Dynamic Africa

Yityish Titi Aynaw, 21, has become the first Ethiopian-born woman to win the Miss Israel pageant.

She was crowned Miss Israel 2013 on Wednesday night at the International Convention Center, Haifa.

15-Year-Old Egyptian Cyber Activist Takes on Israel →

How one teenager helped prep Gazans for an Internet shut off—with the help of Anonymous.

Last week, when the Israel Defense Forces threatened to pull the switch on the Internet in Gaza, Nour Haridy wanted a backup plan. So the 15-year-old high-school student from Cairo went on Twitter and asked in Arabic and English for help on how Gazans could get back online in the event of a shutoff.

What happened next shows the fine line between so-called cyberactivism—or using social media and the Internet to fight an information war—and hacking, the often illegal art of breaking into websites, email accounts, and other online domains for profit, fun, or a political cause.

Haridy says he got many responses on Twitter, but the most promising were from people who said they were affiliated with Anonymous, a group of activist hackers that famously attacked the websites of the U.S. Department of Justice and companies it deemed enemies of WikiLeaks such as MasterCard and Amazon.

Haridy soon found himself talking to the Anonymous hackers through a Gaza-specific Internet Relay Chat, a secure mode of communications favored by hackers, activists, and gamers. In those first conversations, Haridy says the hackers from Anonymous agreed to create a step-by-step plan for getting online through either dial-up connection or other means if the Internet were to go down. These instructions were incorporated onto a website Haridy and other cyberactivists created for Vox Palestine to disseminate information to Gazans during the war. “They helped us a lot,” Haridy said in an interview. “Without Anonymous we would not have reached the surface.” Efforts to reach Anonymous were unsuccessful.

But while Haridy was putting the finishing touches on the Vox Palestine website, Anonymous was planning its own counter-offensive it had dubbed #OpIsrael. In a Nov. 17 YouTube message, a man in the group’s tell tale disguise of a Guy Fawkes mask read a message warning, “Israel, the angel of death has been called to your cyberspace.” The message claimed that the group had already defaced 10,000 Israeli websites, though Israeli officials dispute this number.

Haridy says he thinks what Anonymous is doing “is necessary,” but says he and his group had nothing to do with the Anonymous attacks. Indeed, the Gaza IRC has a rule urging participants not to discuss “DDOS attacks,” or hacks that disable a website by overwhelming it with requests for information.

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Apartment of African migrants living in Israel burned in arson attack

For the second time in a little over a month, arsonists targeted a Jerusalem apartment home to African migrants, seriously injuring an Eritrean man and lightly injuring his pregnant wife.

Three crews of firefighters arrived at the apartment, located near the Mahaneh Yehuda market, a little after 3 a.m. A neighbor who shares a courtyard with the couple said he was awoken by screams and saw 32-year-old Tegai Timrat run out of the apartment, engulfed in flames and trying desperately to put them out.

eighbors who were drawn to the street by the screams were so shocked by the sight that it took a minute for one neighbor to douse him with water, a witness said. Timrat received severe burns on his arms and legs and his wife, who is six months’ pregnant, suffered smoke inhalation.

They were both taken to Hadassah University Medical Center in Ein Kerem.

Firefighters immediately classified the fire as arson and transferred suspicious materials, which they believe started the fire, to the police.

Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said police are checking to see if Thursday’s attack was connected to a similar one on June 5, when arsonists tried to burn down a building housing 50 migrants on Jaffa Road, also next to Mahaneh Yehuda and around 3 a.m., by starting a fire in the stairwell. Fire and Rescue Services spokesman Asaf Abras said the June 5 fire was a “death trap” that could have easily ended in major tragedy. Three people received minor burns on their arms and legs.

A special unit comprised of a dozen police investigators created to look into that attack will also investigate Thursday’s fire.

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South Sudanese waved after their plane landed Tuesday in Juba, South Sudan, from Israel.

Israel is returning asylum seekers back to their country of origin.

Read more about this issue.

(Hannah McNeish/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images)

South Sudanese deportees face uncertain future

Israel is continuing to expel undocumented African migrants from the country.

