“We will fight with all our strength against those unacceptable
phenomena,” he said of racism and discrimination at an annual ceremony
at Mt. Herzl commemorating Ethiopian Jews who died while trying to make
their way to Israel. “We will uproot this from our lives. We will turn
it into something inferior, despicable.”
 |
| Ceremony commemorating Jewish Ethiopians who perished while making aliyah to Israel.. (photo credit:GIL YOCHANAN/POOL) |
Netanyahu’s comments came just two weeks after protests by Ethiopian-Israelis against discrimination rocked the country.
Courtesy: Prime Minister’s Office – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin attend ceremony commemorating Ethiopian Jews who perished while making aliyah.
Netanyahu said that there are societies which have managed to rise
above racism and discrimination, and that Israel must join them.
“We the Jews brought the idea of the dignity of man to civilization,”
Netanyahu said. “And we will make sure that the dignity of man will be
expressed in this our one and only state.”
Netanyahu repeated a pledge he met two weeks ago after meeting
Ethiopian-Israeli activists to head a special ministerial committee to
deal with the community’s grievances, and said that the committee will
bring a comprehensive plan addressing the problems to the government.
The prime minister described that meeting as an emotional one that
rattled him. “I heard complaints about racism, prejudice,
discrimination, and the use of excess force. I heard concerns about
walking down the street because of the color of your skin. I cannot
accept this, not in our country, not in the Jewish state.”
Netanyahu said that the Ethiopian Jews’ journey to Israel, and the
trials they suffered on the way – many of them walking hundreds of miles
through Sudan – “articulates the vision of the ingathering of the
exiles which is the essence of our existence, rebirth and prayers.”
The ceremony commemorating the Ethiopian Jewish immigration is held
on Jerusalem Day because of the community’s yearning for Jerusalem, a
yearning Netanyahu said was the dream of every Jewish child in Ethiopia.
“I can tell you that I have taken quite a few walking journeys in my
life,” Netanyahu said. “When I was a soldier I walked many kilometers –
in the Negev, the Galilee, from sea to sea. But your journey is
unparalleled. This was a journey of of weeks, months and sometimes
years. It was a journey of complete uncertainty, a journey of tears.”
Netanyahu said that the immigrants “faced every possible evil: hunger
and thirst, disease and death, imprisonment and torture, robbers.
Sometimes you struggled with wild animals, other times with people who
were worse than animals — and the stories are heartbreaking.”
Netanyahu said that although that journey is over, it is important
that every Israeli child knows the tale, and that he has directed the
educational system to instill that story into the schools, “because I
think it’s part of bringing people closer together, and to implant a
[feeling] of the common destiny of our people.”
President Reuven Rivlin, during his comments, said that of the 12,000
Ethiopian Jews who set out for Israel in the early 1980s, some 4,000
died on the way.
Rivlin said Israeli society made mistakes in the way it dealt with
the absorption of the Ethiopian immigrants, and did not do enough to
correct them. After laying a wreath at the monument to Ethiopian Jews,
Rivlin said that just as Israel passes from Remembrance Day for the
fallen to Israel Independence Day, there is also a symbolic transition
from great sadness over the loss of loved ones to the joy of Jerusalem
Day “which we celebrate together.”
The story of Ethiopian immigration is one of faith and hope and a
display of tremendous courage and unflagging determination by the
Ethiopian Jewish leadership, he said.
The President took Israel to task for having closed its gates to
Ethiopian Jews for several decades before finally embarking on Operation
Moses (1984) and Operation Solomon (1991) that airlifted much of the
community to the country.
Relating to the recent protests, Rivlin — his voice almost breaking
with emotion — said he was almost personally pained by the
discrimination to which members of the Ethiopian community have been
subjected over the years.
“We have all seen and heard the cry of pain of Israelis of Ethiopian
background,” he said. “The demonstrators exposed an open wound that bled
in the heart of Israel, a penetrating cry that comes from a feeling of
bias, racism, humiliation and lack of resources.”
He said Sunday’s memorial gathering provided an opportunity to speak
about hope for a better future, hope which is an antidote for apathy.
Source: Satenaw
No comments: