The Jerusalem apartment shared by Eritrean asylum seekers was set on fire late last night, Ynet reports. Four were taken to the hospital, where they were treated and released for burns and smoke inhalation. Graffiti outside of the apartment read, “Get out of the neighborhood.”
Alola Dabesai, an Eritrean refugee, outside his apartment that was torched Monday in Jerusalem. (photo: Oren Ziv/Activestills)
Authorities were alerted to the fire shortly after 3:00 AM. Firefighters rescued 10 Eritreans trapped inside; four were taken to Shaare Tzedek Hospital where they were treated for light injuries and released. According to Assaf Avras, the spokesman of Jerusalem Fire Services, whoever set fire to the apartment intended to kill those inside.
The fire comes less than two weeks after an anti-African protest in south Tel Aviv turned into race riots. Both refugees and the Hotline for Migrant Workers report that a number of asylum seekers have been attacked and threatened by Israelis since then.
In late April and early May, a number of Molotov cocktails were thrown at the apartments of Africans in south Tel Aviv.
Violence towards the African community began at least a year and a half ago. In January 2011, the Israel-born daughters of Nigerian migrants were jumped by a group of Jewish Israeli youth. The boys shouted racial slurs at the teenage girls. One of the attackers was armed with a knife and one of the girls needed medical treatment for her injuries.
That same night in 2011, a flaming tire was thrown into an Ashdod apartment shared by Sudanese refugees.
Knesset Members have attended anti-African protests in south Tel Aviv since they began in 2010.
Related:
Africans attacked in Tel Aviv protest; MKs: ‘infiltrators are cancer’
Refugee homes, kindergarten, torched in arson attack
Community shaken after night of arson attacks on African community
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Ralph
Why the hell all this hatred to every non jewish human being is growing more and more in Israel !! jews had been discriminated along the history when they were weak and rejected community !! why are they doing the same to the weaker poor ones now !!! shame shame baby Israel !!
sh
The irony of it is that not that long ago, Africa is where Jews fleeing from similar treatment found shelter and prospered.
Philos
To jump ship or not to jump ship? That is the question for there is something rotten in the State of Israel
Rowan Berkeley
It’s obvious why, Ralph: it’s because every criticism of anybody or anything Jewish is branded by a host of media monopolists as “anti-Semitic”. Thus there is no negative feedback and the Jewish chariot careers ahead with no brakes.
BOOZ
Ralph & SH :
As usual you are jumping to conclusions too easily.
Xenophobia is the most widespread disease of developed countries the lower middle and popular classes of which feels estranged to modernity.
We in Europe have Marine le Pen in France, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands the thugs of the BNP in the UK , just as you have Eli Ishai and Miri Regev in Israel.
I cared to browse at the link and review the readers reactions. Notwithstanding a few unashamed racist reactions, the vast majority of them is fairly decent.
As a consequence my opinion is that there is no reason to single out the Israeli society in this respect-which is the point where IMHO Ms Guarnieri wants to bring you to.
max
Let’s hope that – and come up with solutions for – these despicable acts don’t develop into problems such as those we find in Denmark, Germany, Russia… or Indonesia and Egypt
sh
Booz I agree with you about how widespread xenophobia is in Europe – although completely disagree that it is restricted only to certain socio-economic classes – but none of the parties headed by the people you mention are running their country. BTW, you can add Belgium’s Philip de Winter and his Vlaams Belang party to your list.
sh
Oh look how pertinent. To show how in Israel the bigots do run the country, +972 has just posted this:
http://972mag.com/israeli-coalition-members-speak-about-refugees/47455/
Rowan Berkeley
I’m still concerned that people are isolating Jewish instances of what is really a global imperialist attitude. As it happens, I have a good example of this attitude to hand, which although it dates from another time and another continent, is really striking:
.
