Meanwhile back in Israel

badbrains said:

So it didn't happen?

http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/israel-admits-ethiopian-women-were-given-birth-control-shots.premium-1.496519

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/28/ethiopian-women-given-contraceptives-israel

http://www.forbes.com/sites/eliseknutsen/2013/01/28/israel-foribly-injected-african-immigrant-women-with-birth-control/


http://www.salon.com/2013/01/28/israel_admits_ethiopian_jewish_immigrants_were_given_birth_control_shots/


Amazing, first they admit they did it. Now they're back tracking and saying they didn't do it?

Drowned Out said:

yosi said:

You're amazing. Someone makes a wild assertion, unsupported by any evidence, based on an utterly false and discredited story, and you immediately accept it as the truth because it confirms your hateful biases. The article below is from 2013. I especially like the prophetic bit at the end, which is especially apt here:

Is it utterly false and discredited? I wrote my last post lying in bed last night, and fell asleep before I could confirm or deny the allegations....I remembered the birth control story when reading your post about israel being 'normal' in their handling of ethiopian immigrants. I googled to confirm I was remembering the story correctly....found versions of the initial Haaretz story that had been carried by many 'credible' major outlets, and posted in haste. Of course, with any unproven story, I'd have been wise to have checked for more recent updates. Once I realized I hadn't followed up the story, I tried googling to see if the claims were ever investigated...because yes, I only remembered the initial allegations, and yes, I'm fully aware of the way this kind of thing grows legs and sticks around even if it is challenged. I did find articles that said Haaretz had walked back the claim that the Israeli government had admitted that birth control was forced on ethiopian immigrants. At that time, Israel did issue a statement to doctors to tell them not to administer birth control unless the women knew exactly what it was they were receiving....an odd statement to make (common sense?) at that particular time....even if the statement was not an admission, it still smelled like trying to 'get in front' of a problem...and that is what led to the poor overreach by Haaretz. The correction does show that the article wasn't substantiated by the government, but it doesn't make the allegations false. I found articles that said an investigation would be undertaken by a rabbi from Likud, complaining that the man they put in charge had opposed bringing the ethiopians to israel from the start...but then the trail went cold. I read a number of articles before passing out....I never did find my answer, and don't have time to keep digging today at work. Was this investigation ever completed? Not that I would trust an internal investigation by any government agency. Still, it was apparent from the minute I started googling that I had to add a caveat to my post, so I did. Was this a policy initiative? Highly unlikely. Could it have been an unofficial undertaking in the transfer camps? Possibly. Could it have been a few racist doctors, manipulating these women? Possibly. And could it have been an overzealous documentarian looking for a sensational story? Again, possibly.
For the record - i never inferred anything about forced sterilization. although I am aware that some news outlets 'went there' after that documentary aired. I also knew that you would waste no time discrediting the story and I would be raked over the coals by the time I woke up...funny (but not surprising) considering how long it took you to answer mickey's question, and how often you post here these days.
I have to wonder what the incentive was for Israel's ethiopian migrant initiatives. Was it a demographic thing? Whole-hearted benevolence?
Or maybe just warm bodies for settlement expansion projects? I'd be curious to see where the public housing they received was located...couldn't find any info on that, either.

yosi said:

mickeyrat said:

yosi said:

mickeyrat said:

yosi said:

mickeyrat said:

Where do the ethiopian jews stand then. Frankly what you describe in my opinion is eastern european all others can get fucked.

I'm not sure why you've come to that conclusion. Ethiopian Jews are considered Jews. The whole reason why there is a significant Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel is because of Operation Solomon, which was explicitly undertaken BECAUSE Israel considered them Jewish.

whats that?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32813056

That article doesn't contradict what I said. All I said was that they are recognized as Jews. I don't deny that Israel did a very poor job of absorbing the Ethiopians into Israeli society and that they face a range of hardships in Israel including outright discrimination. But that more or less describes the experience of most immigrants from pre-industrial countries in western industrial nations. That's not an excuse, but you seem to be making the point in order to depict Israel's abnormal failings, when it's really just proof that Israel shares in the normal failings of normal states.

Normal states build settlements illegally on occupied land? Normal states keep their boots on the necks of occupied people for close to 50 years?

Now you're changing the topic.

