Re: Yeah.. ain't it funny how you all fail to make even a hint of protest over the plight of folks like these Syrian Jews, who are finally being "permitted" to leave under a "secret deal" between Bush and Assad..
Hawk,
I guess now is the time for Bush Jr and Sharon to strike yet another deal for repatriating Ethiopian Jews in the US --let them huddle down in the Bronx... right next to their Syrian-Jewish fellows, LOL!
ISRAEL
A BITTER BLOOD INSULT
AFTER A SHOCKING INCIDENT, ISRAEL'S ETHIOPIAN JEWS FLASH THEIR RAGE OVER SECOND-CLASS STATUS
LISA BEYER/JERUSALEM
BLOOD IS NO ORDINARY COMMODITY, the giving of it no routine transaction. It is, quite literally, the essence of life, so the yielding of blood to save another is an act of caring, of sacrificing for the common good. Imagine then the fury of Israel's Ethiopians when they learned that for the past seven years their blood donations were readily accepted, then secretly tossed away. The outrage they felt was sufficient, to quote an old expression, to make their blood boil over. Last week a demonstration outside the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem erupted into a vicious riot. The demonstrators hurled bottles and rocks, trashed nearby cars and threatened to overrun the Prime Minister's compound. The police resorted to every nonlethal means at their disposal: rubber bullets, water cannon, tear gas and shock grenades.
The mayhem focused attention on a reality that can no longer be ignored: in dramatic airlifts in 1984, 1985 and 1991, Ethiopian Jews were brought to Israel with great enthusiasm, but since then they have been relegated to second-class status in a nation of mostly white co-religionists.
The emotion of the controversy overwhelmed the pragmatic reasoning that had led health officials to reject the blood in the first place. Ethiopian immigrants are 50 times as likely to carry HIV as other Israelis, and it is international convention to reject donations from members of high-risk groups. The Ethiopians weren't turned away at blood banks because paternalistic officials wanted to spare them embarrassment. The unpardonable blunder, most Israelis agree, was that authorities never bothered to tell the community's leaders about the problem, or consult them about a solution. Says Eli Kazhdan, an official with Yisrael ba-Aliya, an immigrants' advocacy group: "This could have been honorably resolved as a medical issue without telling 60,000 people their blood is less red."
[snip]
time.com |
