Hi Folks,
Michael Sylvester wrote:
> This issue came up while discussing prejudice in Social Psychology.
> Even though Israel allowed for the Black Jews to relocate to Israel from
> Ethiopia,there was a story that the blood donated by the black jews
> were put in a separate blood banks and were discarded because Israel
> did not want to mix the Ethiopian blood with those of the other
> immigrants.
> Could this be viewed as a form of ethnic cleasing?
I'll address the vile suggestion of "ethnic cleansing" in just a second. I
unfortunately feel I must raise again the issue of what appears to be an
anti-Semitic thread periodically underlying Michael Sylvester's posts. I
raised this last October in response to several of Michael's posts and I
raise it again. I do not believe that racism, sexism, homophobia,
anti-Semitism, etc. have a place on a professional (or any other discussion
list). To argue that Israeli's are responsible for ethnic cleansing in the
light of Holocaust is repugnant.
Now to clear up some misinformation that appears in Michael's post.
1. Israel did not simply "allow" the Ethiopian Jews to relocate to Israel.
In fact, they rescued these members of the Jewish community from Ethiopia
in two major airlift operations. In 1984-85, negotiations were made to
airlift the Jewish community of Ethiopia to Israel (via Sudan) during the
Civil War. Operation Moses managed to airlift 10,000 of the Jews before
media leaks caused the Sudanese government to withdraw its support. This
stranded 15,000 remaining Jews in Ethiopia. On May 23-25, 1991, as the
Ethiopian government was on the verge of collapse, the Israeli government
organized Operation Solomon which rescued most of the 15,000 remaining
Jews. - 14,163 including 7 born in transit. Upon arrival, they received
free housing, medical attention, hebrew training, and other services.
Since 1948, 50,700 Ethiopian Jews have emigrated to Israel. Over 80% of
the Ethiopian Jews were under the age of 18 at the time of their arrival in
Israel.
2. Israel maintains the "Law of Return". This means that Israel has an
open door policy for any Jew to emigrate to Israel; one can make "aliyah".
This law has been in effect since the creation of the State of Israel. In
1996, 82% of the Jews emigrating to Israel were from the former Soviet
Union.
3. The issue of the blood supply did get raised several years back. This
was not an issue of racism but concern over the HIV status of the blood
supply due to the high rate of infection in Ethiopia. As part of the
screening for blood donation in the U.S., one is asked if they have
traveled outside of the United States. Thus, simply traveling to parts of
Africa/Asia may result in your exclusion.
4. To equate safe blood supply efforts with genocide (ethnic cleansing) is
abhorrent at best. One hopes that Michael did not deal with this topic in
such an irresponsible fashion in class.
B'Shalom,
linda
--
linda m. woolf, ph.d.
associate professor - psychology
webster university
main webpage: http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/
Holocaust and genocide studies pages:
http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/holocaust.html
womens' pages: http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/women.html
gerontology pages: http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/gero.html
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
