Israel admits Ethiopian women were given birth control shots

Middle East • January 2013 • Views: 3,661

Health Minister director general instructs all gynecologists in Israel’s four health maintenance organizations not to inject women with long-acting contraceptive Depo-Provera if they do not understand ramifications of treatment.

A government official has for the first time acknowledged the practice of injecting women of Ethiopian origin with the long-acting contraceptive Depo-Provera.

Health Ministry Director General Prof. Ron Gamzu has instructed the four health maintenance organizations to stop the practice as a matter of course.

The ministry and other state agencies had previously denied knowledge or responsibility for the practice, which was first reported five years ago.

Gamzu’s letter came in response to a letter from Sharona Eliahu-Chai of the Association of Civil Rights in Israel, representing several women’s rights and Ethiopian immigrants’ groups. The letter demanded the injections cease immediately and that an investigation be launched into the practice.

Sorry, but the full story is behind a pay wall.

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49 comments

Buck Sun, Jan 27, 2013 10:45:04am

“if they do not understand ramifications of treatment.”

And if they do understand? If they choose (perhaps without their husbands permission) a form of contraception that is undetectable by their husband? What then?

This snippet of an article makes it sound like there is a racist conspiracy to sterilize African women, secretly and against their will.

I do not believe that Doctors in Israel are part of a conspiracy of that sort.

Skip Intro Sun, Jan 27, 2013 10:47:18am

Just reverse it. Change Ethiopians to Jews. Any problem with that?

Buck Sun, Jan 27, 2013 11:16:42am

Offering birth control shots to Jews? Not excluding them from being able to get contraception?

Of course I don’t have a problem with it. Do you?

This isn’t forced sterilization. I simply do not believe there is some conspiracy to force only Ethiopian women to have this treatment. AND the article does not say there is. It just eludes to some evil.

Buck Sun, Jan 27, 2013 11:26:01am

For Depo-Provera to work, you have to be injected every three months.

Which means the women came back every three months. They were not rounded up. They were not forced. They made appointments and went to the clinics.

Remember the concept that we are FOR a womans right to choose contraception.

AND consider that many women would not want their husbands to know that they are making that choice.

Buck Sun, Jan 27, 2013 11:31:17am

Gamzu’s letter instructed “all gynecologists in the HMOs not to renew prescriptions for Depo-Provera for women of Ethiopian origin if for any reason there is concern that they might not understand the ramifications of the treatment.” Gamzu also instructed physicians to avail themselves of translators if need be.

That is certainly good advice, but it DOES NOT mean that anything different was happening in the past.

Charles Johnson Sun, Jan 27, 2013 11:51:52am

Quote:

About six weeks ago, on an Educational Television program journalist Gal Gabbay revealed the results of interviews with 35 Ethiopian immigrants. The women’s testimony could help explain the almost 50-percent decline over the past 10 years in the birth rate of Israel’s Ethiopian community. According to the program, while the women were still in transit camps in Ethiopia they were sometimes intimidated or threatened into taking the injection. “They told us they are inoculations,” said one of the women interviewed. “They told us people who frequently give birth suffer. We took it every three months. We said we didn’t want to.”

This does not sound like a fully voluntary program.

Charles Johnson Sun, Jan 27, 2013 11:57:51am

By the way, you can read full articles at Haaretz by using Google’s cache. Just paste the URL into Google’s search field, and put ‘cache:’ in front of it, and you’ll go to Google’s cache of the page:

[Link: webcache.googleusercontent.com…]

Vicious Babushka Sun, Jan 27, 2013 11:59:19am

re: #4 Buck

For Depo-Provera to work, you have to be injected every three months.

Which means the women came back every three months. They were not rounded up. They were not forced. They made appointments and went to the clinics.

Remember the concept that we are FOR a womans right to choose contraception.

AND consider that many women would not want their husbands to know that they are making that choice.

They were given the shots without full consent.

Buck Sun, Jan 27, 2013 12:15:00pm

re: #8 Vicious Babushka

They were given the shots without full consent.

You don’t know that. AND the article doesn’t prove that. AND the government does not admit that.

When Israel says they will investigate, many make that sound like an admission of guilt.

I do not believe it is possible to have an organized evil conspiracy by Israeli doctors.

Buck Sun, Jan 27, 2013 12:18:57pm

re: #6 Charles Johnson

This does not sound like a fully voluntary program.

Why? Because someone says so? What do you know about Gal Gabbay and his agenda?

