July 2, 2008

By Haaretz Editorial

It appears that a stronger prime minister than Ehud Olmert is needed to declare the Ethiopian Jewish immigration over. In 1991, when Yitzhak Shamir had to decide in the middle of the night whether to bring the Falashmura aboard the Operation Solomon airplanes, he said no. At that time the Falashmura were considered non-Jews, and nowadays they are still considered non-Jews. When they arrive in Israel, they undergo conversion.

After Shamir, prime ministers became more flexible, in keeping with the needs of politics and image, and surrendered to pressures to bring the Falashmura to Israel in the name of family reunification.

The Falashmura were not entitled to immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return, which allows for the immigration of non-Jews under limited circumstances. Usually the state is quite miserly about giving such permits, but when there are political pressures, here in Israel and especially from the United States, the criteria change. Hanan Porat was the Falashmura's character witness with Shamir, and he failed. After that, American Jewry started to create pressure, and several hundred Falashmura were allowed to enter annually. Ariel Sharon doubled the immigration rate to 600 a month. As he saw it, anyone who is prepared to serve in the Israel Defense Forces is a Jew. Shas supported the immigration, because Rabbi Ovadia Yosef considered the Falashmura to be Jews, and especially because they become voters for the party and students in the movement's educational network.

In 1999 the Interior Ministry determined that 30,000 more Falashmura were entitled to enter Israel in the name of family reunification. However, after this reservoir was nearly depleted, Olmert submitted to pressure, and two months ago established a committee to reexamine the issue. The Jewish Agency had nearly completed its activity and was about to start dismissing its employees when the organizations working on behalf of the Falashmura announced there were another 8,700 people whose eligibility had not been examined. Once again it became clear that Israeli governments cannot be relied upon to implement policies that they themselves determined. There is always room for yet another committee, another pressure group, another reexamination.

If the explanation for the mass Falashmura immigration is demographic, then there is no limit to the number of people who are prepared to convert to Judaism in order to immigrate to Israel and improve their living conditions. If the justification is family reunification, then Israel has a great number of nuclear families begging to be reunited with non-Jewish relatives in Russia, including adopted children and grandmothers who were deported at the end of a visit, and there are Israeli Arabs who have been prohibited from living here with their spouses.

In order to set a sane immigration policy, we need a political leadership that can plan ahead. The Law of Return is already less relevant, because the pool of Jews who want to immigrate to Israel is almost dry. There is no need to revoke the Law of Return, because it is the basis of the Jewish state, but nevertheless it cannot be upheld through mass conversion. An immigration policy for non-Jews must be established based on criteria that suit the needs of a modern state, not in accordance with pressure exerted on prime ministers.