A group of South Sudanese has now arrived in Juba, the country’s capital, as part of the second wave of expulsions since Israel first launched its crackdown.

Many of the returning families face an uncertain future, returning to a homeland that many have not lived in for decades.

Al Jazeera’s Anna Cavell reports from Juba, South Sudan.

A migrant worker looked out of a bus on his way to Ben Gurion International Airport in Israel Monday.

Israel is expelling an additional 150 South Sudanese as part of its campaign to reduce the number of African migrants who have slipped illegally into the Jewish state.

(Ariel Schalit/Associated Press)

androphilia:

The Jewish Museum Takes on Racism in Israel, Then Backs Away | Heeb

By Amy Schiller

June 20, 2012

The Jewish Museum, otherwise known as “that place you take Grandma when she visits,” now has the most cutting-edge artistic social commentary in the Jewish world.

By an incredibly grand stroke of luck, Israel’s whole violence-against-African-refugees thing blew up right in the middle of their exhibit by Kehinde Wiley, composed exclusively of portraits of men of color in Israel.

The exhibit was already a bold move for the Jewish Museum, given that Wiley’s repertoire is centered around portraits of black men, with motifs that blend and riff on the European Masters, West African textiles, Islamic motifs and Haruki Murakami. (Serious question: Did the Jewish Museum pick Wiley because they mistook his first name for Yiddish? “Such nachas from the kehinde! Here, let me show you pictures of my kehinde-leh.”)

Wiley is known for featuring men he meets on the street, initially in Harlem and now from locations spanning several continents (Nigeria, Brazil, China.) Israel is included among the countries selected for the collection titled “The World Stage” because, according to the Museum, the men in the series “express a modern sensibility that supersedes religious and ethnic affiliations.” Really? The YouTube shirt supercedes the fact that its wearer can’t serve in the military and get a good job?

According to the artist, Wiley included Israel in his world tour because he “wanted to mine where the world is at right now and chart the movement of black and brown men around the world.” Well, Kehinde, apparently the movement of black and brown men to and within Israel is pretty brutal: 52% of Israelis polled call African migrants “a cancer,” politicians attempt to classify them as “economic migrants” and the asylum system apparently exists merely to formalize mass deportations and repatriations of the black men fleeing certain death.

The video of the artist on the exhibit homepage shows him celebrating the diversity of Israeli society, relishing the opportunity to create powerful representations of Arab, Ethiopian, and Sephardi men. Yet we are very far from the moment when we can celebrate Israel’s diversity, when 99.9% of African asylum seekers are turned away and those who remain are subject to relentless poverty and violence.

Now might be an auspicious time for the Jewish Museum to capitalize on its newfound, perhaps unprecedented, relevance. They could provide new commentary from the artist or opportunities for discussion about the relationship between the exhibit’s subjects and the humiliating discrimination that many black men have been subjected to at the hands of the Israeli public.

Wiley attempts to challenge the hierarchy of representation in a world determined to dehumanize men of color; there can be no more poignant example of the forces he is up against than the riots and soundbites of the past several weeks.

Alas, when asked whether the Museum would consider seizing the moment through expanded commentary or programming, their response was a firm disavowal: “We have done nothing of the sort, and it’s not something we have even considered.” Even Grandma might be disappointed by this missed opportunity.

Copyright © 2012 Heeb Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

[Image: Solomon Mashash, a 2011 painting by Kehinde Wiley, from his series The World Stage: Israel.]

Second generation Ethiopian-Israelis demonstrate in Jerusalem, demand for fair and equal treatment

Yetmwork Makurya, 35, had tears in her eyes as she spoke of her attachment to Israel. When she arrived as a teenager in 1991 on a secret overnight airlift from Ethiopia, she said, “Jerusalem and the land of Israel was my dream.”

Yet over the past three months Ms. Makurya has spent much of her time with an angry new generation of Ethiopian-Israeli activists on the sidewalk near the prime minister’s residence in central Jerusalem, protesting against unofficial but hurtful racism and discrimination.

“Here,” said Ms. Makurya, a mother of three, “everything is determined by the color of my skin.”

