Did Israel cause genocide on Ethiopians?

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It sort of merges with this strange concept of Judeo-Christianity. For my amusement I wrote a song that goes,

We never do stop hearing,
Of a massive threat,
Of a threat to values,
That do not exist,
Judeo-Christianity,
It does not exist,

There's this idea that pre-Darby Christianity is evil and anti-Semitic and led to the Holocaust what with the Christ-killer charges and all that, but this new Darbyism with the Rapture cult and "He who blesses them shall be blessed and he who curses them shall be cursed" obsession and the Jews regaining their place as Chosen from the Church is virtue... I guess this is what Judeo-Christianity is supposed to be...

By the way, I wrote a very nasty song about the rapture cult... and it's out there.

Of course a lot of those Darbyists also go on about how Jews are ruining the culture and promoting liberalism... promoting permissiveness, promoting evil in general...

It's pretty awful, and maybe it is technically genocide, but it's probably not helpful to throw the genocide word around here. To most people, "genocide" involves either killing people (which is not happening) or the attempted destruction of an ethnic group (as opposed to the attempted population control of an ethnic group).

If the Israelis gassed or otherwise killed Ethiopian Jews en masse, you'd have a point.

What the Israelis have been found to be doing is compulsory sterilisation of part of an ethnic group. Yes, it's definitely a racist and abhorrent policy but it doesn't seem to be widespread. Hopefully the Israelis have been shamed into dropping it altogether.

The biggest user of compulsory sterilisation in Europe was Nazi Germany, who had 400,000 people forcibly sterilised (mainly against the disabled), as well as in Sweden for four decades between the 1930s to the 1970s, where over 30,000 people - mainly women - were sterilised). (There's more information on the Nazi eugenics programme here and on the decades-long Swedish eugenics programme here.)

Many U.S. states in the 20th century also had eugenics programmes and these carried on after World War II - even amidst increasingly strongly negative public opinion - until the late 1960s. (See here for the lengthy history of eugenics in the United States.) It was also very common in Puerto Rico as well.

At least two major Canadian provinces (Alberta and British Columbia) had a policy of forcibly sterilising people. In Alberta, over 2,800 people were compulsorily sterilised - these were mostly youths, people from ethnic minorities and women. (See more information here.)

Some Swiss cantons - notably Vaud and Zürich - forcibly sterilised people in the 1920s and 1930s.

More recently, India has sterilised millions of people - mainly women, and seemingly not forcibly but by incentives - since the 1970s. India's state of emergency between 1975 and 1977 included a family planning initiative that began in April 1976 through which the government hoped to lower India's ever increasing population. This program used propaganda and monetary incentives to convince citizens to get sterilized. People who agreed to get sterilized would receive land, housing, and money or loans. Because of this program, thousands of men received vasectomies and even more women received tubal ligations. However, the program focused more on sterilizing women than men. An article in The New York Times titled “For Sterilization, Target Is Women” states, “There were 114,426 vasectomies in India in 2002-03, and 4.6 million tubal ligations, the analogous operation on women, though ligation is a more complicated operation.” Despite the fact that sterilizing men is a more simple procedure, the government still chose to focus on sterilizing women instead. Son of the Prime Minister at the time Indira Gandhi, Sanjay Gandhi was largely blamed for what turned out to be a failed program. A strong backlash against any initiative associated with family planning followed the highly controversial program, which continues into the 21st century.

Peru has been accused of crimes against humanity by forcibly sterilising its native peoples (like the Quechua) in the 1990s.

And it's had a long history in the People's Republic of China, too - in fact, it extends right into the present. In 1978, Chinese authorities became concerned with the possibility of a baby boom that the country could not handle, and they initialized the one-child policy. In order to effectively deal with the complex issues surrounding childbirth, the Chinese government placed great emphasis on family planning. Because this was such an important matter, the government felt it needed to be standardized and so to this end laws were introduced in 2002.

