Ethiopian Jews Attack Israeli Premier’s Office

Denouncing as racist an Israeli government policy of destroying blood donated by Ethiopian Jews, thousands of Ethiopians clashed with police outside the prime minister’s office during an angry demonstration Sunday.

Police fired water cannons, rubber bullets, percussion grenades and tear gas at the protesters, and several Ethiopians reported being beaten by club-wielding riot police. Army Radio reported that 62 people were injured, 41 of them police officers.

Police spokesman Eric Bar-Chen said police used force only after demonstrators broke through fences and attacked the building where Prime Minister Shimon Peres was holding the weekly Cabinet meeting.

Bar-Chen estimated that between 5,000 and 6,000 Ethiopians joined the demonstration. They were confronted by about 500 police officers.

The demonstrators demanded that Health Minister Ephraim Sneh resign for supporting the policy of routinely destroying donated Ethiopian blood. Sneh has said the policy--instituted in 1991 by the nation’s blood bank--is necessary because Ethiopians have a higher incidence of HIV infection, the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS, than any other ethnic group in Israel. He and other health care officials insist that the policy is based on statistics alone.

But Sunday’s demonstrators--who ranged from older men and women dressed in traditional robes and carrying colorful umbrellas to young people wearing T-shirts and high-topped sneakers--said the blood policy is painful evidence of how Israeli society discriminates against Ethiopians, who are black.

Crunching through shattered glass outside the building, the demonstrators were defiant.

“We have kept silent until today,” said Natan Solomon, a 19-year-old Ethiopian who stood in the crowd. “But this blood issue brought us out. We won’t be silent anymore.”

Kifle Tessema, a 32-year-old who runs an Ethiopian community health project, agreed. “You put a lot of issues together and sometimes it just takes one more thing to make the situation explode,” he said. “This blood issue is all about racism. What connects us? It is blood. If our blood is not Jewish, then what are we, animals?”

Addressing the crowd with a bullhorn, Addisa Musala, a leader of the Ethiopian Jewish community, declared Israel’s efforts to integrate Ethiopian Jews into an overwhelmingly white Israeli society a failure.

“For 10 years, they have told us that our immigration was successful,” Musala said to the cheering crowd that packed the parking lot and spilled into the streets outside the prime minister’s office. “It was a lie. Today, we found out that we have been treated like animals. . . . All we ask for is to give us the feeling that we are Israeli and belong to this society.”

Mazel Zanava, an 18-year-old who lives in the southern town of Beersheba, said she doubts she will ever feel a part of Israeli society.

“All the white people in Israel are racist,” Zanava said. “In Ethiopia, we had to fight because [of] and for our Judaism. This spilling of our blood now is like killing us.”

With his executive offices virtually under siege, Peres agreed to meet three leaders of the community. After the session, the government issued a statement saying it will form a committee to examine the blood donation policy and other aspects of Ethiopian integration into Israeli society. Peres promised to chair the committee himself.

“In my heart, I am weeping,” Immigration Minister Yair Tsaban told Army Radio. Tsaban said he had no answer for why the government had not investigated the plight of the Ethiopian immigrants.

Between 1978 and 1984, about 8,000 Ethiopian Jews, who believe they are one of the lost tribes of Israel, made their way here, often with the help of American Jewish organizations.

The Israeli government first brought large numbers of Ethiopians here in 1984, in a covert operation assisted by the United States. Thousands of Ethiopians walked from their famine-ravaged Gondar province to Sudan, where they were airlifted out in secret night flights over a six-week period.

The dramatic airborne rescue excited the imagination of Israelis, who loved the symbolism of the gathering of the exiles and were captivated by the delicate beauty and quiet demeanor of the Ethiopians.

But the Ethiopians, who came from a tribal culture and had been cut off from mainstream Judaism and rabbinical teachings for 2,000 years, had trouble fitting in with Israel’s modern, rough-and-tumble culture.

The Chief Rabbinate did not accept their religious elders and questioned the authenticity of their Judaism. Some Israelis protested when the government tried to move Ethiopians into their neighborhoods, claiming their presence would lower property values.

The problems deepened with the second wave of immigration, when 14,000 Ethiopian Jews arrived in 1991’s “Operation Solomon.” There were reports of Ethiopians being barred from public swimming pools and of a disproportionately high number of Ethiopian youngsters being shunted into special education classes.

Sunday’s violent demonstration was a crossroads for Israel and the Ethiopians, said Micha Odenheimer, director of the Israel Assn. for Ethiopian Jews based in Jerusalem.

“There were two kinds of feelings expressed there,” he said. “One was: We are all one people, we all share the same blood. And for the first time, there was also a palpable sense of hostility among some people toward white Israelis. This immigration could fail if there is not some real thought and vision put into it to turn it around.”