Israeli immigration enforcers do not work on the Jewish sabbath and so, on a Saturday afternoon, tattered southern Tel Aviv can look like an African city

Having slipped into Israei, young black men from Sudan, Eritrea and other impoverished nations wander the streets of a country that physically borders Africa but where the citizens live like Europeans. Most of the Jewish locals do not like the immigrants, referring to them as “infiltrators,” a term that evokes a security risk associated with Palestinian trying to reclaim their land, or mount an attack. In Levinsky Park, a tidy square of green in Tel Aviv that at any hour of the day or night is dotted with black African men waiting out the day. “No work, no food, no home,” says Solomon Mendasha, 41, who arrived from Eritrea with the help of smugglers to whom he paid $3,400. He gestured to the grass beneath his feet. “Sleep here.” Most of the black Africans are legally forbidden to work in Israel. Most do anyway, in an underground economy that pays a fraction of the minimum wage for jobs Israeli Jews refuse to do, like hauling garbage and cleaning homes. The Jewish wives of Israeli cabinet ministers often make headlines for employing illegal immigrants as nannies or housekeepers. Of the 62,000 black Africans who have sought asylum in Israel since 2006, a high number are homeless. Some say that 40% of crimes in Israel are committed by black Africans. “The Sudanese are a cancer in our body,” said Miri Regev, a member of the Israeli parliament from the Likud party, who spoke before a gathering of around 1,000 people. “There are rapists and harassers here,” said lawmaker Michael Ben Ari of the National Union. “The time for talk is over.” After the speeches, some of the protesters went on a rampage, chasing down any black people unfortunate enough to be nearby. Since the riot, black Africans are being attacked on the street and in their sleep. A group of young Israelis were charged with attacking black Africans in Tel Aviv with chains, clubs and stones. The mere presence of young black men discomfits many Jews in Israel, where Ethiopian Jews resident in the country for more than a generation complain of a deep-seated racial prejudice. Israel’s attorney general has approved a plan to deport 700 people to South Sudan, the newly minted country that has resumed war with Khartoum. “They always blame the Sudanese,” says Mubarak Abakar, who is from Darfur. “For everything. The problem is we don’t want to go back to Sudan. That is a problem.” The Israelis are unhappy with the situation. Large numbers of black Africans remain in cities of the Negev Desert, where they arrive from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. The border is being reinforced by a massive new fence intended to thwart both terror attacks out of Sinai and illegal immigration. The Negev is where the government of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also building a camp that can hold 8,000 immigrants, for as long as three years before deportation, though some may be held indefinitely. Currently authorities process many refugees with temporary papers then dispatch them to Tel Aviv, Israel’s commercial center. Levinsky Park is next to the city’s bus terminal. ”It’s very dangerous with them,” says Yafit Cohen, 59, changing buses at a stop at the edge of the green. The presence of a large police station actually inside the park offers the native Israeli Jew scant comfort. “It’s frightening,” she says. “Young girls, 13, 14, they are afraid to go out.”