Israel gave birth control to Ethiopian Jews without their consent

Then after each shot, their chance of getting pregnant for the next 3 months is very low. What is the point you are making ? Some women in this country use this form of birth control for years.

I am not debating the morality of this at all. If it was done, even to one woman, it was completely immoral.

What I am trying to do is to clear up some obvious misconceptions about this form of birth control.

 

I understand where you're coming from, but the despicable nature of this program for me isn't in the way it affected each individual woman. The thing that is evil about it (if it's true) is the way they calculated that if they gave it to as many women as they could, the birth rates for that group would drop dramatically. Whilst the effect on the individuals might not have been severely detrimental (and indeed might have been beneficial in some circumstances), the effect on the group was drastic, and was intended to be so. A 50% lower birth rate amongst that group is not an insignificant effect.

What you gotta ask yourself is why they would do it. The reason is to marginalise these people politically and socially in order to maintain their ethnocracy. The full damage done to these people isn't going to be apparent now, that'll come further down the line. Planning to marginalise people's rights decades in advance, that's some evil shit right there.

 

The problem is, if you don't accept the bibles version of events relating to that part of the world and that period of time it's difficult to see what a 'right of return' means. Bluntly, how can someone 'return' to somewhere they or their family have never been.

 

Maybe. But birth control comes with its own very real set of risks. How do we know if the clinics were evaluating each woman's medical history to see if they could even get the shots? My guess is that they didn't and just herded them in & out.

 

So you would identify as culturally but not religiously Jewish?

 

I think you are ignoring the psychological effects. I can only assume that many of the women involved were in relationships where they had the desire to procreate. Failure to do so caused by a contraceptive they themselves were not aware of will have caused them serious harm.

 

From the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
(Adopted by Resolution 260 (III) A of the U.N. General Assembly on 9 December 1948.
Entry into force: 12 January 1951.)

Article I: The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.

Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such ...(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.

Article IV: Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals.

 

Dude, we know.

The world has made up its mind on that question already; pretty amusing to hear you demand it be answered again though.

Because that's the name given to a specific law? Does it matter what you call it?

You mean a quasi-communist commune didn't have a temple? No way!!! I wonder why? I guess the kibbutz founders weren't really Jews then?

What "problem" exactly are we talking about?

As far as I can tell, Dr. Jay was only clarifying the way the drug works. He repeatedly said that he wasn't condoning the action regardless of the details.

 

You may have missed guignol's post, as it was a response to someone other than you, but this is what he said...

"...and russian jews who... create in only a few years an organized crime problem the likes of which israel had never seen before and even form neo-nazi groups..."

I believe this is the problem he's referring to. If he's mistaken, you would know and you'd be right to say so. If he's right, I'm really, really, really hoping you didn't ignore his post because of personal ties to the faith or to Russia.

This dancing is beneath you. It's not a team sport. What Israel's done here is unconscionable, and it's equally so for anyone to be doing anything but saying that, over and again. Belonging to a faith doesn't give you a responsibility to defend its more odious actions.

 

Completely agree with the rest of your post. But it's important to note that this wasn't Judaism doing this. It was israeli Zionists who just happened to be Jews. And the victims were Jews too.

 

I do understand that. Hope the words I used don't confuse anyone else.

 

Then perhaps you can clarify the following for me. Are the Ethiopian Jews accepted by the rest as fully Jewish, or is that level of membership restricted to only those who fit into a particular ethnicity?

 

Maybe this article from 2007 will help in answering that.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3480010,00.html

Unlike me, Ynet is not known for its "i h8 izrael" stance so the article is worth reading even if you dislike my POV.

 

If you think of it as the Church of Shoal Creek or Augusta National rather than a church dedicated to worship of a deity, it may make more sense.

I'm waiting for confirmation from either Nicephoras or Yasik on that...

 

You couldn't be wronger.

 

I don't know about this site, so I'm not sure what to type here. But your POV will be a hell of a lot more tolerable if it turns out that this actually is the reality for non-ethnic Jews in Israel.

 

Fully aware of that. But we're spending men and money propping these folks up in the ME. I'm really trying to find some other reason --almost any reason-- than race or culture for this to have happened because I'd rather not conclude that we'd be better off allowing them to be driven into the sea.