35 women interviewed on this, a very private subject.

Charles Johnson Sun, Jan 27, 2013 2:18:58pm

re: #10 Buck

I know that Haaretz reported he’s a journalist with Educational Television, who interviewed Ethiopian immigrants.

Are you trying to imply he’s lying about this?

goddamnedfrank Sun, Jan 27, 2013 2:22:51pm

Israel has admitted for the first time that it has been giving Ethiopian Jewish immigrants birth-control injections, often without their knowledge or consent.
…

Haaretz published an extract from a letter sent by the Ministry of Health to units administering the drug. Doctors were told “not to renew prescriptions for Depo Provera for women of Ethiopian origin if for any reason there is concern that they might not understand the ramifications of the treatment”.

Sharona Eliahu Chai, a lawyer for the Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), said: “Findings from investigations into the use of Depo Provera are extremely worrisome, raising concerns of harmful health policies with racist implications in violation of medical ethics. The Ministry of Health’s director-general was right to act quickly and put forth new guidelines.”

Sorry but this meets the textbook definition of a eugenics policy. The fact that the women weren’t permanently sterilized only differs from historical abuses by a matter of degree. The goal was the same - to by hook or by crook reduce the reproductive rate of undesirable members of society.

Red Falcons of America Sun, Jan 27, 2013 2:27:44pm

The recent racist reaction to Ethiopian immigrants in Israel has been horrifying.

gwangung Sun, Jan 27, 2013 2:32:09pm

re: #10 Buck

Why? Because someone says so? What do you know about Gal Gabbay and his agenda?

35 women interviewed on this, a very private subject.

This seems like willful denial. Very disappointing in a thinking human being.

JeffFX Sun, Jan 27, 2013 3:04:38pm

re: #9 Buck

I do not believe it is possible to have an organized evil conspiracy by Israeli doctors.

Why would Israelis be different from anyone else. American doctors have gotten up to some heinous shit in the past 100 years, and I’d expect it to be the same everywhere.

Buck Sun, Jan 27, 2013 3:08:58pm

re: #11 Charles Johnson

I know that Haaretz reported he’s a journalist with Educational Television, who interviewed Ethiopian immigrants.

Are you trying to imply he’s lying about this?

Or a very poor journalist, with very little history and perhaps an agenda.

A quick search for “Gal Gabbay” finds what exactly? Well, nothing but this story.

And this story is ONLY about the interviews with 35 women.

Now imagine the other side. You have to believe that the government, after allowing these people safety from seriously oppressive lives, and spending millions to help them immigrate, have conspired to temporarily (3 months at a time, for 8 years) stop them from having babies.

It is ridiculous on its face.

Jewish/Israeli doctors take the same Hippocratic oath that all doctors do.

It is much more believable that these women ASKED for help with control over their reproductive cycles, and preferred a method that could be hidden from their husbands and community.

Who the hell is Gal Gabbay? I do a search and the first thing that comes up is his Facebook profile.

Is this the first time you have seen “a lie go around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on”?

rosiee Sun, Jan 27, 2013 3:15:27pm

inexcusable.

Buck Sun, Jan 27, 2013 3:18:05pm

According to the program, while the women were still in transit camps in Ethiopia they were sometimes intimidated or threatened into taking the injection.

While still in Ethiopia? AND on the one hand they didn’t know they were talking a contraceptive but thought they were getting inoculations, BUT they felt threatened and intimidated.

That doesn’t ring any alarms?

Oggie Ben Doggie Sun, Jan 27, 2013 3:38:12pm

According to the program, while the women were still in transit camps in Ethiopia they were sometimes intimidated or threatened into taking the injection.

Which is to say, while they were living in a very dangerous environment, where they could not get proper prenatal care, and while they had not yet obtained any decent command of Hebrew.

Unethical. Patronizing. And wrong. But it may not have been motivated by eugenic ideology.

Buck Sun, Jan 27, 2013 3:38:23pm

The only thing that “Israel Admits” is that they made contraception available to women (for free).

Israeli government Doctors are accused of a terrible crime, but the only evidence is the interviews with 35 women by a journalist with Educational Television.

An investigation will take place.

Until then, in my opinion this belongs in the same file with “the CIA created AIDS to infect the African community”.

