Non-violent demonstrations in Israel by once warmly welcomed Jewish Ethiopian immigrants were shut down by police while political leaders sought an 11th hour deal to allow black students into schools, reminding many of the anti-segregation struggles in the U.S. in the 1950s and 60s. Ethiopians were brought into the country in celebrated covert operations during the 1980s and 90s, but now find that racism trumps the shared religion that brought the to Israel in the first place. The root of the problem is made evident in a recent book’s title, One People, One Blood: Ethiopian-Israelis and the Return to Judaism.
“We came here because we thought Israel was our country. We didn’t expect this,” said Demelash Belay, a 36-year-old English teacher who moved to Israel in 2006 in a CSM interview. “We heard in Ethiopia that Israel is a democratic country. We found discrimination. And because of it Ethiopians are suffering.” Protest leader Uri Kabadeh wore a T-shirt reading “We want equality, we’re all Jewish” as he led a crowd chanting in both their native Amharric and adopted Hebrew. “Down with racism, down with discrimination.” 100,000 Ethiopians now live in Israel , with more arriving each year. Non-violent demonstrations an police responses are nothing new.
Some say the difference between this situation and U.S. segregation is that the latter was state-supported and this one comes from institutions like schools and the native ethnic Jewish population. But wait a second. “Native ethnic Jewish population”? That’s a term deserving of a bit of deconstruction: the Jews in Israel came and come from every nation in Europe and the Americas, as well as different parts of Asia. What is an ethnic Jew? Is not the identity of Jews based in religion not race, a dangerous conflation that often repeated events of the 20th century make clear? Not for Ethiopian immigrants there.
The Apartheid-like treatment of Palestinian based on Arab ethnicity and religious affiliations (mostly Muslim, also Christian), the actual “native” population, is explicitly supported by the Israeli state. Is the feigned “acceptance” of Ethiopians meant as a palliative or a smokescreen? Israel’s sole Ethiopian parliamentarian rushed to the state’s defense, forgetting that what is happening to his constituents is but a pale reflection of ongoing, racist and religionist current events creating the future of Palestinians, the Middle East region and the world their grandchildren will inherit.