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People Against Suffering, Oppression and Poverty (PASSOP) and the Congress of South African trade Unions (COSATU) are disgusted by the blatant and open expressions of xenophobia, racism and anti-immigrant sentiment expressed during the Anti-African protest held in Tel Aviv on Sunday by Israel.
Israel’s ruling party, Likud, as expected, supports this total disregard for human rights. Miri Rege, who represented the ruling party at the protest, previously described African asylum seekers as a “cancer to the body”.

Their protest was in response to a recent Israeli High Court ruling, which declared it unconstitutional to indefinitely detain asylum seekers without charge. The High Court ruling overruled the Anti-Infiltration Law. It is our view that to term African refugees "infiltrators" is blatant racism and the law was clearly aimed to strip them of their dignity.
As a signatory of the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, the Israeli government has done very little in protecting refugees that have fled persecution in their countries and instead refuses to recognize most asylum seekers as refugees. The ruling party`s Interior Minister Gideon Sa’ar and other far-right politicians continue to actively push for the neglect of refugees, with their latest plot being to overturn this ruling through introducing new legislation in order to prevent the annulling of the Anti–Infiltration law.

The court’s landmark decision was a short-lived victory for human rights and a triumph for the plight of asylum seekers who reside in Israel, because it upheld their right to dignity instructing the closure, within 90 days, of the notorious Holot Detention centre. It is clear that the dreadful conditions in the centre were deliberately designed to drive African asylum seekers back home to face further persecution, instead of providing them with protection as provided by the UN and international law.

The anti-African gathering of Israelis in South Tel Aviv expressing a view that all African asylum seekers are criminals that aim to "infiltrate" their communities and was itself an obvious act of racism. Politicians from the ruling party, instead of pushing for integration and equality, are instead promoting such racist discourse among young Israelis. The racism that African asylum seekers experience appears to be an extension of the ongoing racism that Palestinians experience at the hands of the Israeli government and ruling party.
We note that the dignified response of asylum seekers was to offer the protestors roses, as an act of peace and love. We commend them for their maturity in the face of such hostility and blatant expression of apartheid as a way of life in that country.

This deliberate attempt at denial of the rights of African refugees by the Israeli ruling party, Likud, is a further indication that Israel’s governing party is a racist supporter of Apartheid policies. It is clear that the government of Israel is oppressing black Africans within Israel, while denying refuge for displaced Palestinian civilians who tried to flee the recent attack on Gaza. The Israeli government has failed refugees and continues to oppress and further displace Palestinians through unlawful attacks and occupations.

Strangely the state of Israel denies Palestinians the right of refuge, or even the rite of passage, while still refusing to recognize that state of Palestine. In this light PASSOP and COSATU welcome the important and necessary decision made by Sweden to recognize the Palestinian state and call upon all other European, African, Caribbean, Asian and Latin American countries to immediate pronounce same to isolate Israel and the few who still support its racist system and open violation of international law.

PASSOP and COSATU call upon workers to combat the racist system of the Likud Party and all the elites in that country, as well as attempts by groups, including the Israeli government, to divide the working class and the poor. Furthermore until Israel desists from its rampant disregard for the human rights of African immigrants and Palestinians we encourage immigrants and workers across the world to increase their efforts to support the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions Campaign against Israel.
- See more at: http://www.cosatu.org.za/show.php?ID=9599#sthash.KoIQJ7dr.dpuf

Issued by COSATU