There is a single theme in all our work: we must reduce population levels. Either they do it our way, through nice clean methods, or they will get the kind of mess that we have in El Salvador, or in Iran, or in Beirut. Population is a political problem. Once population is out of control it requires
authoritarian government, even fascism, to reduce it. The professionals aren’t interested in lowering population for humanitarian reasons. We look at resource and environmental constraints. We look at our strategic needs, and we say that this country must lower its population, or else we will have
trouble. So steps are taken. El Salvador is an example where our failure to lower the population by simple means has created the basis for a national security crisis. The government of El Salvador failed to use our programmes to lower their population. Now they get a civil war because of it. There will be dislocation and food shortages. They still have too many people there. To reduce the population quickly you have to pull all the males into the fighting and kill significant numbers of fertile, child-bearing age, females. You are killing a small number of males and not enough fertile females to do the job on population. If the war went on for 30 to 40 years like this, then you might accomplish something. Unfortunately, we don’t have too many instances like that to study.
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– Thomas Ferguson, Latin American case officer for the US Dept of Health Office of Population Affairs (1980)
aristeides
Lemme guess – “No arrests have been made.”
BOOZ
@SH :
The bigots run the country indeed. But the Left, and its more radical elements in the first place,just alienated from themselves the public opinion by disregarding their fears, and they should not be whining about how mean thier adversaries are. Let them just get real !
@Rehmat :
“Europe’s African slavery in which European Jewish elites played a major part.”
A completely unusustained assumption and a not-too-clever attempt at covering up the Saharian slave trade operated for centuries by… guess who?
Rowan Berkeley
You may wonder where that quote from Thomas Ferguson came from. It seems it comes from EIR Special Report, Global 2000: Blueprint For Genocide (Aug 1982). So you can dismiss it if you want, as being the product of mad Larouchean anti-Semites (sigh).
aristeides
Should politicians tell the populace the truth about their fears, or should they pander to them, telling them that fear can justify anything?
.
If so, how much more do the Africans have to fear?
Warren
There will be a protest tomorrow (June 5) at 5PM in Jerusalem, at Kikar Hadavidka
Piotr Berman
Aresteides: perhaps there will be an arrest, as there was arrest for a previous case of arson.
My impression is that the Jewish State treats denizens according to the quality of their Jewishness, and I could observe three ways of becoming a super-Jew: super rich and a correct type of philanthropist (George Soros, alas, is incorrect), molding Jewish destiny (settlers, officers) and super-religious. Low-lifes of South Tel-Aviv do not excel in none of these, so they are quite arrestable.
Rowan Berkeley
Piotr, just because Soros doesn’t jump up and bark when the Likudniks wave their dog biscuits. that doesn’t mean he’s an enemy of ‘the Jews’. In fact, informed sources describe him as a Rothschild proxy. But Likudniks would not want to criticise the Rothschilds, because that would sound anti-Semitic, so Soros is a useful cut-out from both sides’ point of view.
sh
Overdosed on David-the-arthritic-footballer’s website Mr. Berkeley?
Piotr Berman
To me, a poster case of “super-rich Jew is a super Jew” was when some Hasbara outfit (Ministry of Immigration and Absorption) purchased TV ads encouraging American Jews to immigrate to Israel where they will be spared such indignities like lack of Jewish girlfriends. After some irate phone calls, this add was dropped as “offensive”, with apologies. Hasbara folks apologize? Will wonders never cease?
It so happens that the principal owner of Bloomberg News and Mayor of New York City has a non-Jewish girlfriend (and his predecessor, quite non-Jewish Rudolf Guliani has a Jewish girlfriend, perhaps creating a shortage of available Jewish girlfriends for Michael Bloomberg).
George Soros is of course hated because of his donation to J-Street and other unpatriotic outfits in variety of countries (by the patriots in all respective countries). Perhaps his biography will have title “The Last Liberal”.
After all copious explanations that anti-Israelism = anti-Semitism, “Occupy Wallsteet” was acclaimed anti-Semitic because of its prejudice against investment bankers. As in “They first came for piranhas…”. Basically, barring very unthoughtful donations, the status of investment bankers advances your Jewishness so much that all those Goyim bankers are also quite Jewish.
Note a very small number of investment bankers in South Tel Aviv. No wonder that Danny Dannon can declare South Tel Aviv to be the capital of a hostile state! (Local Jews are pretty low grade.)
caden
Rehamt, how exactly were the Jews responsible for the African slave trade, I’m curious how a holocaust denier such has yourself comes to that conclusion
Rowan Berkeley
Now why it is that some people just have an innate ability to make good jokes, and others have not — there’s a mystery for those who claim to understand genetics, culture, education, and so on. But you evidently have it, Piotr: “First they came for the piranhas… ” is excellent.
