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On September 2, 2023, the streets of south Tel
Aviv were turned into a warzone as rival groups of Eritrean expats battled
amongst themselves and then, later, with the Israeli police, who were
attempting to disperse the melee.4:00 pm
On September 2, 2023, the streets
of south Tel Aviv were turned into a warzone as rival groups of Eritrean
expats battled amongst themselves
and then, later, with the Israeli police, who were attempting to disperse the
melee.
The riot began when Eritreans
opposed to the dictatorial regime in their home country confronted a group of
Eritreans celebrating the African country’s independence. The confrontation
quickly turned into a full-blown rampage, with members of both the
pro-government and opposition camps attacking each other with pieces of lumber,
metal, rocks, and at least one axe.
Ultimately, the Israeli police
were forced to use a variety of riot dispersal methods, including tear gas,
stun grenades, and live ammunition fired in the air, to quell the riot and
return calm to the area.
With roughly 150 people injured,
the brawl garnered a significant amount of international media attention.
While most of the media
accurately portrayed the riot, several news outlets disproportionately focused
on the police response, creating the false impression that the tumult was
essentially a dispute between Eritrean refugees and the Israeli police.
Several commentators on social
media also used the police response as an opportunity to malign the Jewish
state.
Spotlighting the Israeli Police,
Downplaying the Intra-Eritrean Riot
Several international news
outlets played down the violent clash between the two groups of Eritreans and
instead focused heavily on the Israeli police’s response.
For example, the BBC’s initial
headline reported it as “Police clash with Eritrean asylum seekers.” Even
though the headline was later updated, the article continued to dedicate several paragraphs to the
police response while only briefly referring to the violent confrontation
between the Eritrean groups in two paragraphs.
The BBC report even went so far
as to implicitly blame Israel for the rampage, claiming that it “was sparked
after activists opposed to the Eritrean government said they asked Israeli
authorities to cancel an embassy event on Saturday.”
Similarly, The Guardian’s report, under the headline
“Eritrean asylum seekers and police injured in clashes in Israel,” dedicated
the majority of its coverage to the skirmish between the police and the
Eritrean rioters.
When referencing the initial
clashes that pre-empted the police response, The Guardian only mentioned a
“demonstration” that “turned violent” as well as “clashes…between supporters
and opponents of the Eritrean regime.”
This is a far cry from its coverage of a similar riot in
early August in Sweden. In that instance, nearly the entire piece was dedicated
to describing the intra-communal fighting and not the police’s response.
This false portrayal of the riot
as primarily a clash between the police and Eritrean refugees was also evident
in Sky News’ headline, “More than 140 injured
in clashes between Eritrean asylum seekers and Israeli police.”
Voice of America’s one-minute video, “Eritrean Asylum-Seekers Clash With Israeli Police,”
predominantly featured images of the police response and almost no coverage of
the violent skirmishes that precipitated the response.
The story was not newsworthy for
The New York Times until, 24 hours later, the Israeli government began
discussing a plan to deport those who had engaged in the violence, contributing
to a false and misleading media narrative that portrays the Israeli police and
government as the aggressors and victimizers of Eritrean refugees.
Misrepresenting the Riot on
Social Media
Some anti-Israel social media
personalities took their hate to the extreme by erasing any mention of the
clash between the two Eritrean groups and portraying the Israeli police as
using deadly force without provocation.
The British rapper Lowkey claimed that “Israeli police
opened fire with live ammunition on a protest of Eritrean refugees in Tel Aviv”
while pro-Palestinian activist Heather Alexandra was more blunt in her
revolting message by tweeting that “Israeli police
fired live bullets at black people in Tel Aviv today.”
Israeli police fire with live ammunition on protest
of Eritrean refugees in Tel Aviv.
Over 100 protestors are
injured, including 13 in serious condition.
Just another day in a
racist state. pic.twitter.com/O0qtX5fZdu
— Lowkey
(@Lowkey0nline) September 2, 2023
Independent journalist Rafael Shimunov claimed that
“There are images of corpses of Eritrean refugees who were murdered by Israeli
police in a playground” (even though there were no reported deaths from the
riot at the time of his tweet) and that “Their ‘crime’ was protesting an event
by the Eritrean embassy. Rather than deescalate…they used bullets and will now
smear the dead.”
Palestinian journalist Mariam
Barghouti tweeted that “Israeli police
are brutally cracking down on Eritrean refugees in Tel Aviv,” adding that this
signified the “essence and core of Israeli supremacy. A single ethnoreligious
state for White Jewish people.”
Barghouti clearly doesn’t account
for the fact that the vast majority
of Israeli citizens are of non-European descent.
Various skirmishes have occurred
around the world between expatriate Eritrean supporters and opponents of its
government. However, only the melee that occurred in Israel seems to have
resulted in a change of narrative to turn an intra-Eritrean conflict into one
between the police and Eritrean expats.
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