These laws uphold the basic tenets of what was previously put into practice, outlining the rights of the individuals and outlining what the Chinese government can and cannot do to enforce policy.
However, recently accusations have been raised from groups such as Amnesty International, who have claimed that practices of compulsory sterilization have been occurring for people who have already reached their one child quota. These practices run contrary to the stated principles of the law, and seem to differ on a local level. An especially egregious example, according to Amnesty International, has been occurring in Puning City, Guangdong Province. The stated goal of the sterilization drive in this city in China was to meet with family planning targets that were outlined by the government in the Population and Family Planning Law of 2002. This drive, also known as the Iron Fist Campaign, also is said to have used coercive methods in order to ensure that close to 10,000 women were sterilized, including detaining elderly family members. (See here.)

It happens in other countries like Uzbekistan.

Hang on - an opinion piece in Ha'aretz (a notably left-wing newspaper in Israel that is very sympathetic to the Palestinians and critical - often obsessively so - of the Israeli government) says that that a lot of what has been reported was massively exaggerated and distorted in order to try to discredit and demonise Israel.

Now, where have we heard this before?

Whoops!

So, as I said - quite a condescending and, perhaps, racist policy, yes, but 'genocide'? Seriously?!

Last edited by Tequila on 30 Jan 2013, 8:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

When someone claims genocide look at the body count.

How many of these Ethopian women died?

I think the policy was wicked, but wickedness doth not a genocide make, necessarily.

ruveyn

There is two sides to this, there a section of the Israeli population, and members of the Knesset who also believe the Palestinians don't have a right to be there, and even to exist. So it is hardly surprising these views exist. It not just reactionary either, or new. Some believe it for religious reasons, and have done from the very beginning.

If you take the ultras they are remarkably similar to the Islamic terrorists. They both talk of a vengeful god, they both think their cause is righteous, they both believe that bloodshed is justified.

Your history of antisemitism in the region is missing some info. First Jewish and Arabs lived side by side in the region. Just take the Safardi, been there for centuries. There is theory and there is practice, antisemitism in christian countries was often worse than in Muslim countries.

Antisemitism, and most of the modern perception of Jews in the middle east, the vast majority of that comes from first the Axis, especially Germany and Italy, which was in North Africa, an then the USSR also spread these ideas. You have to realize that Jews were living in select places all around the middle east and thriving. Of course there was run-ins but it was localized, there was also cooperation. The point is the vast majority of Arabs had no perception of Jews whatsoever, just those with villages that had them.

I'm not going to defend the caliphates, but anyone who has studied both them and the Christian empires, while see that both had periods where the Jews thrived, and other period where Jews were persecuted, it was the same story.

If you go back the the seventies, the vast majority of the Palestinian groups were secular and Marxist/left wing. They included Christian and Druze Palestinians. With notable exception of those connected to Muslim brotherhood, which is why Hamas came to be.

As bad as things were there was never a wall. This has become a more religious conflict, and there were people on both side wanted it to happen. There is some Israeli culpability for the rise of Hamas. For some, having such a clear adversary, was what they wanted. That is classic sectarianism for you.

The real problem is no explanation is given for the settlements. We are allies yet every time it comes up it is brushed over. The don't even cite tactical reasons, just next question. Yet it tends to be the more extreme who want to go to the settlements, especially the most remote ones. It was also opposition to settlements that made Hamas so popular.

You could say Israel is doing a Pakistan, but claiming not the be nurturing extremism, but at the same time catering to some of these groups and enabling their settlements either for assumed tactical reasons, or because there is some sympathy for them. They may also have assumed like the Pakistanis, that they could keep a lid on it, and it wouldn't turn against them.

However these group are already having impact in Israel, spitting and assaults on women they deemed to have dressed inappropriately, insisting that men and women walk on different sides of the road.

These groups have been linked to terrorist activity on Palestinian civilians, including children. Stuff that cannot be be justified as just self defense, especially if it involves driving in to an Arab town to carry out an attack, or attack farmers while they work, or school children who have only the one route into school (this is an ambush in the country side, it is not related to predicable stone throwing).

