Border Police deployed in south Tel Aviv to defuse tensions
Neither local residents nor African migrants satisfied with move
After nearly a week of unrest, a unit of soldiers from the Border Police was deployed in a south Tel Aviv neighborhood Monday morning, according to Channel 10 news.
The use of paramilitary officers to keep the peace in the Hatikvah neighborhood comes after weeks of rising tensions between local residents and a large community of African migrants in the area.
The Public Security Ministry, which ordered the deployment, expressed hope that the troops would combat crime and reduce friction between local residents and African migrants, but neither of the sides have expressed optimism that it will succeed.
Some Hatikvah residents compared the move with prescribing aspirin for a terminal illness, and human rights groups have expressed a fear that the presence of Border Police will increase tensions rather than ease them.
In late 2006, a Border Patrol unit was deployed in Hatikvah to fight a crime wave. According to the police, the 2006 deployment was successful in lowering crime in the neighborhood by 10-15%.
Last week, a demonstration against “the infiltrators,” as the government has termed them, turned violent, with 12 people arrested for attacking migrants. The same day, the attorney general ruled it legal to deport South Sudanese who don’t qualify for asylum back to that country.
Association for Civil Rights in Israel lawyer Oded Feller said the government should heed the police’s recommendation that the African migrants be allowed to work. Such a move would lessen the need to steal for food, he said.
South Tel Aviv, where thousands of African asylum seekers have found shelter, has seen local residents and others taking to the streets calling for their deportation.
A number of asylum seekers have been accused in recent weeks in a spate of sexual assaults and other crimes in the area.
Aaron Kalman contributed to this report.
