Hundreds gather in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem to protest anti-migrant racism

Hundreds of protesters gathered in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Thursday evening to condemn the racism and violence exhibited at a Tel Aviv demonstration the night before against the continued presence African migrants.

Armed with signs saying “Stop the racism!” and chanting “Racism in the Knesset, the country is crashing!”, demonstrators rallied outside the prime minister’s residence in Jerusalem to protest the rhetoric voiced in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, particularly by members of the Knesset. Another placard featured a Biblical quote that reminded Israelis, “We were foreigners too, in the land of Egypt.”

Protesters in Tel Aviv made their way towards Likud party headquarters, protesting controversial statements made by some of the party’s members, Army Radio reported.

At Wednesday’s protest, MK Miri Regev (Likud) referred to the African migrants as a “cancer,” and National Union MK Michael Ben-Ari said that because of the Sudanese in south Tel Aviv “women cannot go to the market without having their bags stolen, girls cannot play and young men cannot find work.”

Many of the protesters at Wednesday night’s protest also expressed their sentiments in a manner deemed offensive by others. One woman posed for a photographer wearing a white tank-top on which she had written the words, “Death to the Sudanese.”

Matti Friedman contributed to this report.