liars. You’ve twice called what I wrote essentially not true. YOUR response is immature and pointless… and that does reflect on what you seem to be- a person who name-calls and makes unsubstantiated statement.

            You call my words lies… what was? That Koby Mandel was brutally murdered by Arabs? That there were in fact Arab Pogroms against Jews in the early part of the last century? That there weren’t Palestinian terrorists who murdered people in the streets, restaurants or their own homes and beds? So what’s the lie?

            What you say seems to be the lie. Your right, no sense commenting on anything you would possibly say. Done with you.

          3. If I haven’t told you this before I’m telling you now: NO hasbara. No off topic comments regaling us with the horrors of Arab terror. Comments must be ON topic. That means directly pertinent & related to the subject of the post. If you’re not following that rule you’re going to run into trouble here.

          4. Reply to Richard below:

            Why is it that you only censor those comments that talk about Arab/Palestinians in negative terms???

            I was responding to Leena’s 1-sided, off-topic Arab Propogandist rant about Israel. YOU gave her no warning or anything like you commented to me… which you seem to always do. PLEASE, play fairly by your own blog rules.

            I felt I had the right to respond since she made such a 1-side (and inaccuarte) portrayal of the situation. Then Costello comes on and challenges my comments…. I only responded to her.

            I agree it was getting off-topic, but being addressed such, I felt I had the right to repond to her comments.

            Perhaps if you reprimanded Leena about her 1-sided, Arab Propogandist comments, I would have not felt a need to respond.

            I will try and stay on topic if others stay on topic too!

            And to your comment earlier about “hopefull solutions”… I found that rather strange… there are hopeful solutions… even yours are hopeful, though I and many don’t agree to them.

            I you don’t think there are any solutions our there, then what’s the point of your blog??? Again- I don’t agree with much of what you say here, but LISTENING to other’s POVs is an essential part of trying to figure our a solution.

  16. “But given Jewish history of the last century, you’d think that Jews, including Israelis would be more sensitive to repeating the horrors perpetrated on our ancestors then.”

    Sorry, Richard, but we both know the victim has become the tormentor, and now it is not only the Palestinians who are the ones to suffer.

    Israel seems to be as racist and hate-filled as Selma, Alabama during the 1960’s. In fact, I cannot imagine why anyone would want to go there expecting mercy and acceptance.

    In fact, it looks as though in Israel, anyone who is not a Jew is welcome to crawl into a hole and die.

    1. Why then do you think refugees from Sudan and Eritrea make the dangerous journey to get to Israel?

      Once they have made it to Egypt, why not just stay there instead?

        1. It is precisely because Egypt does have many refugees that I ask the question.

          If Israel is, as the other commenter wrote, “as racist and hate-filled as Selma, Alabama during the 1960′s” and is a place where “anyone who is not a Jew is welcome to crawl into a hole and die” it seems strange that hundreds (thousands?) of Eritrean and Sudanese refugees would risk their lives to take the very dangerous journey into Israel, especially considering that they have already made it safely to Egypt, a place where Sudanese and Eritrean refugee populations are present.

          You mentioned economic well-being, but how can there be economic well being for these refugees in Israel when they are not permitted to get a job?

          Where, exactly, does the hope and freedom come from in a land that is akin to Selma in the 60’s or Berlin in the late 30’s?

          It just does not seem to compute. The motivation for the journey appears not to make sense in light of the well-documented dangers one encounters when attempting to enter Israel illegally from Egypt, especially now that the border between the two countries is more chaotic and risky for travel than ever before.

          Why would a single Eritrean or Sudanese refugee take that risk? What can they possibly have to gain by making it to Israel?

          1. This is a good question. I think refugees move in hope of better treatment and that Israel offered that hope when the numbers were small and the public was not incited to riot. But, I confess I don’t know and this is worth thinking about.

            It appears, however, that Israel is, by its self-definition, unfit to host refugees. The racist core of Israel is unable to cope with this kind of challenge.

          2. Happily, you have never been a refugee or you would understand the allure of a relatively stable prosperous secure country, compared with their own. Refugees are by definition desperate people prepared for many risks for a better life.

          3. Egypt’s economy cannot support refugees; so many Egyptians are doing even the most menial jobs that there are none left for refugees to do illegally. The only refugees who do well in Egypt seem to be the wealthy ones who fled Libya. But the situation is the same in Jordan for the Iraqis. The living standard is higher in Israel, so many refugees go there hoping they will be able to stay. They hope to find the jobs they cannot find in Egypt’s depressed economy.

          4. That being said, it’s important to note that these South Sudan people are more than economic refugees. They are refugees because their homeland is a failed state even before it became one, thanks to Sudan’s terror campaign against it.