Charles Johnson Sun, Jan 27, 2013 4:07:18pm

re: #16 Buck

Actually, it was pretty easy to discover references to Gal Gabay as a veteran reporter for Israeli Educational Television. And she (not he) has a history of being attacked by the Israeli right wing. LaDa’at ETV’s Latest Scandal - Defense/Middle East - News

The latest outcry over Educational TV came this week, as veteran reporter Gal Gabay, in a talk show, criticized Israelis who hike and explore historic areas of Judea and Samaria. Gabay, speaking to right-wing activist Amotz Eyal, said that Israelis who took such hikes were “provocateurs” seeking to cause trouble, and that they were coming to hike in “Palestine.” And, despite her claims later, in an apology she issued, Gabay repeated the term several times.

Talkbacks against Gabay on news websites have been vociferous in their disapproval of Gabay’s comments. Hundreds of people have already signed a petition demanding that she be fired, despite her apology, which, the petition states, “appears to be more of an admission of guilt than an apology.” In her apology, Gabay said that she “obviously” mean to say “territories under the control of the Palestinian Authority,” and expressed her disappointment at “how a mistake was turned into a political position.”

This is not the first time Gabay or her program, “Making Order” (O’sim Seder), has raised the ire of Israelis, or of Media Watch. “This program has a long history of prejudice against the right, with Gabay freely expressing her political opinions on a program that is supposed to be informative, not opinionated,” Ben-Gigi says. A recent Media Watch study showed that Gabay interviwed on average four Labor Mks for every two Likud Mks, for example, while clearly leftist interviewees outnumbered right-wing guests by 4 to 1.

Note that this is Arutz Sheva, an extreme right wing source.

Sionainn Sun, Jan 27, 2013 4:12:20pm

State Secret: Thousands Secretly Sterilized

Sterilized Against Their Will

Compulsary Sterilization

Unethical Human Experimentation in the United Stated

Buck Sun, Jan 27, 2013 4:22:13pm

re: #21 Charles Johnson

That doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement. An article that you think is biased that sounds like SHE is biased.

Education, background, any other media jobs?

Buck Sun, Jan 27, 2013 4:23:46pm

re: #22 Sionainn

State Secret: Thousands Secretly Sterilized

Sterilized Against Their Will

Compulsary Sterilization

Unethical Human Experimentation in the United Stated

Except that this isn’t a story about Compulsory Sterilization is it?

Red Falcons of America Sun, Jan 27, 2013 4:27:28pm

re: #24 Buck

close enough, if this story doesnt make your skin crawl as a human being and as a jew then there must be something wrong with you.

Sionainn Sun, Jan 27, 2013 4:30:56pm

re: #24 Buck

Except that this isn’t a story about Compulsory Sterilization is it?

Sure it is.

CuriousLurker Sun, Jan 27, 2013 4:41:34pm

re: #21 Charles Johnson

Regarding the Israeli right wing, there’s also this from Haaretz on Nov.25, 2011 (emphasis mine):

The campaign continued with the move to shut Channel 10. Here too, the relevant minister should be someone else, in this case, Communications Minister Moshe Kahlon. But Netanyahu ignores him, and Kahlon has uttered hardly a word on this matter. Everything has been worked out between Netanyahu and Knesset coalition chair Zeev Elkin. Unlike Kahlon, Elkin opens his mouth.

In a statement released on Wednesday, Sa’ar sent Netanyahu an ultimatum: Alter your course, or I’m no longer education minister. Netanyahu can’t afford to lose popular Likud cabinet ministers. The battle between them is centered on status, respect and ego - and these are qualities that neither lack.

The real question is why Netanyahu is so fixated on Educational Television that he is letting it cause disputes with a political ally. The answer lies in the show broadcast during the 5:30 P.M. daily slot, “Making Order” (“Osim Seder” ), featuring journalists Ben Caspit and Gal Gabai.

The program, particularly the two weekly episodes hosted by Caspit, the well-known Maariv columnist who finds cause almost every week to lash out against Israel’s first couple, is anathema to Benjamin and Sara Netanyahu. They want to pull the plug on it. Thus, the issue isn’t really economics, despite claims by Netanyahu’s aides. The problem is Ben Caspit. […]

Previous articles from Haaretz on the Ethiopian birth control issue:

Dec.09, 2012

Dec.11, 2012

Sounds like a right-wing/left-wing spat going on with the Ethiopian women caught in the middle. The truth will come out eventually.

This appears to be Gabay’s Twitter feed, but since I don’t speak Hebrew I can’t be sure: @Galgush

Here’s an interview with Caspit. It’s pretty clear that loathes the right as much as they loathe him. Here’s what appears to be his Twitter feed: @BenCaspit

Sionainn Sun, Jan 27, 2013 4:50:37pm

Googling Gal Gabai comes up with all sorts of articles regarding her.

