Ministry of Welfare Destroys Ethiopian Homes

Ministry of Welfare Destroys Ethiopian Homes

by R. D. Weisskopf, founder of the UnPromised Land channel

http://www.youtube.com/user/UnPromisedLand

Despite the widespread outcry against the Ministry of Welfare, senior management refused this week to fight corruption which has been deeply-entrenched in the Ministry of Welfare for over 30 years.  One of the communities that has suffered most at the hands of the Ministry of Welfare are Ethiopian immigrants.  According to the Jewish Agency, Ethiopians are less than 3% of Israel’s  immigrant population while Ethiopian children represent 50% of the immigrant population under the Ministry of Welfare’s control.

One of the many testimonies linked to the UnPromisedLand channel is the story of a divorced Ethiopian mother whose children were taken from her when she went to the corner shop and left them unattended at her home.  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEXqky5N4BI&feature=related ).  This is a classic example of the Ministry of Welfare’s “divide and conquer” strategy. 

Firstly, court-appointed social workers pushed the Ethiopian father of this family out of the picture from the beginning of the divorce.  If they were to allow him access to his children, it would have only been under the “supervision” of an 18 year-old girl working as a volunteer in a supervised visitation center.  This first step rapes the patriarchal Ethiopian culture – as evidenced by the suicide rate among Ethiopian fathers which is 7 times higher than anyone else. 

Once these social workers had this mother and children under their control – they took away three of the children to the dismay of Knesset Member Shlomo Mollah.  Nobody even considered reuniting the children with their biological father when the social workers placed them with strangers for over 4 years.  Instead of trying to defuse this family’s crisis – court-appointed social workers actually amplified devastation in each of their decisions.  Multiply this family’s story by over 84,000 Ethiopian immigrants and that is a very serious social disaster which the Ministry of Welfare refuses to address.

My experience fundraising among American Zionists is the percentage of income which Black Americans donate to Israel is twice the percentage which White Americans donate to Israel.  Black Americans like Pastor Glenn Plummer are four times more active in helping the Jewish community than White Americans.  If channel 1 would have broadcasted this story in the American media, the outrage among the 60 million Black Americans would have been entirely justifiable.

Not only does this violate the mutual trust and respect between Black Americans and the Jewish community, it violates international human rights treaties which Israel signed; and the American civil rights codes.  Every tax-deductible dollar raised in the USA and spent in Israel must comply with American civil rights codes. 

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Welfare claims Ethiopians come with “many problems” to Israel.  What this spokeswomen calls “many problems”, anthropologists call a “rich heritage” which Ethiopians trace back to King Solomon and even Moses.  Civil rights codes and international treaties define this spokeswoman’s claim as “intolerance and racism”. Both American non-profits and their Israeli partners who receive donated funds could find themselves in deep trouble if any American donor were to prove their donations were being used to violate the civil and human rights of Ethiopians in Israel.