The Jewish Agency rejected charges by Ethiopian Immigrants that it had acted with “indifference” to the plight of Ethiopia’s Jews known as Falashas. Leaders of the Ethiopian Immigrants Association appeared before the press yesterday to confirm a report in Davar last week (see story in Dec. 29 Bulletin) which reported that thousands of Falashas had been killed over the past two years of revolution and its aftermath in Ethiopia, that others had been driven off their land and some were sold into slavery.
The Jewish. Agency mode it clear that it felt restricted, for obvious reasons, from publicizing its efforts on behalf of the Falashas, and there fore could not address itself to the charges in full.
But the representatives of the 300 Falashas living in Israel told the press that neither the Jewish Agency nor the Israeli government nor any other world Jewish organization is doing anything to help get the Falashas out of Ethiopia. They warned that unless efforts are undertaken to help bring the Falashas to Israel there is a real danger that the 28,000 Falashas in Ethiopia may be exterminated within the next few years.
Zimnah Berhane, chairman of the Ethiopian Immigrants Association, charged that the Israel Embassy in Ethiopia refused to provide young Falashas with entry visas to Israel in 1972. The same happened to a group of 70 Falasha youngsters who wanted to emigrate to Israel in 1974, he said. “When Emperor Haile Selassie was in power (until September, 1974 when he was dethroned) they (the Israelis) told us not to make any noise,” Berhane charged. “Now, with the military regime there, they still tell us to keep quiet.
INTOLERABLE SITUATION OF FALASHAS CITED
Zecharias Jonas, another spokesman for the Falashas in Israel, told the press conference that the Falashas in Ethiopia are victims of intertribal warfare in that country which has increased since the military regime took office. He said that the Falashas are also suffering as a result of the agrarian reform instituted by the present regime.
Jonas said that Jews were never allowed to own land in Ethiopia and have been for centuries serfs under the feudal landowning system. Now, he said, the regime refuses to extend the agrarian reform to include Falasha ownership of land, with the result that Falashas are taken into slavery or murdered. He reported that some 2000 Falashas fled from their villages to avoid being sold into slavery, but many more could not escape this fate.
Jonas also described atrocities against Falashas which included the raping of young girls in front of their parents and forcing young girls to work as slaves for several families at the same time. He also recited the case of a Jewish woman, whose breast was cut off to prevent her from nursing her infant.
A spokesman for the Jewish Agency explained that the Israel rabbinate and government did not recognize Falashas as Jews until 1975, but by then the military government had taken power and did not allow any Ethiopian citizen to emigrate. He asserted that efforts to aid Falashas are being made at the present time and had been made all along, but that the nature of these efforts could not be made public.
The Falasha immigrant leaders also charged foreign Minister Moshe Dayan with harming the Falashas in Ethiopia with his statement at a news conference in Switzerland last February acknowledging that Israel was selling arms to Ethiopia which was then warring with Somaka. In an interview with Israel Radio from Zurich; Dayan said he saw no reason to conceal the fact, but emphasized that Israel was not sending any troops or aircraft to Ethiopia. Although Israel’s supply of arms to Ethiopia had been an open secret for 20 years, this was the first time an Israeli official admitted it publicly.
Officials at the Foreign Ministry dismissed the Falashas’ charge against Dayan as entirely unfounded. They said no connection could in any way be established between Dayan’s statement and the plight of the Falashas. On the contrary, the officials noted, reports of ill treatment and persecution of the Falashas had been received two years earlier, when the latest stage of the revolution began in Ethiopia.
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