Buck Sun, Jan 27, 2013 5:07:02pm

re: #26 Sionainn

Sure it is.

If you don’t know the difference between providing Depo-Provera and Compulsory Sterilization you might be a Republican.

CuriousLurker Sun, Jan 27, 2013 5:07:25pm

Ah, here we go, I found what I was looking for—Gabai’s bio page at Israel Educational TV. The Google translation is far from perfect, but it’s good enough to make it clear that Ms. Gabai is not some some kind of hack lacking serious credentials as a journalist as Buck implied in his #16:

Gal Gabai began her journalistic local newspaper Kol Hanegev, exposing municipal corruption, followed by an investigation. Then made documentaries, one of which led to her admission to Army Radio. Then came the new company of Channel 2.

News 2 she served as a police reporter and anchor for Newsflash. One morning flash approach, called Gabay, a social agenda close to her heart, GG Studios to support workers who were paid a few months.

In our opinion provoked a storm of Gabbai, and although its series of articles trafficking followed the Knesset debated the issue, Gabbay longer the system. […]

Sionainn Sun, Jan 27, 2013 5:10:39pm

re: #29 Buck

If you don’t know the difference between providing Depo-Provera and Compulsory Sterilization you might be a Republican.

It’s not permanent sterilization, but it is indeed injecting women with long-term birth control to prevent pregnancies, unknown to them.

CuriousLurker Sun, Jan 27, 2013 5:11:55pm

re: #30 CuriousLurker

P.S. Refresh the Page if you don’t see the link to Gabai’s bio page at Israel Educational TV, as I forgot to add it until just now (5:11pm PST).

Buck Sun, Jan 27, 2013 5:13:27pm

re: #31 Sionainn

It’s not permanent sterilization, but it is indeed injecting women with long-term birth control to prevent pregnancies, unknown to them.

No, actually it is an accusation only. And 90 days is hardly long term.

And all your links WERE about permanent sterilization.

Red Falcons of America Sun, Jan 27, 2013 5:22:47pm

re: #33 Buck

you made an statement about the Hippocratic oath and how that means that no doctor would do anything bad - the fact that doctors in America, taking the Hippocratic oath continued to permanently sterilize minorities cuts to the fact that the Hippocratic oath does not stop Israeli doctors from temporarily sterilizing minorities.

Sionainn Sun, Jan 27, 2013 5:23:05pm

re: #33 Buck

No, actually it is an accusation only. And 90 days is hardly long term.

And all your links WERE about permanent sterilization.

Wasn’t it you who had a problem believing that a government or doctors would possibly do something like that? Why, yes, that was you.

“This snippet of an article makes it sound like there is a racist conspiracy to sterilize African women, secretly and against their will.

I do not believe that Doctors in Israel are part of a conspiracy of that sort.”

and

“I do not believe it is possible to have an organized evil conspiracy by Israeli doctors.”

I posted those links to show you that doctors and governments have indeed done these kind of vile things in the past. What makes you think that it couldn’t be happening now?

CuriousLurker Sun, Jan 27, 2013 5:29:43pm

One more. Haaretz interview with Gabai from 2007 (Google translation):

Does not account
Way from Beersheba to channel 2, channel selection switch Knesset injured hand from a serious injury as a child, social worldview - Gal Gabai not play by the rules. While the new company future uncertain, because she identified transmission with employees who received wages, raises Channel 8 series on the crisis of confidence facing the medical system. Talk with exceptional journalist […]

After reading the full interview, and despite the poor translation, it sounds to me like she has pretty impressive skills as an investigative journalist.

Time to get ready for Monday. Later, lizards.

Buck Sun, Jan 27, 2013 6:18:33pm

re: #35 Sionainn

I posted those links to show you that doctors and governments have indeed done these kind of vile things in the past. What makes you think that it couldn’t be happening now?

AND again, your links were NOT about “the sort of thing” in the story.

It makes no sense to me that there could be a coordinated effort between the medical staff at the clinics in Ethiopia, which are run by the JDC and all the doctors in Israeli hospitals and clinics.

When these women came to live in Israel, they would get access to male and female gynecologists. They were not in an institution. They were free to seek treatment from, what is an extensive health care system.

This was thousands of women, settled in Israel over decades. Many of the women who came in the past 8 years were helped by other Ethiopian women who have been in the country for many more years.

