Israel gave birth control to Ethiopian Jews without their consent

It's suggested from the lead in this article. I didn't read the whole article since I'm not registered.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/nationa...thiopian-community-declining.premium-1.483494

 

Maybe Jon Stewart will talk about it, since it seems like most of the other American news organizations won't.

 

By the way, there is quite literally no such thing as a Jewish illegal alien in Israel. That's sort of the whole point. Now if some ********wit Orthodox asshole wants to claim that some people are more Jewish than others, well, let's put it to a vote. I'm pretty sure Israel would be lot better off if we kicked the religtards off the island and everybody else grabbed some Ethiopian food.

 

How is this not bigger, more universally outrage-inducing news?
A basic news search turns up only the Chicago Trib and the LA Times in terms of 'major' mainstream news sources covering the story.

And the LA Times headline could not be more milquetoast:
Amid controversy, Israel issues new birth-control guidelines


Astonishing.

EDIT: Missed Dignan's posts...

 

I appreciate what you're saying, and I agree that this being done without the women's knowledge makes it a distinct sort of crime.


But on the other hand, I'm not using it to make a roundabout political point. While I don't mean to say that this crime and abortion restrictions are exactly the same, I do believe the two matters are related. They're two sides of the same coin. They are both cases where the state makes decisions about a woman's reproductive health. The fact that these women in Israel had no other options is worth noting when comparing the relative severity of the two crimes, but it doesn't render them completely irrelevant to each other.

Any time the state is exercising control over reproduction, we have a serious problem. I think it's very important to make that connection. This is an extreme (but hardly unprecedented) example of what happens when we treat reproductive health as an appropriate area for government intervention.

I'm sorry that it seemed to you like I was using this story to make an unrelated point. To me, these issues are all of a piece and cannot be addressed separately.

 

That's not really accurate; Netanyahu said that about African refugees that have been fleeing into Israel, not Ethiopian Jews. Israel has recently been having other (very nasty) issues with African refugees, but the article conflates this.

This isn't an attempt to defend what Israel did with respect to Ethiopians - just clarifying a related point.

 

Yes, I'm guessing the Independent (not Haaretz) put a completely unrelated quote from Netanyahu into that article to make him seem worse. As if that's even necessary.

 

You can be intelligent and a lazy hack. They are not mutually exclusive. But you may be right.

 

Any news of an uproar from the Ethiopian community in Israel, now that this shocking revelation has been uncovered?
Its disturbing the mainstream media stays absolutely silent on this.

 

And this surprises who? You mean the 25 foot segregation walls and daily harassment of Palestinians at checkpoints is covered now?

 

It's not unrelated, but the implication it makes isn't accurate - which is why your claim that there are no "non-Jewish African immigrants in Israel" is wrong. And it's not because of the rabbinate, it's because they are from Darfur, Eritrea, etc. Here: http://articles.washingtonpost.com/...79_1_african-refugees-refugee-flow-miri-regev.

 

Theres no moral equivalence between these 2 issues.

 

Indeed. The actions of the Israeli government meet the legal definition of genocide, and the LA Times writes a headline about new birth control guidelines. Amazing.

If a genocide falls in the forest but the media refuses to cover it, did it make a sound?

 

I can only think of three reasons that major North American media outlets aren't covering the story. (Can anyone else name any plausible reasons that I've missed?)

1) Incompetence.
2) The story is fabricated, or it has been grossly exaggerated.
3) Political reasons.

And honestly, if #3 is the real reason, then I'm gonna need to at least double my Paxil prescription.

 

If you wanna read about the biases in the North American media, you really should read Ali Abunimah's blog on the Electronic Intifada.
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah

 

The one thing that I'm somewhat surprised by is the matter of fact reporting in the Israeli press; that's odd to me. Israel's press is far less shy about calling out the Israeli government for these things than is much of the US media. If this is as blatant as we think........it's odd that it's not getting more play in the Israeli media.

 

If true, the story is highly disturbing. But technically speaking, the women are not being sterilized.
They are being administered an injection that prevents conception for about 3 months. There is no long term effect on their sterility.