Defiant anti-migrant activist Sheffi Paz goes to jail, lauded as hero by far-right MKs
South Tel Aviv resident begins 45-day sentence for vandalizing EU mission, other sites; ministers say sentence is ‘selective enforcement’ not applied to anti-government protesters
Hundreds of supporters, among them a coalition minister and lawmakers, accompanied anti-migrant activist Sheffi Paz as she arrived at Neve Tirza women’s prison in Ramle Thursday to start a 45-day jail sentence for acts of vandalism, including against the European Union diplomatic mission in Tel Aviv in 2020.
Paz, 72, who has for years campaigned against asylum seekers and migrants in her south Tel Aviv neighborhood, also received messages of support from far-right ministers who echoed her claim of being a victim of “selective enforcement” while asserting her offenses paled in comparison with the activities of some anti-government protesters.
Paz smiled and waved a megaphone as she got out of her vehicle while the crowd waved Israeli flags and chanted “We are all Sheffi Paz.”
She expressed no remorse for her actions upon being sentenced, and maintained that stance even as she headed into prison.
However, Paz had the option of not going to jail.
She was previously offered a chance to convert her sentence to community service but she refused, asserting that she was not served justice in the first place, the Haaretz newspaper reported.
“I am going to prison not because of the graffiti against foreign workers, but only because it was next to the homes of judges,” she claimed outside the prison according to a Ynet news site report. “They put me in prison for graffiti offenses because I am not on the right side [i.e., not left-wing].”
Paz vowed to continue her campaign as soon as she is released.
השר וסרלאוף, והח"כים שמחה רוטמן, לימור סון הר מלך,אריאל קלנר וגלית דיסטל מלווים את שפי פז לכלא. "לא ישברו אותנו. כולנו שפי פז" pic.twitter.com/utqZLcDU0m
— חזקי ברוך (@HezkeiB) November 14, 2024
Among those who escorted Paz was Minister for the Development of the Periphery, the Negev and the Galilee Yitzhak Wasserlauf and MK Limor Son Har-Melech, both of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party; MK Simcha Rothman of the Religious Zionism party; and Likud MKs Ariel Kallner and Galit Distel Atbaryan.
Son Har-Melech later posted a photo of herself with Paz on social media platform X, writing that the activist was “paying the price of selective enforcement and inequality before the law” and compared Paz’s offenses to those she said were committed by anti-government protesters who began massive rallies last year against a since-stalled government plan to overhaul the judiciary. Weekly protests in Tel Aviv and other locations have continued against the government’s handling of the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.
Son Har-Melech described Paz as “a true hero who is prepared to sacrifice her freedom for the citizens of Israel.” She has already filed a request to visit Paz in prison.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who leads Religious Zionism, likewise declared that “selective enforcement is evil.”
He wrote on X: “Today Sheffi Paz went to prison because of graffiti,” noting that anti-government protesters regularly block the Ayalon Highway in Tel Aviv.
“It is sad, an outrage, and unjust,” Smotrich said and vowed that the judicial overhaul would go ahead.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who leads Otzma Yehudit, called it a “mark of Cain of the foreheads of the state prosecution and the court, and a red warning light for the condition of democracy.”
He complained on X that Paz was jailed “for actions far less severe” than what the anti-government demonstrators “do regularly without interference, under the auspices of the attorney general,” arguing that this “is the best illustration of what is sick in our justice system.”
In 2020, Paz broke into a preschool for children of asylum seekers in south Tel Aviv during the school day and was also charged with vandalizing the EU’s diplomatic mission in Israel.
The following year, she was banned from the Knesset after she called for the execution of a lawmaker who backed offering asylum to Afghan refugees. She has also been detained over instances of graffiti against senior figures in the justice system.
Two other activists, Doron Avrahami and Ilya Grantovsky, were convicted along with Paz, Haaretz reported. Avrahami was given a 45-day suspended sentence and a fine of NIS 1,500 ($400), whereas Grantovsky was sentenced to 30 days but agreed instead to community service, a NIS 2,000 ($533) fine, and a two-month suspended sentence.
In recent years, the estimated 35,000 African migrants in Israel have been detained, threatened with deportation, and faced hostility from lawmakers and residents. The High Court has pushed back against government plans to jail or deport the migrants, saying a solution in line with international norms must be found.
While many of the migrants say they are refugees fleeing conflict or persecution, Israel views them as job-seekers who threaten the Jewish character of the state. Local residents of the south Tel Aviv neighborhood where they are housed say the migrants are a source of violent crime, including rape.
The Africans, mainly from war-torn Sudan and dictatorial Eritrea, began arriving in Israel in 2005 through its porous border with Egypt, after Egyptian forces violently quashed a refugee demonstration in Cairo and word spread of safety and job opportunities in Israel. Tens of thousands crossed the desert border, often after enduring dangerous journeys, before Israel completed a barrier in 2012 that stopped the influx.
Since then, Israel has wrestled with how to cope with those already in the country. Many took up menial jobs in hotels and restaurants, and thousands settled in south Tel Aviv, where Israeli residents began complaining of rising crime.
