Planning for last weekend’s emergency airlift of Ethiopian Jewry to Israel began last October, when Israeli officials and others concerned with the cause realized there was a danger of the Ethiopian government being toppled by rebel forces.
The airlift of more than 14,000 Jews, which started last Friday and ended 30 hours later, was the culmination of months of intensive negotiations with Ethiopian officials, who viewed the Jews as bargaining chips for military hardware.
Although Israel refused to send arms to Ethiopia, in line with U.S. foreign policy toward the former hard-line Marxist regime, the Jewish Agency for Israel is said to have paid $35 million for the emigration, according to a report Sunday in the Israeli paper Yediot Achronot.
The report said that former President Mengistu Haile Mariam, who fled the country last week, secretly visited Israel last summer and presented to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Defense Minister Moshe Arens a long list of arms requests.
After much foot-dragging, Israel agreed to furnish some military equipment, “but nothing that actually shoots,” the newspaper reported.
Jewish Agency officials had no comment on the report that money was paid for the airlift, but one well-placed source said the $35 million was given partly to offset the revenue lost by Ethiopian Airlines for not being the sole transporter of the Jews. The hurried airlift was conducted mainly by Israeli planes.
During weekly immigrant flights arranged in the waning months of Mengistu’s rule, Ethiopian Airlines charged $1,000 for each adult carried, and $500 for each child, according to the source.
FEARS OF A BLOODLETTING
Mengistu’s shaky hold on his country, which was under attack from three rebel groups, fell apart last week when he fled to Zimbabwe. Before he left, he turned the government over to Vice President Tesfaye Gebre-Kidan, who has since ceded control of the capital to the rebels.
Although the rebels made promises that they would not harm the Jews remaining in the capital, Jewish officials were worried a rebel takeover might lead to a general bloodletting there.
Despite the country’s notoriety as one of the poorest on earth, the Jews have been receiving better treatment than other Ethiopians. And that prompted concern that they could be subject to reprisals if the central government fell.
The Jews, who were being fed and otherwise assisted by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, were in danger of coming under attack even from civilians.
“Everyone was afraid that unless the Jews were moved out before the rebels walked in,” their situation would become extremely precarious, said Michael Schneider, president of the Joint.
The months of negotiations over the fate of Ethiopian Jewry began in earnest last October, when Prime Minister Shamir appointed veteran diplomat Uri Lubrani to negotiate the exit of Ethiopian Jews.
Lubrani, a former ambassador to Ethiopia, then contacted the Joint and asked it to enlist U.S. Jewish organizations in obtaining cooperation from the U.S. government, Schneider said.
The organizations worked under a shroud of secrecy and were in almost daily contact with the U.S. administration. Those involved included the American Association for Ethiopian Jewry, American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Council of Jewish Federations and the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council.
‘ONE OF THE PROUDEST MOMENTS’
The Joint, an apolitical organization whose aim is to assist Jews in distressed countries, was a key player both in coordinating efforts and providing relief to the Jewish community in Ethiopia.
The president of the Ethiopian Jewry association here, Nathan Shapiro, praised Schneider of the Joint as having been a prime figure in coordinating the emigration of the Jews.
“He is responsible for what is one of the proudest moments in Jewish history,” said Shapiro. “Fie is legitimately a hero.”
Shapiro said that plans for the airlift were in place a month before the actual event took place, and that the last few weeks “were like living hell.”
“We felt very certain that the airlift would happen, because we had the cooperation from everyone,” Shapiro said. “The question was how long before it would happen. Could we get it done before the chaos?”
Two weeks before the operation, officials from the Jewish Agency and the Joint met with the heads of the Ethiopian Jewish families and gave out the necessary papers to allow for quick processing of their exodus.
Paths on the embassy grounds were fenced to help organize the masses of Ethiopian Jews that would soon descend on the premises.
A day before the airlift took place, buses were ordered on the pretext that the Jewish Agency was organizing a visit to the local zoo for the 4,500 pupils on the embassy grounds.
U.S. diplomatic efforts to bring about the mass emigration have received high praise from Jewish groups, especially President Bush’s decision last month to send former Sen. Rudy Boschwitz (R-Minn.) to Addis Ababa as a special envoy.
USED JEWS AS A ‘SHIELD’
Boschwitz told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency last Friday that his 13 hours of talks with Mengistu and Prime Minister Tesfaye Dinka had produced no formal agreement on the airlift.
Another source said Mengistu showed little interest in speeding up the emigration, but as “the rebels got closer, it became apparent that it was necessary to expedite matters.”
On May 22, a day after Mengistu fled the country, Bush wrote a letter to Ethiopian acting President Tesfaye, asking him to allow the airlift to begin. He agreed late the following day, and the operation got under way last Friday.
Boschwitz said Bush’s letter was necessary to “cement” the negotiations, which mainly involved Ethiopia and Israel.
The former senator said Mengistu had been holding the Jews as a “shield” and that his resignation made the emigration possible.
“Mengistu felt that as long as he held onto the Jews, the Americans and the Israelis would prevent him from collapsing,” he said.
(Contributing to this report were JTA correspondents David Landau and Gil Sedan in Jerusalem, and Howard Rosenberg in Washington.)
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