They have a community. Would talk among themselves. The idea that for 8 years some would be going to the doctor for an injection every 90 days and NOT know what it was for, or even ask seems very remote.

Again, it is not that they didn’t have access to a modern progressive and advanced health care system. In order to keep getting Depo-Provera, they have to see someone every 90 days. AND each time they get Depo-Provera, they get a pregnancy test first.

What do they have to do to NOT get a pregnancy test and an injection (every 90 days)? Just not show up.

OR IS IT BELIEVABLE that their culture is against contraception and their husbands would be against it.

AND they might ask for and get a contraception method that they could control without pills (that would be seen and found).

Actually there are studies that confirm that when women are moved up and out of extreme poverty, the birthrates drop.

Sionainn Sun, Jan 27, 2013 6:30:33pm

re: #33 Buck

No, actually it is an accusation only. And 90 days is hardly long term.

And all your links WERE about permanent sterilization.

Because the birth control shot is long lasting, it can take a long time to get pregnant after getting your last shot — anywhere from 6–10 months. So, Depo-Provera is not a good birth control method for you if you’re thinking of getting pregnant soon.

Link

Depending on the woman and age, this can make a major difference between being able to conceive or not, something that is not to be decided by any government or doctor.

Buck Sun, Jan 27, 2013 6:55:09pm

re: #38 Sionainn

Link

Depending on the woman and age, this can make a major difference between being able to conceive or not, something that is not to be decided by any government or doctor.

Yes, that is what contraception is. It play a major role for conception. Correct. It is safe, effective, and convenient.

Without actually being able to interview any of the doctors involved (medical records are private) you want to label this as forced sterilization.

(That is what the US Right wants to label Planned parenthood, funny that)

In fact, if one thing unites Jews it is reverence for having more babies, not less.

Most of the 100,000 Ethiopians living in Israel are immigrants and descendants of two main waves, the first in 1981–1984 and the second in 1991.

Lets say that statistically we are talking about 50% women, and we can assume not everyone is the right age to need contraception. That might leave 30,000 women.

This person interviews 34 women.

This investigation does not (and can not) include the actual medical files of these women. The government investigation can.

Destro Sun, Jan 27, 2013 9:09:45pm

The Ethiopian Beta Israel were never Jews (lost tribe or otherwise*) and were used in their evacuations to Israel for propaganda purposes and when no longer needed or in the lime light they culture and traditions are denigrated and cast aside and are now suffered through eugenic human rights violations to keep their numbers down.

*(they were actually dissident Christian sects that went through their own “Protestant” reformation A late ethnogenesis of the Beta Israel between the 14th to 16th centuries, from a sect of Ethiopian Christians who took on Biblical practices, and came to see themselves as Jews. Steven Kaplan lists himself along with G. J. Abbink, Kay K. Shelemay, Taddesse Tamrat and James A. Quirin as supporters of this hypothesis. Quirin differs from his fellow researchers in the weight he assigns to an ancient Jewish element that the Beta Israel have conserved.

Paul B. Henze supported the latter view in his 2000 work Layers of Time: A History of Ethiopia:

These groups came into conflict with the military colonies and Christian missions which were the main instruments of the extension southward of the Ethiopian state. They may have been joined by dissident or rebelling northern Christians who felt their interpretations of ritual, sacred texts and traditions of art represented a more ancient Israelite connection than Orthodox Monophysite Christianity itself. The Beta Israel can thus be understood as a manifestation of the kind of rebellious archaism that has often come to the surface in Christianity—e.g. Russian Old Believers and German Old Lutherans. Assertion of Jewish derivation, they felt, provided them with a stronger claim to legitimacy than their Christian enemies.)

Obdicut Mon, Jan 28, 2013 3:11:53am

Buck it is possible that this story is false. It is also fully possible that it’s true. This is not a rare occurrence. It happens to the Roma all over Europe, it happened to all sorts of people in Sweden. It doesn’t take an evil regime to do something like this.

Buck Mon, Jan 28, 2013 12:40:00pm

re: #40 Destro

The Ethiopian Beta Israel were never Jews (lost tribe or otherwise*) and were used in their evacuations to Israel for propaganda purposes and when no longer needed or in the lime light they culture and traditions are denigrated and cast aside and are now suffered through eugenic human rights violations to keep their numbers down.

Sez you. I happen to know differently.

