(ThinkProgress) Violent Mob Killing Of Eritrean Man Highlights Rampant Racism In Israel

From: Biniam Tekle <biniamt_at_dehai.org_at_dehai.org>
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2015 21:59:19 -0400

http://thinkprogress.org/world/2015/10/22/3714834/israel-racism-mobbing/

Violent Mob Killing Of Eritrean Man Highlights Rampant Racism In Israel

by Justin Salhani Oct 22, 2015 9:35am

CREDIT: AP Photo/Ariel Schalit

Eritrean migrants mourn during a memorial gathering for Habtom Zerhom,
in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2015. (AP Photo/Ariel
Schalit)


Violence in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories has killed
more than 50 people – mostly Palestinians — in recent weeks. At least
one of the dead, though, was an innocent Eritrean bystander shot and
then beaten by an Israeli mob after an Israeli-Arab attacked a bus
station.

Haptom Zerhom, 29, was mistaken for the attacker’s accomplice due to
his dark skin. A harrowing video has been released from the incident
where Zerhom is laying on the floor badly wounded. Certain bystanders
seem to be trying to protect Zerhom from further aggressions but
others bypassed them, kicking Zerhom in the head while he lay on the
ground. A group then is heard chanting “Death to Arabs.”


According to the New York Times, “Zerhom, whose nickname was Mila, had
been working for the past year at a plant nursery in Ein Habesor, a
village in southern Israel. His manager, Saguy Malachi, said Mr.
Zerhom had gone to Beersheba to renew his work visa. Mr. Malachi
described him as a ‘dedicated and pleasant worker’.” None of the mob
members, including an Israeli soldier who kicked Zerhom while he was
lying on the ground, were arrested.

Such attacks in public spaces often cause panic. The attacker shot and
killed a soldier, then took his M16 rifle and wounded 11 more people
before being gunned down. But the shooting and subsequent mobbing of
Zerhom, who was innocent, unarmed, and reacting to the shooting in the
same way as everybody else, highlights growing concern about racial
discrimination in Israel toward not just Palestinians but blacks as
well.

An Israeli court approved deportation of African refugees…in July

There are around 135,000 people of Ethiopian descent in Israel today,
plus another 45,000 refugees primarily from Eritrea and Sudan. “The
[Ethiopian] community, which includes many born in Israel, has long
complained of discrimination, racism and lack of money. More than half
of the Ethiopians in Israel live in poverty and only half graduate
from high school,” according to Al-Jazeera.

Life for the refugees is especially difficult as they are given 30
days “to accept Israel’s offer of $3,500 in cash and a one-way ticket
home or to an unnamed third country in Africa, or face incarceration
at Saharonim prison,” according to the Washington Post. An Israeli
court approved deportation of African refugees and asylum seekers to
countries like Rwanda and Uganda last July.

“The death of an asylum seeker at the hands of security guards and an
angry mob is a tragic but foreseeable outgrowth of a climate in which
some Israeli politicians encourage citizens to take the law into their
own hands,” Sari Bashi, Israel-Palestine country director at Human
Rights Watch, told Al-Jazeera. “The Israeli authorities should
investigate and prosecute those responsible for the attack. Israel
faces acute threats to public safety, but vigilantism will only lead
to more innocent people being harmed or killed.”

But in many ways, racism permeates Israeli society much in the same
way it does in the US. Take for example the beating of an Israeli
soldier of Ethiopian descent earlier this year by two policemen.

The video of the beating quickly went viral. Damas Pakada, the
Ethiopian-Israeli soldier, then met with President Benjamin Netanyahu,
who called to eradicate racism in Israel. The policemen who beat
Pakada won’t face trial, though one was fired.

“The attorney general claims that Damas struck the cop first, and
contradicts this later in his decision. Does the attorney general
think the public is stupid or blind? Did he see a different video? It
seems he tried to reach a solution that would appease the police,”
Pakada’s lawyer, Eyal Abulafiya told Walla News.

Shortly after the video caught the public’s attention, riot police
clashed with Ethiopian Jews in Tel-Aviv. Protesters believe the
crackdown was harder on them than other Israelis, largely because of
their skin color.

“I love this country and I want my children to have a future here, but
today I feel more black than Jewish because the state has made us
second-class citizens,” a protester named Benny Malassa told AFP.

As Fentahun Assefa-Dawit, head of the advocacy organisation Tebeka,
also told AFP, “These demonstrations should bring the responsible
authorities to their senses so they realise… there is a problem: that
there are discrimination and racism issues in Israel.”

UPDATE OCT 22, 2015 11:50 AM

One of the original working titles of the story indicated that Haptom
Zerhom was Ethiopian when he is, in fact, Eritrean.
Received on Thu Oct 22 2015 - 21:59:59 EDT

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