On the 30th of June, 2019, an off-duty policeman in the Kiryat Haim a northern neighborhood of the city of Haifa killed Solomon Tekah an Ethiopian Israeli teenager. His killing prompted outrage and violent protest across the Ethiopian community in Israel. Ethiopian escalated protests were a consequence of accumulated discriminatory treatment they face on a daily basis by some Israelis and governmental institutions whether in housing matters, jobs, schools, public service or other areas. These protests were parallel to the killing of Mohammad Abid, an Arab Palestinian who was shot in Occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Isawiyya . The reaction of Ethiopians and Palestinians as well as the Israeli public to these two killings varied in weight and in practice.
Media attention to Palestinian protests and victims who are stereotyped as terrorists was invisible compared to the Ethiopians ones. But both incidents reflect the social and political crises within the state’s system and the ill functioning of Israel’s claimed democracy vis-à-vis its own citizens and Palestinians under its occupation. Against the backdrop of the killing of the Ethiopian, the Israeli government has promised to intervene and adopt reforms to address some of the "grievances" experienced by the Israeli Ethiopian community, most probably seeking their votes in the coming elections next September 17th. While, on the other hand, the killing of Palestinian Abid, from Isawiyya has gone with the wind.
Many Israeli politicians, amongst them Likud leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, call for the integration of the Ethiopians community in Israel and criticize any kind of racism against them, but in reality they are not doing enough to realize what they call for.
At the same time, those politicians are among the most vocal supporters of exclusion and discrimination against other communities, especially Palestinian Arabs, who were living in Palestine before the creation of Israel and became citizens of Israel after 1948. This contradiction in the state’s struggle with racism has been deeply rooted in the Israeli politics. Recently discrimination was even formalized with the adoption of the 2018 Jewish Nation State law, which specifies the nature of the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, and states that self-determination in the land of Israel is exclusive to the Jews, which means that the Arabs who are 20% of the Israeli citizens are excluded from this right and are not equal citizen in the state.
There is a consensus among Israeli Jews (including political elites) that Ethiopians belong to the state of Israel and should be integrated on all levels. But even if Ethiopians were emancipated, Palestinians would never be. What remains is the racist base of the Israeli state due to a further process of marginalizing the marginalized.
Asymmetrical similarities and endless layers of complexity
Although most Ethiopians Jews serve in the Israeli Army (IDF) and police, and carry out tasks in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank and East Jerusalem, they still are vulnerable to forms of racism and police brutality within Israel. Ethiopian Jews, or Beta Israel, have always been considered at the bottom of Israel’s hierarchical system; this minority was subject to institutionalized racism since their arrival in the middle of the 1970’s. Similarly Palestinians have experienced racist measures but their case is a bit different.
There are Palestinians who are citizens of the state of Israel, but are not enjoying equal rights with their fellow Jewish citizens of the state, and there are Palestinians who are not citizens of Israel but living under Israeli occupation in East Jerusalem and the West Bank since the June 1967 War.
The former are fighting for equality within the Israeli socio-economic structure (integration), while the latter has been involved in a long political conflict with the State (separation).
Following the “Black Intifada”, few Palestinians stood in solidarity with Ethiopians on the basis of the state practicing racism against "blacks" and against the Arabs. An Arab-Israeli women rights activist, Samah Salaime, published an article in the +972 Magazine on the “Black Intifada” saying “I have a role to play in the liberation of others, even if those others have been exploited, willingly or unwillingly, to oppress me and my people.”
Some Palestinians perceived July’s unprecedented wave of violence as victory against their oppressor. Other segments of Arab-Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory went further to remind Palestinians that Ethiopians Jews are part of the Zionist project and the state system. Razi Nabulse, a Palestinian-Arab researcher at the Masarat Center posted on his social media account saying “we and Ethiopians are so different especially in terms of the nature of the conflict and our position from the state.” He added, “In fact, things are not simple and the comparison is not in place, Ethiopians are Jews, we are not Jews, and this is not marginal in the state of the Jews; second, they demand the state to be for all Jews, we demand that the state is not for Jews but for all its citizens.”
Zero Dilemmas
During the wave of protests, the Ethiopian movement did not relate their case with the movement of Arab-Palestinians, but were demanding their rights of intra-social structure in the Jewish state. Taking into consideration the reasons why Ethiopians had immigrated to Israel, then the idea of them standing in solidarity with Palestinians (not the grantor of opportunities in that case) is out of context and arbitrary. Palestinians have never identified their case with the Ethiopian struggle, as it’s seen as an Israeli social problem. Ethiopians’ detachment of their struggle from the Palestinian movement might be one of the reasons why the Israeli government condemned their oppression by racist Israelis. Otherwise they would have never gotten enough support from the current government and the majority of the Israelis. Thus the dilemma of “mutual enemy” or “mutual victim” is not a proper depiction of the situation especially with both communities’ efforts in distancing themselves from finding any solid similarity among them. Thus, one of the greatest weaknesses of the Ethiopians in combating racism against them is that they do not share their struggle with the rest of the victims of racism in Israel.
In his article for Sicha Mekomit, Ahmad al Bazz, a Palestinian journalist argued that the Palestinians will be able to stand in full solidarity with Ethiopian Jews only after the decolonization of the country. But since Ethiopians are seen as integral part of the settler-colonial system, any solidarity from the Palestinian part seems to be arbitrary. Although a nation that fights for its rights is most likely to support other nations in their struggle for freedom. But for Palestinians the Ethiopians case in Israel is a bit tricky and cannot be understood without the political-socio context. Thus we would be left with a socio-political vacuum that neither Palestinians would liberate Ethiopians nor Ethiopians would liberate Palestinians.
In conclusion, the practice of pushing minorities to further peripheries, and the state varied practice of racism within the community of minorities, could be stated as reasons behind those communities not finding a solid mutual ground for their struggle for their freedom within the state.
https://972mag.com/author/samah/
https://mekomit.co.il/ps/83118/?fbclid=IwAR1FcWtHxPJrCnNTcr74ZbfhioyyYje65Sy84M4-9bDVxKQbJZRGGWMYuSo