Even some makeshift popup settlement that were not recognized by Israel became so. There is more reason to assume that others will too. The Palestinians are expected to police area, but aren't able to police the settlers, they aren't even able to remove those not currently recognized by Israel. They have to wait for the Israelis. I can't think of a similar example of such a bizarre extra-juridical system. Non citizen policed by another nation, but locals expected to provide security for reprisals.

What if some group decides to place settlements atop the Yorkshire dales, and these people decided they don't recognize those that live in the villages in the valleys. Not content with the local infrastructure, they decide the want their own roads and water and gas supply, which run from central England to the dales, dividing whole communities. The locals are not allowed to use these, let alone be anywhere near them. They have security in the camps, but their backer says to the locals, who are under resourced and cut off, that they are responsible for policing the region, and on their back be it. Yet no taxes are paid to the region, for these incursions.

Now your assumption that the PLO has an iron grip. This is a big assumption. The reality is it struggles to control different factions, it couldn't have an iron grip if it wanted to. Apart from anything else it is so much like Swiss cheese there, you would be lucky if you can get any municipal control at all. Such chaotic a situation only favors criminals.

Don't conflate Gaza with West bank. Some in the Gaza have never been to the west bank or even out of Gaza, and may never leave. Gaza is a failed state in waiting. Its population is too large, and the land too small, with too few resources, and it is too dependent. Hamas are very brutal and extreme, no argument. Many groups in the West Bank are like that too. However the West Bank does have some opportunities going for it, despite this.

To say the are no opportunity is to be disingenuous. If you only look for the obstacles then there are many. However there are some people who don't believe in the violent solution, and there are Jews and Arabs that are interacting on semi cordial terms, every day. Like I said you don't have to use traditional channels. This stuff is already happening.

This is kind of why I think these outside opinions don't help much, because they only cause further sense of division.

I actually have a lot say about a culture of victimhood, which apples as much to the Palestinians as it does the the Israelis. This is symptomatic of the neurosis I mentioned earlier. Again you have to recognize the sickness to do something about it.

It is not genocide as in the Armenian genocide, perhaps it is some kind of -cide. it is ethnic cleansing of sorts. This is if it was true.

I think at one point there might a been an issue with Ethiopian being a sore thumb, with the common origin theory, but with modern genetics, skin colour is the least of such believer's worries.

Ethiopian Jews are no more the Dan tribe than I am. Jews weren't always against conversions, it is cultural not ethnic, it only became sort of ethic in clusters, when conversions were rare.

Name them. How many are they? How big is the percentage? ₪100 says that the proportion of racist Kahanists is far, far smaller than the sheer majority of Palestinians that want to wipe Israel from the map and the Jews of the Middle East with them.

I don't even think the likes of Aryeh Eldad or The Jewish Home would go that far, and both of them are considered 'ultranationalist' and 'far-right' on Wikipedia.

What is considered entirely normal in most Arab countries is relegated to the very margins (and perhaps some of the more arseholish of the settlers) in the context of general Israeli politics. Something to think about.



Name them, please. I'm genuinely struggling to find Israeli MKs who believe in this tripe. David Kahane was the most serious promoter of such an ideology, and I don't think there's been many MKs like him since.



Yes, I agree that they are unhinged. I don't like religious extremists of any flavour. But Jewish terrorists are a minority in the context of Israel. I wish I could say the same about Islamist terrorists/suicide bombers and the Palestinians.



But there were anti-Semitic attacks on Jews well before the State of Israel was founded, or even before wide-scale Jewish immigration.



Yes, and they are only now still there because the Israelis have managed to defeat their Arab enemies every single time. If Israel hadn't have won victory, they would have been expelled or massacred. Just look at the fate of the various Jews in Arab countries - some of whom have had communities that were there before Islam was even invented - who expelled entire communities after Israel's founding in 1948.