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SH, when I say “informed sources describe Soros as a Rothschild proxy,” I’m certainly not referring to David Icke. Even if I was, his medical and sporting history would seem to be about the most irrelevant things you could find to sneer about. But I wasn’t. Historically Soros’ Quantum Fund and the Rothschild banks are reported to have had interlocking directorates.
Rowan Berkeley
It doesn’t really matter who they are, even if you can find out, and it’s very hard to find out, because one of the most important things real wealth buys is privacy. It only becomes controversial when you are talking about the concentration of financial capital globally. But figures released by Business Data Israel in 2007 showed that 19 families controlled 34% of the income of Israel’s 500 leading companies. There is no obvious reason why the Israeli left should not concern itself with this. It has a direct bearing on social policy.
Rowan Berkeley
If you feel up to reading whole books in hebrew, here are two you can download as free pdf’s:
Israel’s Aristocracy of Finance
Frenkel and Bichler (1984).
bnarchives.yorku.ca/177/
War Profits, Peace Dividends
Nitzan and Bichler (2007).
bnarchives.yorku.ca/229/
sh
“It doesn’t really matter who they are, even if you can find out”
Right. On that we agree. And since, as you say, wealth buys privacy, it’s open season for paranoiacs.
.
“But figures released by Business Data Israel in 2007 showed that 19 families controlled 34% of the income of Israel’s 500 leading companies. There is no obvious reason why the Israeli left should not concern itself with this.”
I believe they do.
Rowan Berkeley
“Open season for paranoiacs.” Move along, you sensible, level-headed liberals: if we happen to scatter radioactive isotopes across the Balkans to the north of you and Iraq to the east of you, if we build a nuclear arsenal in your own country and refuse to submit it to international inspection, while calling for the destruction of Iran, which does submit its peaceful nuclear program to international inspection and has no nuclear arsenal at all; if we put up billboards equating everyone who believes in global warming to the Unabomber, Charles Manson and Usama bin Laden; if we accidentally dump the equivalent amount of radioactive waste to that produced by an eleven megaton bomb in the Pacific; if we choose as the next president of the world’s so-called sole superpower a Mormon; what the hell, only paranoiacs would see anything about us that might require democratic oversight.
sh
“only paranoiacs would see anything about us that might require democratic oversight”
Us? Rowan Berkeley? I am neither a Rothschild nor the state of Israel. Reading your earlier comment it occurred to me that in the minds of paranoiacs of a certain genre all Jews are Rothschilds but decided not to share the thought. Turns out to have been a misjudgment.
.
Congratulations. You have successfully hijacked comments on racist arson to showcase the wealth of bees in your capacious bonnet. I hope the editors have noticed.
Rowan Berkeley
Your assumption that ‘the editors’ ( in fact, each author censors their own so-called ‘channel’) are any more capable of, or even interested in following this jungle of nonsense is probably unjustified. It is not my opinion that all Jews are Rothschilds. It is my opinion that all Jews are brainwashed into believing that any attack on the Rothschilds, who are of course symbolic of the finance aristocracy in general, is an attack on them. This is very convenient for the Rothschilds, and for the financial aristocracy. That may be why a Rothschild condescended to fund the creation of the state. Actually, Rothschild associates Kuhn Loeb funded Hitler, too. They get around. I remember seeing an article in the JPost a year or so ago that argued quite seriously that all criticism of capitalism as a system was necessarily anti-Semitic, because a suspicious proportion of the global bourgeoisie were Jews. Yes, you read that right.