  17. This book proves that Israel did not exist till 1948, when Belford promised Palestine to the Jews with no right , Palestinians existed and lived in that land as Arabs for thousands of years… they embraced Judaism , Christianity and then Islam. All the other people who came to that land never belonged or had the right to inhibit it and expel the original people out of it as savagery and brutally as they did at that time ! Believeing and embracing a certain religion does not give right to whom so ever to usurp other people’s land !!! Besides, I don’t get how Jews claim palestine to be their homeland and that they are the “chosen” people of GOD , when they usurped and stole the country from its own people with all the dirty conspiracies they played and the atrocities they committed against those innocent civilians who llived there !! How can a pure “chosen” nation committ such crimes?? That does not make sense at all !! God stated that Jews will remain in Diaspora and that should be their destiny till the end of time , thats what religious jewish people say, what is happening now is the most violent , terroristic and ugly occupation in whole world !

      1. I guess Leena means Balfour though it seems that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about when she writes “till 1948, when Belford promised Palestine to the Jews”.

        1. Oddly enough I agree with DY on this… Leena doesn’t know very much about what she is talking about…period. Much of what she comments on makes no sense and is filled with incomlpete notions. For instance, God never stated that Jews should remain in the Diaspora forever. Religious Jews…even the Haredi believe in a return to Eretz Yisrael… though they are waiting for the Moshiacah to be born and lead them back before they will claim a return of any Jewish sovereignty in Eretz Yisael.

  18. What is extremely striking about the accounts of the journalists (both Jewish and white skinned) who were nearly lynched by the mob in TA last night was that the mob approached them screaming that they had “seen them (the journalists) throwing stones at soldiers at checkpoints”. Hello? The nearest WB checkpoint to S Tel Aviv is something like 60 km away – and wasn’t this demo about refugees from black Africa, not Palestinians?

    This just goes to show how completely manipulated by racist and nonsensical demagoguery Israeli society is. Refugees in Tel Aviv have absolutely nothing to do with the occupation – but in the crazed, fanatic eyes of the mob last night, both they and Palestinians are part of one big conspiracy against the “Jewish state”.

    1. Don’t you think that leftists are united in certain causes (generally speaking), just as rightists are? Isn’t it fair to say that those who are supportive of granting rights to these refugees are most likely also probably more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause than the rightists who accosted them?

      1. This is always the case Mark, Zionist always justify all the atrocities they committ against Palestinians and the racism they practice upon the workers from Africa with this “conspiracy ” theory which is completely false!! I believe that Zionist have usurped Palestinians their land by such consperacies !! this most apartheid regime in the world now is always living in fear because of the unjust cause they hold… the world is starting to recognize now and finally the BIG lie they were fooled with !!! victims of Holocaust are not a sin the Palestinians committed, they should , if this is also valid, take revenge from Nazists not Palestinians and Arabs ! They have lived their best times with Arabs and muslims who were just to them and let them practice their religion freely and lived peacfully during the Islamic Era.

      2. Rightists are far more united in their ideology than the left. The Israeli left was essentially destroyed by the first & second Intifada & rendered impotent in the face of this challenge.

        Sympathy to the Palestinian cause is a dime a dozen on the liberal Zionist side. Sympathy isn’t enough. It will take those who are willing to make compromises and no Israelis are prepared for that.

  19. “I agree the Israel government has swept this issue under the carpet.”

    Not exactly. The Israeli government uses the issue in the consistent campaign to vilify the opposition. This is the government that has hard time to approach any issue rationally, but is incredibly successful in rank demagogy and most vile tricks. Social protests of last summer ended with a skillfully provoked shootout with Gaza that, as usual, was “asymmetric” but very effectively diverted the attention.

    Poor Israel is not the only country with refugees. South Africa has reportedly 1.5 million refugees from Zimbabwe where the regime is both very repressive and f…d the economy. Such a situation leads to tensions and indeed, there were some riots in South Africa, but without politicians pouring oil on fire and settling their scores. As in other places in Africa, refugees are mostly in camps which are places for housing, not detention camps.

    Somewhat strangely, nobody is really interested if refugees have some grave problems. After all, there are hardly any refugees from Ethiopia, but a lot from Eritrea, from Sudan but not from Uganda, from Ivory Coast but not from Ghana, from Zimbabwe but not from Mozambique. Right now there is a wave of refugees from Mali to Burkina Faso, about 100,000 in two months.

  20. RE: “Today, in Tel Aviv’s poor Hatikva neighborhood, the cream of Israel’s political Übermenschen, Kahanists Michael Ben Ari, Itamar Ben Gvir and Baruch Marzel terrorized foreign workers who live there with mass violence and nothing less than a pogrom…” ~ R.S.

