Israel Confronts its Own ‘Ferguson’ Race Challenge

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- To some Israelis, a recent police shooting of a black Israeli, and the subsequent violent protests, raises the specter of the riots in Ferguson, Missouri, following the 2014 fatal police shooting of an 18-year-old black man there. Could Israel be having its own Ferguson moment? Perhaps, though Israel’s history of welcoming black Jews gives reason for optimism, if only authorities respond in the right way.

The roots of today’s problems, and its solution, date back to a fall day in 1977, when a small group of young black men gathered outside the office of Israel’s newly elected prime minister, Menachem Begin. They waved homemade signs and chanted in broken Hebrew.

The demonstrators were part of the small community of Ethiopian Jews living in Israel. Since 1948, the government of Israel had resisted efforts by the Jews of Ethiopia to immigrate. The socialist founding fathers saw the Ethiopians as uneducated and impoverished shepherds and subsistence farmers, not “good material” for state building. And, of course, they were black.

Two demonstrators were led into Begin’s office. They stood in the doorway, speechless. Finally, one stammered, “There is war at home. Our brothers are in danger. They need help.”  Begin came around his desk, embraced the young men and said, “I will save our brothers.” That day, he gave orders to the head of the Mossad to bring the entire Jewish community of Ethiopia to Israel.

Within a decade of Begin’s order, nearly the entire Ethiopian Jewish community was relocated. Many kissed the ground when they arrived. The newcomers received government housing, Hebrew classes, free medical care and the other benefits due to Jewish immigrants under the Law of Return.

Mainstream Israelis greeted these exotic new arrivals with warmth. The exodus from Ethiopia reaffirmed Israel’s raison d’etre as the haven for endangered Jews. It served as a rebuttal to Arab claims that Israel is a racist state. Other nations imported black Africans in chains. Only Israel welcomed them as fellow citizens.

This seemed like a happy ending, but it was just the start of unanticipated difficulties. Some of the Ethiopians assimilated into white Jewish society. Many of their sons and daughters served with distinction in the army and went on to successful careers. But these were exceptions. Black ghettos sprung up in towns and cities throughout the country. They suffered from the familiar social pathologies of underprivileged communities of color around the world. The rate of crime was high and policing grew aggressive.

Last month, an unarmed 19-year-old Ethiopian Jew was shot and killed by an off-duty cop. This wasn’t the first such incident. The Ethiopian community in Israel saw it as an example of police brutality and infuriated demonstrators poured into the streets. Major highways were paralyzed for hours. Police stations were attacked. Some cars were tipped over and burned.

Israelis watched this uprising with shock. These were not the gentle, grateful shepherds and farmers they had welcomed to the country in the late 1970s. They were angry young Israelis, capable of making demands in harsh, idiomatic Hebrew. They wanted the cop tried for murder. Some of them adopted the American “hands up, don’t shoot” body language of Black Lives Matter. Protests continued Monday.

Israeli leaders conceded that the country’s black Jews who have been demonstrating have valid complaints. They are poorer and less socially integrated other communities. They experience casual racism, job discrimination and troubled relations with the police. The dream that brought their grandparents to Israel has been replaced by a far less utopian reality.

Still, Tel Aviv is not Ferguson. American racial problems are rooted in centuries of chattel slavery, Jim Crow laws and black-white tension. This has left the U.S. with fundamentally unresolved issues like reparations, and the inability to reach a shared national narrative. Black Israel does not have this fraught history. The problems are a real, but they are rooted in the here and now and they can be dealt with — if there is a national willingness to address them seriously.

Certainly there are things that can be done to ameliorate the current unrest, starting with a transparent investigation of the shooting that precipitated the riot of early July. Instituting a civilian police review board would be a help. And the government can start treating the social pathologies of the Ethiopian community with the urgency they require.

But budgets and programs are not sufficient. The most acute problem that young Ethiopians confront is the feeling (and the reality) of being disrespected by their fellow Israelis. Unlike the country’s Arab and Ultra-Orthodox communities, the Ethiopians have cast their fate with Israel, paid their dues in the military and sought inclusion. For decades they have waited patiently.

This week, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin called on the protesters to join in an “open and piercing discourse.” But that discourse is already underway in the streets. The Ethiopian Israelis do not require a tutorial on good citizenship. They need an undiluted and credible apology.

Mere words are not going to be enough. The Ethiopian community needs the two things that Menachem Begin gave its spokesmen more than 40 years ago: a brotherly embrace, followed by a palpable national commitment to do the right thing.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Therese Raphael at traphael4@bloomberg.net

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Zev Chafets is a journalist and author of 14 books. He was a senior aide to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and the founding managing editor of the Jerusalem Report Magazine.

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