Ethiopians in W. Bank Called Pawns in Tussle Over Land

Israel has opened its doors to a new group of Ethiopian immigrants but is sending them to Jewish settlements in the West Bank, drawing fire from critics who say the government is turning the newcomers into pawns in its land battle with the Palestinians.

The 250 immigrants, many of them illiterate and most from Ethiopia’s rural north, seem mystified by the controversy that their resettlement has sparked among Israeli politicians and media. The few who are willing to be interviewed say they don’t much care where they live.

“I have been praying all my life to come to Israel,” said Dessalegne Gessese, a former tax collector from Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, who has been living in this West Bank settlement since he arrived in Israel three months ago. “I don’t care if Ofra belongs to Israel geographically. I am here now, with the people of Israel.”

Gessese, 58, is among a group that landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport in April and was bused directly to Ofra, a settlement of religious Jews erected on land captured by Israel in 1967.

Israeli opposition leaders immediately charged that the decision to send the newcomers to Ofra and three other settlements was a cynical attempt by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to strengthen the controversial communities, even as it puts off another troop withdrawal from the West Bank.

“Netanyahu is exploiting the Ethiopians,” said Adisu Massala, the first Ethiopian-born lawmaker in the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, and a member of the opposition Labor Party. “He’s using them to encourage the settlers, to show that he wants settlements more than he wants the peace process” with the Palestinians.

Dedi Zucker, a legislator from the leftist Meretz Party, accused the government of trying to further its political ends with newcomers “who have no idea that the country is split over the issue of the settlements.”

But government officials said the settlements were the only communities that would take the new arrivals, an indication that there may be limits to Israel’s long-standing policy of welcoming all Jewish immigrants.

Land for Peace Seen as Basis for Any Accord

More than 150,000 Israelis live in 144 settlements on occupied land in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights. The Palestinians view the settlements in the occupied territories as contrary to the concept of trading land for peace that is the basis of the current Middle East peace process.

The United States, which is trying to break a 15-month-old stalemate in the negotiations, has asked Israel to take a “timeout” on settlements, which the State Department describes as an obstacle to peace.

Yet Ofra leaders and Immigration Ministry officials deny any ideological motive in sending the new immigrants to live in settlements.

“This was a professional consideration, not political,” said Aviad Friedman, a senior advisor to Immigration Minister Yuli Edelstein. He said Ofra and the other settlements were the only communities of many Edelstein approached that agreed to accept the group, the latest of more than 70,000 Ethiopians who have immigrated to Israel since 1984. Most arrived in two spectacular airlifts.

In the current group, most are Ethiopian Christians who trace their lineage to Jews--reputedly one of the lost tribes of Israel--and now plan to convert, or reconvert, to Judaism. Some earlier Israeli governments questioned their Jewish origin and did not allow them to immigrate under Israel’s Law of Return, which allows all Jews to claim Israeli citizenship.

And just as the opposition charges that the immigrants have been turned into political pawns by the right wing to boost numbers in the settlements, Friedman argued that the Labor and Meretz legislators are using them to further their own anti-settlement agendas. “I am sorry that there are those who try to turn everything into politics,” he said.

Some Africans Already at Settlement

Yona Hoffman, who is in charge of immigration for Ofra, said that the settlement located northeast of the Arab city of Ramallah has a population of 1,700, with several Ethiopian families in residence even before the new arrivals.

Hoffman said that although he would be happy if some of the newcomers chose to stay on in Ofra after their initial 14-month immersion here in Jewish studies and the Hebrew language, he doubts that they will. Most, he predicted, will want to live near other Ethiopians in the country’s major population centers and not in a secluded--and relatively expensive--Jewish settlement.

Hoffman also said that Ofra, unlike many other settlements, has little in the way of empty apartments and will not be allowed to keep the temporary structures it is building to house its 23 new Ethiopian families.

“We are not short on people,” said Hoffman, an amiable man in a knitted skullcap and with the tassels of a prayer shawl visible underneath his pastel plaid shirt. “With us, this is part of our sincere desire to help this important enterprise of immigrant absorption.”

He led the way from the settlement office past its small museum and up a curving, flower-lined path to a classroom where Shimon Sahalou was teaching about 25 of the adult newcomers about Judaism. Within a few weeks, they will undergo an Orthodox conversion ceremony that will allow them to become Israeli citizens.

During a break, Sahalou, an earlier immigrant from Ethiopia and an 11-year resident of Ofra, criticized Massala and other opposition members for visiting the newcomers and burdening them, so early on, with the divided nature of Israeli politics.

“I am very proud of him because he represents us in the Knesset as a Jewish ethnic community,” Sahalou, 39, said of Massala. “But what he has done here is absolutely shameful. Instead of helping, he is being disruptive.”

Massala and other opposition legislators have visited Ofra several times to welcome the immigrants and try to give them a crash course in Israeli politics, the occupied territories and the peace process. But with no consensus on the settlement issue even within Labor--party leader Ehud Barak said recently that Ofra and the neighboring settlement of Beit El must remain “forever” under Israeli sovereignty--the task is not easy, Massala said.

He acknowledged that he has made little headway in convincing the newcomers that they should object to being housed in Ofra and ask to go elsewhere.

Instead, the few who are unhappy in Ofra say they would rather be near relatives in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv or the northern city of Haifa. Or they are upset that there are no facilities for them to cook traditional Ethiopian dishes. But most are unwilling to complain publicly.

“They are afraid to say anything,” Massala said. “Some are afraid they’ll be sent back.”

‘I Don’t Know About the Political Situation’

Outside the classroom here, Lingaro Yahoni cradled his 2-year-old son as he sat on a sun-dappled bench. Yahoni, an engineer by training, said he was grateful for the kindness extended by Ofra residents, and for the school and health clinic the community has to offer.

“I don’t know about the political situation, but I know Ofra is part of Israel,” he said. “Some of these people, they say Ofra is not good for us because the people here are taking something from the Arabs. I don’t know what to say on this. It is difficult to think about it.”

Along with all the men in the group and most of the young boys, Yahoni wore a knitted skullcap pinned to his hair. As he spoke, two Ethiopian children, holding hands, toddled up to several visitors. “Shalom,” they said, grinning proudly.

Zucker said he would not object if the Ethiopians chose to live in the settlements of their own accord.

“But they had no choice in this. They were taken to Ofra, not knowing where they were going,” he said.

“From their first day in Israel, they are settlers. And they don’t even know what that is.”

Batsheva Sobelman of The Times’ Jerusalem Bureau contributed to this report.