Rowan Berkeley
By the way, did you see this in Ynet today? The Shas journal has officially joined the struggle against infiltrators led by party chairman Eli Yishai. The party’s journal Yom LeYom recently published a public letter to the infiltrators containing “serious talk with the serious Sudanese, out of love and decency.” Rabbi Moshe Shafir opened his letter with a seemingly appeasing tone. He soon went on to explain why the two populations cannot cohabitate. He wrote:
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We love you dear Sudanese. The worst a Jew will ever do to you will be better than the live bullets fired at you at the Egyptian border. A society personifying a social time bomb of robbery, violence, sodomy as well as assimilation alongside the destruction of the institute of marriage and the proper family unit, such a society must be separate and distant, and the sooner the better. The Jewish people returned to their homeland after many years in exile to fulfill the positive potential of the human race. You have proved this is not ‘your thing’ and that is why it’s best if we part as friends. You’re ruining our dream. Perhaps you may have helped us in various ways, but under the current circumstances it’s probably not the case. This is not about racism or any racial doctrine but a question of leadership, and social principles of decent human beings. This has nothing to do with Nazi racism, God forbid, where things were the other way around: a corrupt, murderous society disposed of a foreign and honest people who only benefitted it and balanced it with its pure virtues. Listen up, dear and kind Sudanese people. In the US, Martin Luther King’s dream came true. Giuliani will tell you how he made it happen. Go forth and implement this in Sudan and Eritrea. We promise to help you, we’ll even be delighted to help, as always.
myaguarnieri
rowan: what is all this about rothschild? are any of these comments actually related to the eritrean asylum seekers or the fact that their apartment was set on fire? you’re right, i can’t keep up with this discussion but from what i see, it seems pretty off topic. please try to stay on topic! best, mya
Rowan Berkeley
It only arose because Piotr mentioned George Soros. The usual stereotype regarding Soros is that he is some sort of liberal anti-zionist who has found his way into the charmed circle of high finance by accident. This is a stupid and deeply misleading theory.
Rowan Berkeley
Let’s just look at a few of the things this Rabbi Moshe Safir said: “The worst a Jew will ever do to you will be better than bullets” is a flat lie; describing Sudanese refugees as members of a “society personifying a social time bomb of robbery, violence, sodomy as well as assimilation alongside the destruction of the institute of marriage and the proper family unit” is racist almost beyond comprehension; “the Jewish people returned to their homeland after many years in exile to fulfill the positive potential of the human race” is sanctimonious humbug with racist undertones; the description of the Jews in Germany as “a foreign and honest people who only benefitted it (i.e. Germany) and balanced it with its (i.e. their) pure virtues” is humbug; and the rest is hypocrisy. I assume this Rabbi Safir is fairly typical product of his class. Wouldn’t you agree that this sort of bilge is inevitable when all significant criticism and analysis of Jewish attitudes and behaviour is banned practically world-wide as “anti-Semitic”?
Alan
Maybe this thread has made me paranoid, but I can’t help wondering if Joachim Martillo is pretending to be Rowan Berkeley. Or maybe Rowan Berkeley is just doing a good imitation of Joachim Martillio.
Rowan Berkeley
Ha, yes: I knew someone once who reminded me (though they had nothing whatever in common) of someone else I knew once (though I didn’t understand a word either of them said, or even listen very hard) whom I discovered I could safely label as an ‘anti-Semite’ (even though he was a Jew). That’s incisive criticism.
Piotr Berman
I mention Soros in discussion about impunity. In Tel-Aviv an arsonist was found quickly, and so were soccer hooligans in Jerusalem. The impunity covers those who incite the hooligans and also the settlers.
Rowan seems to follow too much paranoid websites where phrase “Rotschild Zionist and commie” are applied to George Soros. I think that neither Rotschilds (large family, and I know details) nor Soros are among the benefactors of Zionist or neo-con think tanks, settlements or pet Israeli politicians. Plus he publicly criticized Israeli government, and donated to J-Street. That makes him a heretic among main-line Zionists, and in the same time “too Zionist” for many commenters here. The train of the Zionist project departed from the station of Liberalism some time ago, so Zionists who are stranded on that station do not have easy life.
By the way of contrast, Michael Bloomberg was very active in fund raising for Joe Lieberman who is a zealous Zionist and probably belongs to the network of Zionist fat cats (I doubt that his munificence was limited to Lieberman). If his secretary calls the office of an Israeli minister, the minister listens.
Jerusalem seems to have more effective thugs than Tel-Aviv, they honed their skills on Palestinians and Christians. The perpetrators of the arson are probably among “usual suspects” known to police, but if they do not brag about what they did, they may remain at large.