For many Israelis, the idea that Jews could be racist toward other Jews is anathema. The 1991 airlift, known as Operation Solomon, brought 14,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel within 36 hours and was greeted at the time with great celebration.

Natan Sharansky, the human rights activist who spent years in Soviet prisons before arriving in Israel, joined one of the flights.

In an interview on the 20th anniversary of the airlift last year, Mr. Sharansky, by then the chairman of the quasi-governmental Jewish Agency that deals with immigration, said with pride, “Black, white — there is no difference in the ingathering of exiles.”

As the dazed new immigrants descended the plane steps, many kissed the tarmac. Operation Solomon followed an earlier, smaller wave of clandestine immigration in the 1980s, involving a treacherous trek from Ethiopia to camps on the Sudanese border. Thousands perished along the way; Israel recently began honoring them with official memorials.

Armies of volunteers and organizations, and a plethora of programs largely financed by American Jews, helped ease the transition of the Ethiopians from the rural life to modern Israeli society. The government has also allocated significant resources to help them.

But a second generation of young, educated adults who have grown up in Israel say they are still struggling to be accepted as Israeli, and are distancing themselves from the grateful passivity of their parents.

“For our parents it was a privilege to come to Israel, so they didn’t complain,” said Yamluck Waggow Ichasheman, 31. “Longings for Zion brought them here.”

They bristle at what they see as a patronizing attitude. Many Israelis, said Ms. Makurya, who works as a counselor, convey the message, “ ‘Say thank you that you’re here, we gave you food.’ ” She added, “Some here say there is no such thing as a black Jew.”

The immigrants first exploded in rage when reports emerged in 1996 that Israel was secretly dumping blood donated by Ethiopians for fear that it was contaminated with H.I.V.

Immigration experts here say that the Ethiopian-Israelis do face some racism and prejudice, but that racism is not the main problem blocking their progress. Earlier immigrants from other countries like Morocco and Yemen also had a long, rough entry into Israeli society.

“I have always said that integration takes a generation,” said Arnon Mantver, the director of JDC-Israel, the Israeli branch of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which has worked intensively with the Ethiopian community. Given the formidable challenges facing the Ethiopians, he said, “Perhaps it takes longer.”

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African migrants rested at a playground in southern Tel Aviv Thursday.

Violent race riots shook the area overnight after protesters called for the expulsion of blacks—some shouting ‘Blacks out!’—and accused them of bringing crime.

An interior minister demanded that Africans illegally in Israel be imprisoned.

(Menahem Kahana/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images)

A Muslim migrant from Africa* prayed Friday morning as his comrades slept at a ‘s playground in Tel Aviv’s Levinsky Park.

Race riots shook the city Wednesday night, prompting calls Thursday for the removal of tens of thousands of African migrants.

(Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images)

*exact country of origin unspecified by news source

Israel PM: illegal African immigrants threaten identity of Jewish state →

The Israeli prime minister has stoked a volatile debate about refugees and migrant workers from Africa, warning that “illegal infiltrators flooding the country” were threatening the security and identity of the Jewish state.

“If we don’t stop their entry, the problem that currently stands at 60,000 could grow to 600,000, and that threatens our existence as a Jewish and democratic state,” Binyamin Netanyahu said at Sunday’s cabinet meeting. “This phenomenon is very grave and threatens the social fabric of society, our national security and our national identity.” Israel’s population is 7.8 million.

His comments follow media reports of rising crime, including two gang rapes, in southern Tel Aviv, where many African migrants are concentrated. However, Micky Rosenfeld, spokesman for the Israeli police, said the overall crime rate in Israel had fallen. There had been one alleged rape of a teenage girl connected to the migrant community, for which three suspects were in custody, he added.

Yohanan Danino, the Israeli police chief, said migrants should be permitted to work to discourage petty crime. Nearly all are unable to work legally, and live in overcrowded and impoverished conditions. “The community needs to be supported in order to prevent economic and social problems,” said Rosenfeld.

But the interior minister, Eli Yishai, rejected such a move, saying: “Why should we provide them with jobs? I’m sick of the bleeding hearts, including politicians. Jobs would settle them here, they’ll make babies, and that offer will only result in hundreds of thousands more coming over here.”

