408
Racism has no place in Judaism, President Shimon Peres declared on Thursday at a swearing in ceremony at the Supreme Court. As President and as a citizen of Israel, he said, he was appalled by revelations of incitement and racism. Peres warned against apathy and indifference to such a scourge, saying that indifference to atrocity is no different than the atrocity itself.
Peres\’s comments came amid recent anger towards the the influx of infiltrators from Africa. Earlier Thursday, eleven youths from south Tel Aviv were indicted on for carrying out a number of racially-motivated attacks against foreigners, according to Israel Radio.
The youths, all around 15 years of age, include 10 males and one female. The indictment charges that in recent weeks they beat and robbed a number of migrants.
On Wednesday night, around 200 people gathered in south Tel Aviv’s Shapira neighborhood, chanting “The Left is a cancer,” “Deport the Sudanese” and “Leftists to Sudan.” The rally came about a week after Israelis ran amok in the Hatikva neighborhood, smashing African-run storefronts and attacking asylum-seekers following an anti-migrant protest that around 1,000 people attended.
During the course of his speech, Peres said that he was aware of the dire straits of the residents of South Tel Aviv and other places he said, but notwithstanding the hardships that are being endured, hatred of the other was not the solution.
"Hatred of the stranger is alien to the foundations of Judaism," said Peres. "We are obligated to respect the stranger and the other in our midst and to uphold their rights as human beings." Peres quoted a Bible passage from the Book of Deuteronomy as proof that this is one of the fundamentals of Judaism.
The president also said that it was up to the state to find a lawful solution to the problem, but added that everyone must unite to condemn and uproot the voices of incitement and racism.