Rowan Berkeley
That’s right, Piotr, paranoid websites like the JPost. Soros is well-known for his “Open Society” network, which is dedicated to opening up closed economies to liberal penetration via ‘colour revolutions.’ If it tried to open a branch in Israel, I’m sure the JPost would label it a commie front. It’s testimony to the illogic of zio-politics that the US can be using outfits like Soros’ to force open closed economies elsewhere, but not in Israel.
Alan
“That’s right, Piotr, paranoid websites like the JPost. Soros is well-known for his “Open Society” network, which is dedicated to opening up closed economies to liberal penetration via ‘colour revolutions.’ If it tried to open a branch in Israel, I’m sure the JPost would label it a commie front. It’s testimony to the illogic of zio-politics that the US can be using outfits like Soros’ to force open closed economies elsewhere, but not in Israel.”
I would love to know what you’re smoking.
Piotr Berman
I did not see what was written about Soros in JPost but from the little I did see, JPost does qualify as a “paranoid website”. I did not see evidence for Soros-Rothschild link, although they are a bit similar in political thinking. Historically, Rothschilds had huge role in the creation of Israel and private aid to Israel in the early years. Seems that like European establishment in general, Soros and Rothschilds are not fans of the current illiberal trend in Israel.
It seems that “everybody” in Eastern Europe got a grant from Soros at some point, but it is quite naive to think that this gives control of events. For example, Poland may seem to be a Soroslandia. Foundation of Stefan Batory was created with auspices of OSI, and it seems to be very connected to political and economic elite, and the current government. Those people are absolutely hated by the people of the previous government and the current main opposition that adores Victor Orban of Hungary.
And Orban, dubbed “Victator of Orbanistan” by his detractors, had his share of Soros grants in the past.
Color revolution is a yet different story, and they did not open any economies for anything.
Rowan Berkeley
It’s always difficult to know whether to respond to things people say that are off-topic. But colour revolutions are precisely about opening economies. There is abundant documentation online about this. The relevant question is why Israel should be exempt from what seems otherwise to be a comprehensive, US-centric process of imposed globalisation of economies. The right wing (the real right wing, that is) consider that this is evidence that the would-be globalisers feel no need or desire to ‘globalise’ Israel’s economy, in the sense of opening it to outside control. It’s intended, according to the right-wingers (the real ones, again) to be the controller of the future globalised economy, not to be controlled by anyone else, even the supposedly omnipotent USA.
Piotr Berman
I think that a specific discussion on the problems of refugees in Israel can be continued on this thread: http://972mag.com/israeli-coalition-members-speak-about-refugees/47455/
The topic is roughly the same, with the extra political dimension: which political parties are engaged in the incitement, did ANYONE condemn it apart from Foreign Ministry, comparisons with politics in Europe etc. e.g. are there any other government ministers or ruling coalition members recommending shooting “infiltrators” on the spot etc.
Concerning color revolutions, there were not that many, Ukraine, Georgia, Serbia, Kyrgyzstan. Arab Spring revolutions are quite different, in Libia, Syria, Mali and Yemen they created or increased internal chaos, in Tunisia and Egypt they probably lead to Islamists governments with some progressive traits, in Bahrain it was suppressed etc. Hard to see any “globalization of economies”.
Among the classic color revolution, the unequivocal success can be declared for Montenegro which has candidate member status for EU and NATO. In Ukraine, neither is popular and “revolution” was reversed. In Kyrgyzstan, neither could be contemplated, and there was already color counter-revolution fomented by Russia. Georgia is a special case, but effectively this is part of another trend: pipeline politics. This is where the real action is, and a competent conspiracy theorist can find rich paydirt with convoluted intrigues by the dozen.
Art Kalman
Why are you surprised? Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in a speech to the Knesset said and quoted by Amnon Kapeliouk, in the “Begin and the Beasts,” New Statesman, June 25, 1982. “Our race is the Master Race. We are divine gods on this planet. We are as different from the inferior races as they are from insects. In fact, compared to our race, other races are beasts and animals, cattle at best. Other races are considered as human excrement. Our destiny is to rule over the inferior races. Our earthly kingdom will be ruled by our leaders with a rod of iron. The masses will lick our feet and serve us as our slaves.” –