Yishai repeated an earlier call for all migrants to be jailed pending deportation. “I want everyone to be able to walk the streets without fear or trepidation … The migrants are giving birth to hundreds of thousands, and the Zionist dream is dying,” he told Army Radio. Last week he said most migrants were involved in criminal activity.

According to police data quoted by the Hotline for Migrant Workers, the crime rate among foreigners in Israel was 2.04% in 2010, compared with 4.99% among Israelis.

More than 13,500 people entered Israel illegally in 2010, of whom almost two-thirds were Eritrean and one-third were Sudanese. Three were granted refugee status by Israel, rising to six last year. Human rights organisations say more than 50,000 asylum seekers and migrants have entered Israel illegally since 2005.

Most are smuggled across the Israel-Egypt border by Bedouin tribesmen. Israel is constructing a vast steel fence through 150 miles of the Sinai desert as a deterrent to people-trafficking and the smuggling of drugs and weapons. The barrier would be completed, bar one small section, by October, Netanyahu said.

Israel is also constructing the world’s largest detention centre for asylum seekers and illegal migrants, capable of holding 11,000 people. The £58m building, close to the border, will receive its first detainees by the end of the year.

Netanyahu said the state would embark on “the physical withdrawal” of migrants, despite fears among human rights organisations about the dangers they could face in their home countries. Yishai said: “I’m not responsible for what happens in Eritrea and Sudan, the UN is.”

As tensions rise in cities with relatively high African populations, the past month has seen a spate of attacks on buildings in south Tel Aviv that house asylum seekers and migrant workers. In one incident, a Molotov cocktail was thrown into the courtyard of a kindergarten. NGOs working with migrants have also received abusive and threatening calls.

Amid the anti-immigration clamour, some Israelis have argued that, in the light of Jewish history, their state should be sympathetic and welcoming to those fleeing persecution.

Egypt-Israel Gas Issue Becoming Explosive →

The two weeks since Egypt’s abrupt cancellation of a Mubarak-era gas-export deal with Israel have seen an exchange of indirect threats and warnings between the two countries, culminating in an apparent Israeli military build-up on the border of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

“In recent days, Israel appears to have begun preparing for military deployments on its southern border,” Tarek Fahmi, head of the Israel desk at the Cairo-based National Centre for Middle East Studies, told IPS.

On Apr. 22, Egypt unilaterally cancelled a 2005 export agreement for the sale of natural gas to Israel, which for the past five years had ensured a steady supply of Egyptian gas from the northern Sinai Peninsula to Israel. Egyptian energy officials attributed the move to Israel’s failure to meet payment deadlines, stressing that the decision was “not politically motivated.”

Israel, which is said to depend on Egyptian gas for some 40 percent of its electricity needs, was quick to register its opposition.

Several Israeli officials warned of the move’s dire implications for the Camp David peace agreement, signed between Egypt and Israel in 1979. Israeli opposition leader Shaul Mofaz called on his country’s chief patron, the United States, to intervene on Israel’s behalf.

The Israeli Finance Ministry went so far as to describe the move as “a dangerous precedent that casts clouds over the peace agreements and the atmosphere of peace between Egypt and Israel.”

While Israeli officials have vowed to take legal action to ensure the supply of Egyptian gas, local energy analysts say Egypt was well within its legal rights to opt out of the deal.

“The Israeli purchasers failed to pay their bills to the tune of some 100 million dollars,” Ibrahim Zahran, Egyptian petroleum expert, told IPS. “The contract clearly states that if either party fails to live up to its obligations, the other has the right to terminate the agreement.”

Egypt first began pumping natural gas to Israel in 2008, based on a deal hammered out three years earlier that allowed Egypt-Israel joint venture East Mediterranean Gas (EMG) to sell Egyptian natural gas to Israeli buyers, including the government-run Israel Electric Corporation.

Given Israel’s broad unpopularity on the Egyptian street, the gas-export deal has met with widespread public opposition since its inception. Critics note that, by providing Israel with Egyptian gas at far below international prices (while Egypt itself suffers from chronic energy shortages), the deal effectively supports - albeit indirectly - Israel’s ongoing occupation and annexation of Palestinian land.

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