Buck Mon, Jan 28, 2013 12:40:30pm

re: #41 Obdicut

Buck it is possible that this story is false. It is also fully possible that it’s true. This is not a rare occurrence. It happens to the Roma all over Europe, it happened to all sorts of people in Sweden. It doesn’t take an evil regime to do something like this.

Repeating slander is slander.

Obdicut Mon, Jan 28, 2013 12:47:30pm

re: #43 Buck

Repeating slander is slander.

Buck, I’m not repeating slander. What slander are you alleging?

I’d also note that appropriately, accusing people of slander who aren’t slandering anyone is itself arguably slander.

Flavia Mon, Jan 28, 2013 10:01:59pm

re: #13 Red Falcons of America

The recent racist reaction to Ethiopian immigrants in Israel has been horrifying.

It isn’t racist, but it is still wrong.

The ONLY problem with the Ethiopians is that their Jewishness is in question due to practices/isolation - NOT COLOR. I still don’t quite agree with that view, either (certainly not at this point), & this is still HEINOUS.

But it’s not racist.

Dogpiling doesn’t help anyone.

Flavia Mon, Jan 28, 2013 10:11:41pm

re: #40 Destro

The Ethiopian Beta Israel were never Jews (lost tribe or otherwise*)

Your own link denies this.

[Link: en.wikipedia.org…]

“The related Falash Mura are the descendants of Beta Israel who converted to Christianity. Some are returning to the practices of Judaism, living in communities and returning to Judaism.”

IOW, they WERE Jews (& the ones in the full maternal line STILL ARE), & are returning to Jewish practice.

There were plenty of rabbis, however, who were worried - not in the least unnaturally - that the maternal line was not unbroken, & that their practices were not genuine Judaism. Even the most hardline of rabbis were willing to waive their reservations if they underwent the same mikveh that any Jew who commits apostasy undergoes. But some of them refused - hence the worry.

Which is not to say that it should ever have been solved this way - this is horrendous. Despicable. But I can see that the situation isn’t bad enough for someone who openly hates Israeli Jews, so you had to lie about it.

Destro Tue, Jan 29, 2013 6:53:18am

re: #46 Flavia

Your own link denies this.

[Link: en.wikipedia.org…]

“The related Falash Mura are the descendants of Beta Israel who converted to Christianity. Some are returning to the practices of Judaism, living in communities and returning to Judaism.”

IOW, they WERE Jews (& the ones in the full maternal line STILL ARE), & are returning to Jewish practice.

There were plenty of rabbis, however, who were worried - not in the least unnaturally - that the maternal line was not unbroken, & that their practices were not genuine Judaism. Even the most hardline of rabbis were willing to waive their reservations if they underwent the same mikveh that any Jew who commits apostasy undergoes. But some of them refused - hence the worry.

Which is not to say that it should ever have been solved this way - this is horrendous. Despicable. But I can see that the situation isn’t bad enough for someone who openly hates Israeli Jews, so you had to lie about it.

It’s wikipedia. I linked studies mentioned on Wikipedia. There are no lost tribes. It’s a myth. There were no 12 tribes of Israel (it’s a mythological Zodiac story).

The modern day Ethiopian “Jews” did not have Jewish ancestors. They were Christians that became more “book” and Old Testament oriented or maybe self converted to escape the Muslim vs Christian clashes in the Middle Ages.

Paul B. Henze supported the latter view in his 2000 work Layers of Time: A History of Ethiopia:

These groups came into conflict with the military colonies and Christian missions which were the main instruments of the extension southward of the Ethiopian state. They may have been joined by dissident or rebelling northern Christians who felt their interpretations of ritual, sacred texts and traditions of art represented a more ancient Israelite connection than Orthodox Monophysite Christianity itself. The Beta Israel can thus be understood as a manifestation of the kind of rebellious archaism that has often come to the surface in Christianity—e.g. Russian Old Believers and German Old Lutherans. Assertion of Jewish derivation, they felt, provided them with a stronger claim to legitimacy than their Christian enemies. Paul B. Henze, Layers of Time, Palgrave, 2000. p. 55.

Buck Tue, Jan 29, 2013 6:12:26pm

re: #44 Obdicut

Buck, I’m not repeating slander. What slander are you alleging?

I’d also note that appropriately, accusing people of slander who aren’t slandering anyone is itself arguably slander.

Repeating a story that “is possible that this story is false. It is also fully possible that it’s true.”

In other words just repeating a slander that may or may not be true is still slander.

[deleted] Tue, Jan 29, 2013 6:14:04pm

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