Coalition MKs rage against High Court, while opposition blames gov’t for clashes

Coalition members blame clashes in Tel Aviv on the High Court of Justice for allowing Eritrean asylum seekers to reside in the southern neighborhoods in the city, while opposition parties blame the government for the violence.

“High Court judges are endangering the existence of the State of Israel as the national home of the Jewish people,” Likud MK Boaz Bismuth writes on X, formerly known as Twitter. “The striking down of Knesset laws designed to keep infiltrators out of the country was done against the law and with the extreme short-sightedness of the judges.”

“Today we had another taste of how it blows up in our faces,” he adds.

Likud MK Tally Gotliv writes: “Those of the High Court justices who allowed Eritreans to live in Tel Aviv thought today that they were wrong, that they allowed Eritreans to take over south Tel Aviv and threaten residents was a fatal mistake.”

She expressed backing for police officers, adding: “I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t bother any judge in their areas where there aren’t any Eritreans.”

The lawmakers were apparently referencing a number of decisions, most notably a High Court ruling in 2014 that struck down the “Infiltrators law,” declaring that the then-practice of holding African migrants in facilities in southern Israel for up to a year was illegal, and ordered the state to shutter the contested Holot detention center within 90 days.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid, leader of Yesh Atid, calls out the government for failing to live up to its promise to take care of Israel’s migrant issue.

“As usual, with them, the situation only gets worse and the chaos runs wild,” he tweets. “We took care of it quietly, without big declarations, conscious of the complexity of the issue.”

Opposition MK Naama Lazimi, from the Labor party, slams the authorities for not heeding the warnings of Eritrean community members in the lead up to the violence.

“The policy of turning a blind eye has brought us to this point. It is time for us to open them and demand that all those spreading slogans and explosive words start working for the public or resign.”

Yesh Atid MK Vladimir Beliak says the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on asylum seekers have failed for 15 years.

“Netanyahu appointed as police minister a criminal and TikTok clown [Itamar] Ben Gvir, who has dismembered the top of the police, including in the Tel Aviv district. There is a clear address to the failure of the treatment of infiltrators in south Tel Aviv and the anarchy raging in the region — the Netanyahu-Ben Gvir government,” Beliak writes.