Rising Rents Forcing Israelis Into Tents : Immigration: The influx of Soviet Jews has brought a housing squeeze and a protest movement. Resentment at aid for the newcomers is growing.

Tent cities of the homeless are springing up in Israel, populated not--as many observers had predicted--by newly arrived Soviet Jews but by Israelis driven from their homes by soaring rents raised in anticipation of the immigrant influx.

In two cases Wednesday, homeless protesters took to the streets: in Tel Aviv, where dozens of them burned tires in intersections for a second day, and in downtown Jerusalem, where scores of marchers approached the Parliament building and the home of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. Some of the Jerusalem demonstrators scuffled with police who tried to clear them off the streets, witnesses said.

The day before, Israel Radio reported that one homeless Israeli doused himself with gasoline in front of the Housing Ministry and was about to set himself on fire when police intervened.

The national protest movement highlights the slow reaction to the immigration by Israel’s current and past governments. The squeeze on housing is expected to get worse over the summer as the pace of Soviet immigration picks up.

Although the protesters are careful to preface their remarks by saying, “we have nothing against the Soviets,” frustration among impoverished Israelis has led to resentment of aid given the newcomers. The national joy at the coming of tens of thousands of new citizens is giving way to a heated backlash.

“God bless the immigrants. But I can’t afford the rent my landlord is asking,” said Yossi Uljah, an unemployed laborer who has taken his wife and two children to live in a tent outside Israel’s Parliament building.

Before being laid off recently, Uljah was making $600 per month and paying $350 per month in rent. The landlord informed him that the rent would be raised to $450, and Uljah joined the protest.

“We will stay here all winter if we have to,” he said.

The story of escalating rents is being repeated all over the country, with many tenants complaining of doubled costs since the influx of Soviet Jews began in earnest last fall. About 50,000 have come so far and at least another 100,000 are expected to arrive by year’s end.

Government housing officials estimate that the country’s 20,000 vacant rental apartments will be filled by November, and by early next year, available units in hotels and army bases will be used up.

Meanwhile, planned construction of 60,000 new apartments has barely started. So far this year, ground has been broken for about 7,000 new homes. Urgent proposals to import prefabricated houses have run into stiff opposition from local construction companies and labor unions.

The slow pace of building had been expected to force the Soviet newcomers into “transit camps,” much as happened during the 1950s when a flood of immigrants from North Africa and the Near East overwhelmed Israel’s absorption capacity.

But this time, it is the settled Israeli population that is being squeezed, although housing for the Soviet immigrants may soon run out as well. Their prescribed six-month stay in temporary “absorption centers” may have to be extended, officials say.

“The government finds money to bribe each other and hold onto power. It can find something for us,” remarked Uljah, referring acidly to the horse-trading that cemented the recently formed coalition under Shamir.

In all, 12 tent cities have sprouted in the last few weeks, two in Jerusalem alone. The one where Uljah is camped, housing 42 families, has running water and portable toilets provided by the sponsors, a group of young army veterans. Tent protests are becoming the fashion in Israel; last spring, campers pressing for electoral reform set up a hunger strike under canopies on the same site.

Another encampment, in a park below, was set up Monday for 60 families by neighborhood activists representing the country’s underprivileged Sephardic community--Jews of North African and Near Eastern descent. The organizers pointedly characterize their tent city as a revival of transit camps.

“We want to make a full transition into Israeli society,” said Neftali Raz, one of the leaders.

Sephardic leaders have already warned of unrest should the needs of their followers be put aside in favor of the Soviet immigrants.

Some of the resentment can be traced to the traditional rivalry between the Sephardic population and the Ashkenazi, or European-origin community, whose numbers the newcomers will augment. A few government officials have warned of a “social explosion” should Sephardic Jews, who make up a large segment of Israel’s poor, feel neglected.

“If the government can solve problems for immigrants, it can solve our problems,” said Aliza Shirat, a single mother of three children who left her apartment after the electric, water and telephone companies all suspended service for non-payment of bills.

Shirat lives on a $300-per-month welfare check. She and her children were sheltered under black plastic tarps while volunteers strung bare bulbs among olive trees in the park. The city government provides toilets and running water.

The Sephardic tent city has introduced broad political messages into the protest. The left-wing leadership at the camp is calling for “equality” between immigrants and settled Israelis. They have also demanded that the government stop spending money in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and devote resources to Israel’s poor.

Protesters’ proposals range from lower land taxes and incentives for builders to rent control and cut-rate mortgages for buyers.

Politicians are trooping to the tent cities, but no one has produced concrete solutions. Housing Minister Ariel Sharon promised new apartments to a group camped out in Holon, near Tel Aviv, but the next day, officials said the homes were not immediately available.