BS44325 said:

benjs said:

Nart, he's right. You need to take a step back and consider the posts, not the poster. I get that there's animosity between the two of you (and I refuse to read into it any more than that), but this is a discussion about facts. The statement that I posted, which BS agreed to, suggested a few things:

-Obama believes in the right to criticize Israel for everything except its right to exist in some fashion
-Those who criticize Israel do so just loudly enough as not to be morally reprehensible humans, and just quietly enough as not to actually drive change
-There is precedent in the notion that Israel does not have concern for the well-being of the Palestinian people
-The Palestinian people exist today (at all) because Israel fears the global isolation which would stem from a genocide at their hands
-Israel's assistance in repairing a society crippled by Israel itself has been no better than the bare acceptable minimum

You may not like his tone, or the way he goes about making his points, but BS just agreed with things that I had always assumed you and I agree on (at least partially). This was not said with any arrogance, or any bigotry - it was just a simple "I agree".

I thought this "I agree" was pretty clear but I do take tissue with any critique of my "tone". My tone is tight.

badbrains said:

yosi said:

So interested to see what you all do with this story:

Likud Lawmaker Sponsors Bill Mandating Arabic Education in Israeli Schools
Support pours in from left and right, as well as Israeli President Rivlin

By Yair Rosenberg|May 29, 2015

It’s safe to say that Likud MK Oren Hazan never expected to be in the Knesset at all. Ranked 30th on his party’s list, in a slot reserved for a youth candidate, Hazan was never projected by any pre-election polls to make it into Israel’s parliament. But after Likud’s surprisingly decisive victory garnered it 30 seats, Hazan found himself the beneficiary of the party’s electoral fortune. And this week, he began to flex his legislative muscles with a surprising proposal that has garnered support across the political spectrum: a bill that mandates early Arabic language education in Israeli schools.

Hazan, 33, is a bit of a loose cannon, and certainly no bleeding heart. He lives in the controversial settlement city of Ariel, and is the son of conservative former Knesset member Yehiel Hazan. Earlier this year, the younger Hazan submitted a false Gaza war testimony to the anti-occupation group Breaking the Silence, with the aim of exposing their purportedly poor collection methods. (The ruse failed.) This background makes Hazan an unlikely champion for coexistence education reform, but that is the subject of his first major bill.

Hazan’s legislation would require Arabic to be taught in Jewish schools beginning in the first grade. “Just as you won’t find an Arab citizen who doesn’t know Hebrew after completing 12 years of formal education,” he said, “so too, it’s inconceivable that we maintain a status quo in which a Jew who has completed 12 years schooling doesn’t know how to speak Arabic.”

Hazan’s proposal also includes a parallel Hebrew program for Arab schools, though as he noted, most Arab citizens of Israel learn Hebrew as a manner of course.

Learning Arabic, Hazan wrote in the bill’s text, “will allow students and citizens to understand one another.” Moreover, he added, “knowing the language of the other is the basis for understanding and mutual respect, which are necessary in the current situation in Israel.”

Hazan explicitly linked the impetus for his bill to a recently aborted program to separate Jews and Palestinians on buses in the West Bank, chalking the push for the widely-panned plan down to fear. “In our daily reality, with Jews riding the buses in Judea and Samaria and hearing the Palestinians, they are usually afraid,” Hazan said. “With global terrorism and radical Islam on the rise, the lack of knowledge and understanding leads to fear.” Hazan’s hope is that Arabic education would enable Israelis to talk to Palestinians and dispel debilitating misconceptions. “Knowing the language and being able to communicate with different people can increase our sense of security and serve as a bridge between people,” he said.

If adopted, Hazan’s proposal would dramatically bolster Arabic study among Israeli Jews from an early age. As the Times of Israel noted, “under the Israeli educational guidelines, Jewish schools are supposed to teach three hours of Arabic a week to 7th-10th graders. However, the directive is not strictly enforced and many institutions do not offer classes.”

The Likud lawmaker’s bill has been endorsed by a wide array of figures across Israel’s ideological map, and has been signed by Knesset members from the far-left Meretz to the far-right Jewish Home. Yesterday, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, who is a former Likud Speaker of the Knesset, came out in favor of the legislation’s essence in a speech before the leadership of Israel’s Center for a Shared Society.

“When we seek confidence-building measures between Jews and Arabs, we must work to nurture the positive identities of each side, and from within these identities, reach out to the other’s culture and story,” he said. “Such outreach is first and foremost found in language. The Hebrew language must be learned to perfection by the Arabic population, but the time has come, that also the Arabic language will be learned by the Jewish population. Language leads from the ear to the heart.” (Rivlin, who speaks Arabic, made multiple references in his speech to Palestinian national poet Mahmoud Darwish, in a clear effort to model the discourse he hoped to see.)

Given its diverse backing, Hazan’s bill appears likely to pass, though its details are still being negotiated. Its enactment would mark a rare bright spot in what has been a trying year for Jewish-Arab relations in Israel.

Meanwhile, more settlements are being built. Bravo, hey, let's pass a law mandating Arabic being taught in Israeli schools. That'll shut them up while we steal more of their land. Awesome