I'm not denying that anti-Semitism in Europe wasn't homicidally serious and that Jews in Europe weren't second class citizens. Not at all. What I'm saying is that I can't imagine that there is a massive difference. The Jews - like the Christians - in Muslim countries would still have been dhimmis.

I'm sorry, this feckin' computer is buggy. Hang on and I'll respond to the rest later.

If you're going to base genocide purely on bodycounts it would be to overlook many heinous deeds committed through history in the name of imperialism and amalgamation.

Genocide is the destruction of a society or culture through any available means. It could be sterilisation, or something more subtle like the attempt by the British to erase the gaelic language in Ireland. The poet Brian Friel wrote a play on this very issue and I studied it for my A levels.

It doesnt necessarilly include deliberate murder.

People might have their own definitions of genocide, but when the original article asks if Israel violated the UN Genocide Convention by forcing contraceptives on Ethiopian women, the answer is most likely yes.

Here is how the UN Convention (in article 2) defines genocide:

...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
— Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article II

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide

Incidentally, the man who coined the term "genocide", and who did as much as anyone to get the term accepted in international law, was a Jew by the name of Raphael Lemkin.

The definition remains the same: the extinction or attempted extinction of an entire race or ethnicity.

The Israelis have never done anything remotely resembling that. The Palestinians exist in greater numbers now than they did in 1946 when they attempted to mop up all the Jews dwelling in what was the Palestine. It was the Palestinians who attempted genocide.

ruveyn

"The" definition? Whose definition? I was referring to the United Nations' definition (as was the original article), which I then went on to quote (and which you conveniently neglected to quote or acknowledge).

I will quote it again. The UN Genocide Convention defines genocide as

any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
— Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article II

Israel's actions against the Ethiopian Jews is clearly an example of act (d).



I wasn't even talking about the Palestinians. This thread is about Israel's treatment of the Ethiopian Jews, remember? Are you shifting the focus of the discussion to the Palestinians because you're hoping nobody will notice or because blaming the Palestinians is your default response to any thread about Israel?

What happened to the Ethiopian immigrants was reprehensible and racist and I do not in the least condone it. Still ,some people here have compared Israel to the Nazi regime. If forced population control is tantamount to genocide, then there are many examples of recent genocides which happened/ are happening in many countries around the world (see above). That does not make it less horrible but Israel is not alone in this horribleness (if that's a word).

Also as far as forced population control goes this is rather tame (again relative- lesser of evils-still evil) for the following reasons:
1) there was never any government policy sanctioning it In the above examples there were many government sanctioned policies to sterilize women.
2) These women were coerced into being injected with birth control drugs-not sterilized- sterilization is permanent- this was still forced population control of an ethnic group-horrible- but it can be reversed- just don't renew their shots and they can have children-I know a lot of children weren't born who could/should have been which is still horrible-but in the above examples women were often permanently sterilized.
3) STEPS ARE BEING TAKEN TO REMEDY THIS -there never was any official policy sanctioning this the policy so it can't be reversed but doctors in Israel have been officially informed not to renew any depro-prevera prescriptions for Ethiopian woman until they make sure that these women are fully informed about the treatment and wish to continue it



From:
link

Last edited by daydreamer84 on 30 Jan 2013, 11:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Just a few years ago, there was a jackass Republican Louisiana state legislator who proposed poor women be paid to be sterilized. His answer to his critics was that Democrats opposed his plan because it would cut into their voting base.
Yeah, we've still got such asshats in this country.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Paul Kagame, that Rwandan dictator considered officially as a morally superior hero, has a sterilisation programme for the poor which targets overwhelmingly the Hutu population there.

Yes - as you say, this apparently was a temporary birth control shot given to Ethiopian women in the midst of a rescue operation. If I was an Ethiopian woman under these circumstances, I'd take the shot rather than risk pregnancy.

Sorry, it's really unclear what went on.