Precariousness and Protest: Negotiating Urban Refuge in Cairo and Tel Aviv

Abstract

In the winter of 2018, Tel Aviv’s streets and squares were occupied by two large protests organized by one of the most destitute population groups in the city. At the end of February and again at the end of March, thousands of African asylum seekers, supported by Israeli residents, demonstrated against Israel’s plan to deport many of them in a government operation scheduled to begin in early April. In the first demonstration, over 20,000 people marched through the streets of south Tel Aviv, one of the city’s most neglected areas where many asylum seekers live, and the second rally of more than 25,000 took place in central Rabin Square. ‘There is no difference between our blood and their blood because we are all human beings’ was one of the slogans chanted together by the African and Israeli protesters, who also carried signs quoting Jewish texts about loving the stranger (Lidman, 2018; Yaron, 2018). Shortly after these protests the planned mass deportations were suspended by the High Court of Justice and eventually were cancelled by the government.