Whoever is advising and coordinating the current migrant protests is doing its constituency a huge disservice.

Israelis are deeply torn about the plight of the tens of thousands of Africans who crossed into Israel via Egypt before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu belatedly sealed the border fence. This was a country founded too late to save millions of Jews from Nazi genocide, but a country that since 1948 has been able to serve as a place of refuge for persecuted Jews the world over, and its citizens know all too well the pitiful situation of oppressed masses turned coldly away at closed borders.

So long as the majority of the migrants were largely congregated in a limited area of south Tel Aviv, most Israelis allowed themselves to feel that the country had done the right thing in letting them stay, and could afford not to internalize the potential impact that a large influx could have on the wider country. Go to the areas around Levinsky Park and the appalling site that is Tel Aviv’s “new” bus station, and you cannot ignore the fact of a part of Israel that has become alien and downright scary, albeit not solely because of the new arrivals. Stay away, and you need never empathize with the outraged veteran residents of that area.

Read the article in full at Times of Israel