By Abe Selig | JERUSALEM POST
An entrance to the Prime Minister’s Office looked more like a refugee camp on Sunday afternoon as a protest by nearly 150 new immigrants from Ethiopia over “sub-standard” conditions at the Beit Alfa immigrant absorption center turned violent.
Crying children, men on crutches, and scattered personal possessions covered the blockaded entrance – behind the Bank of Israel headquarters – as the protesters, who have been there since Tuesday, have said that they refuse to leave the premises until solutions are found to their problems.
On Sunday, patience wore thin as protesters attempted to break into the PMO compound, and police detained eight of them for questioning.
While police said they had no choice but to prevent the protesters from entering the area, some of the immigrants alleged that police had used unnecessary force.
“They were beating people up,” one of the protesters said. “They came in and started hitting people, I saw them grabbing a man by the throat.”
The Jerusalem Police denied the allegation, saying, “The immigrants’ protest is illegal to begin with. They attempted, multiple times, to break into the compound and the police obviously had no choice but to respond and keep them from getting inside.”
While some of the protesters were dispersed during the melee, the majority of them said they have no choice but to continue with their protest, as no one in the government is willing to address their problems – the list of which runs the gamut from overdue allowances promised to the immigrants to a lack of work in the area around the absorption center, located on Kibbutz Beit Alfa, outside Beit Shean.
Some of the protesters also complained that their children were being bused all the way to Tiberias every day, just to attend school.
“My kids spend more time on the school bus than in the classroom,” said protester Desta Alameou. “What kind of education are they getting? What are their chances for success here if this is the way they begin their education?”
The protest first began in October, two days before Yom Kippur, when the immigrants alleged that they were not receiving their immigration benefits, and arrived at the PMO compound to protest.
According to a spokesman for the Immigrant Absorption Ministry at the time, the residents of Beit Alfa, stopped receiving their benefits after their first year in Israel and the National Insurance Institute only picked up the responsibility at the end of the 13th month.
The spokesman also said the NII had taken into consideration the two-month gap by handing out part of the benefit payment earlier this month, but that, “It was obviously not enough for them to live off.”
That protest did conclude, however, when the Jewish Agency and the Absorption Ministry agreed, just before the holiday began, to pay the immigrants their overdue benefits and set up an independent review committee to examine the living conditions at Beit Alfa.
And although that committee is due to file its findings within the next 10 days, protesters said they could wait no longer.
“There’s a lot of voices here saying they want to pack up and go back to Ethiopia,” said an Israel Association for Ethiopian Jews member who was on the scene. “But it could all be solved if they were moved to a different absorption center – that’s the main problem.”
In a statement, the Jewish Agency and the Absorption Ministry said that they “protest the immigrants’ violation of the agreement reached before Yom Kippur, according to which a committee will find better ways for the Beit Alfa absorption center to help the immigrants’ integration. Both the Jewish Agency and the Absorption Ministry are committed to act according to the findings.”
According to Absorption Ministry Director-General Erez Halfon and Eli Cohen of the Jewish Agency, the majority of the immigrants’ complaints can be easily resolved. Both said that the demonstration, so close to the committee’s deadline, was unnecessary.
(Ruth Eglash contributed to this report.)