http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/194441/in-grief-eriteans-in-israel-face-a-stark-reality
The Scroll
In Grief, Eriteans in Israel Face a Stark Reality
Mourners gathered in Tel Aviv on Wednesday to remember Haftom Zarhum,
the 29-year-old Eritrean man who was mistakenly identified as a
terrorist, shot, then lynched by a mob in Be’er Sheba
By Rachel Delia Benaim
The Scroll
In Grief, Eriteans in Israel Face a Stark Reality
Mourners gathered in Tel Aviv on Wednesday to remember Haftom Zarhum,
the 29-year-old Eritrean man who was mistakenly identified as a
terrorist, shot, then lynched by a mob in Be’er Sheba
By Rachel Delia Benaim
October 22, 2015
“He’s a man, he’s not a dog.”
So repeated Eden, an Eritrean refugee living in Tel Aviv, where
hundreds of mourners like him gathered on Wednesday to remember Haftom
Zarhum, the 29-year-old Eritrean asylum seeker who was recently killed
in Be’er Sheba. On Sunday night, Zarhum was shot by a security guard
after being “misidentified” as the Bedouin assailant who shot up the
city’s central bus terminal, killing a 19-year-old IDF soldier and
injuring many more.
Zarhum, it turns out, was on his way back home to the village of Ein
Habesor where he worked in a plant nursery. He was in Be’er Sheba to
extend his conditional release visa, which provides African refugees
the right to live in Israel with restrictions.
In Tel Aviv’s Levinsky Park, a crowd formed a circle around dozens of
boxes of Shabbat candles that would be lit throughout the night in
Zarhum’s memory. Wailing and screams of anguish could be heard
emanating from the center of the circle, even over the deafening
airplanes that passed overhead. Salah, an Eritrean woman who fled to
Tel Aviv in 2011, noted “I am here because in [Eritrea], when someone
dies, especially like this, this is what we do to show respect.”
Joe (L) and Howard (R), two Eritrean refugees, hold memorial candles
in memory of Zarhum in south Tel Aviv’s Levinsky Park Wednesday
evening. (Image: Rachel Delia Benaim)
At twilight, three men laid down a wreath delicately made of forest
green leaves and vivid orange flowers, with a green banner through the
center reading “Jerusalem African Community Center,” an
Israeli-African NGO that promotes the rights of African refugees in
Israel.
After he was shot, Zarhum lay on the filthy bus station floor wounded,
bleeding out, when a group of Israelis, including a soldier and two
prison wardens, beat him, chanting “break his head” in Hebrew. Israeli
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon called it a lynching.
Since October 1, a wave of violence has washed over Israelis and
Palestinians. Some are wondering if a third intifada is nearing. But
this wasn’t Zarhum’s conflict; his was a different one that stretches
many miles away to the horn of Africa, where Isaias Afwerki rules over
Eritrea—a country that remains in a “state of emergency” after gaining
independence from Ethiopia—with an iron fist. The U.N. estimates that
400,000 Eritreans, or 9% of the country’s total population, have fled,
according to The Wall Street Journal. Eritreans began pouring into
Israel through the Egyptian border in 2007 because of the unbearable
situation. They fled poverty and forced military service for the
regime.
Howard, 30, arrived in Israel seven and a half years ago. “In 2007 I
came,” he said in Hebrew, shaking his head. “In Eritrea, we have
problems, and we think in Israel it will be different. But here we
have new problems: we are not free.”
“We come here and try to just work and be,” said Effy, another
refugee. “We learn the language, but they treat us like the worst,” he
said. If Israel is going to do [what they did to Zarhum], and treat
Eritreans like garbage, he wondered: “Why do they take us? Send us to
another country! Lock us out!”
An Israeli man, Uri Shmilovich, holds up a sign that reads “Enough
with the racism!” (Image: Courtesy of the author)
Israel has tried. In 2012, it erected a border fence with Egypt
specifically to block African migrants from entering. But even though
new refugees are hindered from entering the country via Egypt, the
most viable path, Israel must manage the estimated 45,000 African
refugees already inside. Official Israeli sources, however, refer to
them exclusively as “African migrants” and Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu has even gone so far as to call them infiltrators.
In 2013, Israel began detaining thousands of migrants in Holot, a
detention center for African asylum seekers next to a prison on the
Egyptian border. “It is the most disgusting place,” said Effy, now 29,
who spent two years there. Holot has come under scrutiny regarding due
process and its apparent carte blance power to detain Eritrean and
Sudanese asylum seekers.
It is unrealistic for Eritreans to expect to leave Israel any time
soon. They have nowhere else to go, and no means by which to even get
there. And not all of them want to, either. “It doesn’t matter if the
color of our skin is different, we are people like Israelis are people
and Palestinians are people,” Eden said. Though there is systemic
racism, he is hoping a modernized country like Israel will combat it.
At the end of the day, “We want to live here in peace, in peace with
everyone,” he said.
The Israelis at the memorial—few and far between—agreed. Dror
Mizrachi, a native Tel Avivian, insisted adamantly, “We need to change
our ways.”
Previous: Mourning Begins For Victims of Be’er Sheba Bus Station Attack
Rachel Delia Benaim is a freelance religion reporter. Her work has
appeared in The Washington Post, The Daily Beast, and The Diplomat,
among others.. Follow her on Twitter _at_rdbenaim.
Received on Thu Oct 22 2015 - 22:20:18 EDT