By Tim Butcher in Jerusalem
Telegraph
Israel’s interior minister faces accusations of racism after he suggested suspending the policy of allowing Ethiopians with Jewish ancestry to move to the country.
While rabbinical authorities judge the so-called Falash Mura to be sufficiently Jewish to qualify for Israeli citizenship, Meir Sheetrit said they were not really Jewish and had been let in only because of “political correctness”.
In remarks that incensed the large Falasha community already in Israel, he implied that Ethiopians were fleecing the state by leaving the economic hardship of their birthplace and enjoying comfortable new lives in Israel.
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“Who needs them?” he said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post. “They are all Christians. We need to take care of the future of Israel and this immigration will never finish.”
His comments were denounced as racist by senior members of the Falasha community who pointed out that Jews from white countries were allowed into Israel without any question from the authorities.
“The way he is expressing himself has a smell of racism about it because he would not say such statements to any other immigrants from America or Russia,” said Avraham Neguise, chairman of the Representatives of Ethiopian Immigrant Organisations in Israel.
“His remarks are unacceptable and irresponsible. The state of Israel is the home for every Jew and is it not the minister’s private home.
“These people have been described and identified as part of Jewish Ethiopian community by the chief rabbinate. They are our blood, our flesh and our bones.”
Ethiopians who come to Israel often complain of not being able to find good jobs and experiencing discrimination.
Some claim that Israel imposes a quota of 600 Falasha being allowed into Israel each month.
Others complain that Israel used the Falasha cynically to boost the population as part of the demographic battle with the Palestinians, who have a high birth rate.
The Falasha are said to be the descendants of one of the lost tribes of Israel that trekked south and set up home in the Horn of Africa.
The claim was strong enough to convince Israeli rabbinical authorities in the 1980s and 1990s when 90,000 were allowed into Israel.
The first Falasha to move to Israel were unquestionably Jewish. But a new group calling themselves the Falash Mura emerged.
They were Ethiopians living a Christian lifestyle but who claimed to have been forced to convert to Christianity from Judaism.