As reported by Vremya Novostei, at a cabinet meeting Sharon responded to this: "The words of the Haifa police chief have caused great harm and created a tense situation in society."
According to Colonel Mariash, "the percentage of crimes involving new immigrants from the CIS countries significantly exceeds their percentage share of the city's total population." The colonel said this after it was announced on May 30 that a native of Moldova had been detained and confessed to the murder of four people. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon wished to personally review the case, but immediately stated that while he is prime minister, the "Law of Return" will not be changed. In his view, the best solution here could be "enlisting new immigrants for service in the police force."
But Yigal Yasinov, head of the parliamentary lobby defending immigrants who have suffered from racism and discrimination, demanded more. He called on Minister of Internal Security Gideon Ezra and Inspector General of Police Moshe Karadi to dismiss Colonel Mariash, who "instead of fighting criminals, is engaged in demonizing the Russian-speaking immigrant, creating an 'enemy image' from a quarter of the country's population." Yasinov also called on the Israeli government's legal adviser Meni Mazuz to launch "an investigation into the ongoing persecution of new immigrants from CIS countries by the police." He also brought the issue to the agenda of a plenary session of the Knesset. "Jews are the eternal scapegoat for anti-Semites around the world. In Israel, this fate is reserved for immigrants from the former USSR," Yasinov said at a demonstration organized by the Committee for the Defense of Democracy and Human Rights.
"If you speak Russian, if you immigrated from the former USSR, then for the Israeli police you automatically become a bandit or a prostitute. In their opinion, we are all like that," Yasinov stated. According to him, if a criminal is a native of the former USSR and not ethnically Jewish, the police immediately look for a "Slavic criminal gene." And, as the deputy notes, this is not only a police problem: "In the USSR we fought against everyday anti-Semitism, and here we fight everyday Russophobia, and I don't know which is worse."
An illustration of this can be the interview of the mayor of the town of Arad, Moti Brill, published in the newspaper Haaretz. "The massive influx of Russian-speaking Israelis caused the economic crisis in the city and throughout the country, prompting many Arad residents to move to more prosperous areas," the mayor believes. The ultra-Orthodox newspaper Ha-Modia (The Informer) claims that non-Jews who immigrated from the former USSR are "vile murderers, drunkards, and a fifth column," and continued immigration from the former USSR will turn Israel "into a state of goyim, murderers, and neo-Nazis."
Deputy Minister of Absorption Marina Solodkina explains the outbreak of "Russophobia" by the fact that "last week three high-profile crimes involving immigrants occurred at the same time." "People reacted the way their minds allowed them," Solodkina explained. For example, the Haifa police chief called for limiting immigration. And a Knesset deputy from the religious party Shas proposed to "review the documents of all those who immigrated to Israel over the past three years."
Solodkina admitted that "there is an ambiguous attitude both towards immigrants from the former USSR and towards immigrants from other countries." The reason, in her words, is "the crisis in the security and economic spheres in Israel." Budget allocations for social programs have significantly decreased. "Payments to new immigrants (absorption basket) and benefits to single-parent families were cut, making absorption, that is, adaptation in the country, practically impossible. People ended up on the street, and many of them became involved with the criminal world. As a result, criminals in Israel are mainly new immigrants who have no means of subsistence, and people from single-parent families. But the gradual recovery of the economy will also lead to the recovery of Israeli society," concluded Marina Solodkina.
Obviously, immigrants from the former USSR also hope for this, because they still come to Israel more readily than others. According to official data for 2004, more of our former compatriots arrived in Israel than from any other country – 10,404 people. Only Ethiopia can compete with us, from where 3,700 people arrived in Israel in 2004. "Every week about a hundred new citizens from the former USSR countries arrive in Israel. In the first week of May, 148 people arrived, including 111 from Russia and 21 from Ukraine," said Semyon Dovzhik, press secretary of the Jewish Agency "Sokhnut."
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