    ALSO SEE: How mainstream Israeli politicians sparked the Tel Aviv race riot, by Noam Sheizaf, +972 Magazine, 5/24/12
    Israeli governments have neglected the poor neighborhoods of Tel Aviv for decades. Today, Knesset members use the asylum seekers to channel the anger of local residents and score easy political points.
    • LINK – http://972mag.com/how-mainstream-israeli-politicians-sparked-the-tel-aviv-race-riot/46649/

  21. Racism is on the march this year, and not just in Israel.

    For all those baffled as to why the England Football team will not be taking Rio Ferdinand to the Ukraine for the European Cup, it’s because he’s black and valuable. The only black players they are taking are the ones who aren’t (yet) worth tens of millions of pounds to their clubs. Nobody is saying this in quite so many words, but the English FA is prepared for black players to be killed or injured by racist fans. (I’d be happier not to send a team at all, if that’s the way they think it is. Nobody should be a tin duck at a shooting gallery just because UEFA might fine the FA for non-attendance. It’s clearly damage-limitation: they don’t want to cause a political fuss by pulling out, but they are conspicuously not sending their best men.)

    I’d be interested to know where the racist Israeli citizens themselves emigrated to Israel from?

    The football test is a fair one: if it’s abnormal and shocking for a black player to be jeered from the stands, a society has nothing much to worry about: if there’s a serious expectation that a black player might be shot at from the stands (which there NEVER was in Apartheid South Africa) then something’s really badly wrong.

  22. Deir Yassin,
    I know exactly what I am talking about and that this promise was given in the year 1917… I meant that the real existence of that terroristic entity began when the Palestinias’ massive torture ,killing and expulsion began that year, what they call (Nakba Year).

  23. It’s very rare, in my experience, for mobs like this (racist or in support of some other cause, such as animal rights) to be at all spontaneous. Often, those involved have been trained and rehearsed so that apparent chaos creates windows of opportunity for a more serious elite to tackle specific targets.

    See:
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2150542/Nazi-mob-lies-wait-England-fans-Riot-police-march-battle-thugs-Euro-2012-terraces–turn-blind-eye-racist-chants-violence.html

    Read the bit about the thugs being trained to carry out ambush beatings, and think “what connection could these thugs in Ukraine and Poland, possibly have to the thugs in Tel Aviv?”

    Well, apart from benefiting from a blind eye from the police, of course.

    The Jewish right has taken to sponsoring these groups, everywhere from Luton to Kiev, and it would be surprising to me if they weren’t getting feedback on the way these groups develop their skills and tactics, at the very least.

    It won’t be long before Israeli citizens are paid to take little training holidays in Ukraine, the way that some UK Pakistanis were encouraged to go to Afghanistan for “training” in the late nineties.

  24. Richard

    I’ll have you know that most of protesters were of Mizrahi origin. But of course that would bbe inconceivable.

  25. DOES ISRAEL HAVE THE RIGHT TO EXIST?

    Israel fears “delegitimization” more than anything else. Behind the velvet curtain lies a state built on myths and narratives, protected only by a military behemoth, billions of dollars in US assistance and a lone UN Security Council veto. Nothing else stands between the state and its dismantlement. Without these three things, Israelis would not live in an en…tity that has come to be known as the “least safe place for Jews in the world.”

    Strip away the spin and the gloss, and you quickly realize that Israel doesn’t even have the basics of a normal state. After 64 years, it doesn’t have borders. After six decades, it has never been more isolated. Over half a century later, and it needs a gargantuan military just to stop Palestinians from walking home.

    -Sharmine Narwani-

    1. Leena, the question of whether Israel has the right to exist is pointless. It exists; to argue its legitimacy is nothing but argument for argument’s sake because whether it’s legitimate or not, Israel isn’t going away unless it eventually implodes from its own stupidity. Everything you’ve written has been said many times before, and there is no point in revisiting it.

      What needs to be fought for the sake of the Palestinians and others is the hideous racism and the blatant disregard for human rights. Once those issues are dealt with, then perhaps a one-state solution would be possible.

      1. I am an outsider, but I have eyes to see. Leena and Mary are close to the truth. But the real truth is that Israelis, and I mean their own definition of Israelis, which means Only Jews, do not regard guest-workers or Palestinians or Americans or anyone non-Jewish as human. If you are not Jewish then you are sub-human, you are here only to do what is good for the Jews. And how can an animal have any rights? This is what halacha law teaches the Israelis, and people like Eli Yishai want halacha law to be the law of the land of Israel. To shoot a Palestinian, well that is like shooting a dog. To take the land of a Palestinian, well it’s Jewish land to start with anyway. If a guest worker gets pregnant in Israel, she must go back to her country, she deserves no medical attention here, she’s not even Jewish. If a guest worker wants to live in Israel, well that’s an impudent request that of course will be denied, lest more of her kind settle here and dilute the purity of the Jewish State. I’m not making this up, it’s in the news, it’s in Israeli news. Do you have eyes to see?

        1. Halacha does not teach Israelis that non-Jews are not human. That is a gross misstatement either betraying your ignorance or borderline anti-Semitism. Just as with Islamists who distort Islamic teachings there are Jews who distort Jewish teachings. It is a grave error to confuse the radical minority for an entire religious tradition.

          Aside from this, I agree with much of what you wrote above.

  26. “Then Costello comes on and challenges my comments”

    Ha! How dare she!!!

    “Costello”? What about ‘Miss’? Ill mannered oaf.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *