Middle East

The injustice driving Ethiopian Israeli protests

Anger in the teenager's community erupted after the shooting. In the following two days, protesters torched cars, damaged ambulances and burned tires as the violence spread across the country.As the investigation began into the circumstances of the shooting, the officer was taken into custody and subsequently released and placed under house arrest. But it was too late to prevent the rioting in which dozens were injured on both sides, and 136 protesters were taken into custody, according to police.It's the type of violence sparked by perceived racial injustice that we've often seen in cities in the United States.But this happened in Israel, and the black man who died, Solomon Teka, was Jewish.Members of the Ethiopian community of Israel face policemen during clashes in the Israeli coastal city of Netanya on July 2, 2019.

Waves of migration

For years, Ethiopian-Israelis have complained of being treated like second-class citizens — black Jews in a white country — unfairly targeted by police and facing systemic discrimination. The death of Teka, who moved to Israel from Ethiopia with his family when he was 12, has brought these perceived injustices boiling to the surface.Most of Israel's Ethiopian community arrived in two larges waves of migration in the 1980s and 1990s, following Israel's recognition of Ethiopia's Jewish community in 1975. For generations, their ancestors had lived in the east African country, but as the political situation deteriorated in the region, Israeli leaders felt a need to bring the Jewish community out.Violent protests over teen's death in Israel injure 111 policeFirst in 1984, as part of Operation Moses, then again in 1991 as Operation Solomon, Ethiopian Jews were flown to Israel in large numbers. In one 36-hour period in May 1991, more than 14,000 Ethiopians were brought to Israel on board military and civilian aircraft.Today, Israel's Ethiopian community numbers approximately 140,000, according to the Population and Census Bureau, which is about 1.5% of the population.But the Ethiopian-Israeli community lags behind the general population in nearly every socioeconomic category, according to the Ethiopian National Project, an advocacy organization working to advance integration of Ethiopians into Israeli society. The Ethiopian community has a higher poverty rate, lower employment rate, and lower average income than the general population of Israel. Ethiopian Jews gather at a makeshift synagogue in Gondar, Ethiopia, to see if they have been given a date to move to Israel on November 19, 2012. But the tension goes beyond economics. Up until the mid-90s, Israeli blood banks threw out blood donated by Ethiopians because of a fear of AIDS contamination. In 2014, Ethiopian-Israeli Avera Mengistu crossed into Gaza, where it's widely believed he has been held prisoner ever since. Though government officials routinely talk of two Israeli soldiers whose remains are still in Gaza following the 2014 war, Mengistu's name comes up far less frequently in public discourse.And in 2015, Damas Pakada was stopped and beaten by police a block from his home near Tel Aviv. Pakada was even in his military uniform, considered a respected badge of honor in Israel, but he was still harassed. The viral video of the beating sparked its own protests.Protests in 2015 were met with water cannons.For the Ethiopian-Israeli community, examples like this, where they feel marginalized or discriminated against, occur far more often than they should."There isn't a single Israeli of Ethiopian descent who hasn't experienced racism in Israel because of the color of their skin. Almost every young Ethiopian man has been subjected to heavy-handed treatment or, at the very least, has been verbally abused by a policeman in the street," wrote Danny Adena Abebe, an Ethiopian-Israeli journalist, in an article for the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper on Tuesday."The second generation of Ethiopians was born and grew up into a grim reality in which their blood could be spilled with impunity. The relations between the police and the youth in our community are relations of suspicion. The very same police that are supposed to protect us as citizens also inspire fear and terror in us."Tebeka, an organization which advocates on behalf of the Ethiopian community in Israel, wrote a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Public SecRead More – Source

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