Israel immigration minister: 'Treat Ethiopia refugees like Ukrainians'

Pnina Tamano-Shata (C), Israel’s Minister of Immigration and Absorption, and Yaakov Hagoel (2nd-R), head of the World Zionist Organization (WZO), hand out Israeli flags to immigrants from Ukraine disembarking from their aircraft at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport in Lod on 20 February 2022. [JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images]

Israel’s Immigration and Absorption Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata raised the issue of ethnic discrimination with her colleagues, describing them as “hypocrites” regarding Israel’s discriminatory treatment of refugees from Ukraine with those from Ethiopia.

The minister told Ynet:

The truth is known to everyone and sometimes people don’t like to hear the truth. I told the truth. There is a certain level of hypocrisy that we need to expunge. The only medicine to treat this is putting everything on the table for all to see.

During a cabinet meeting last week, Tamano-Shata attacked her colleagues for refusing to offer the same sympathy and support to Ethiopian Jews seeking to flee their country that they are now offering Ukrainian refugees.

“We must also work to advance the immigration of Jews from Ethiopia, who are also fleeing a war,” asserted Tamano-Shata: “As an Ethiopian, I can tell you that I work as much for the Jews of India, France, the United States, Russia and Ukraine, as I do for my community.”

Israel: minister criticises hypocrisy over Jewish immigration

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