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<h1 class="title" id="page-title">Did Israel violate the Genocide
Convention by forcing contraceptives on Ethiopian women?</h1>
<div class="submitted"> <span property="dc:date dc:created"
content="2013-01-28T23:13:59+00:00" datatype="xsd:dateTime"
rel="sioc:has_creator">Submitted by <span class="username" xml:lang=""
about="/users/ali-abunimah" typeof="sioc:UserAccount"
property="foaf:name">Ali Abunimah</span> on Mon, 01/28/2013 - 23:13<br>
<small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/did-israel-violate-genocide-convention-forcing-contraceptives-ethiopian-women">http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/did-israel-violate-genocide-convention-forcing-contraceptives-ethiopian-women</a></small></small><br>
</span> </div>
<div class="field-body">
<p>After initial denials, Israel <a
href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-gave-birth-control-to-ethiopian-jews-without-their-consent-8468800.html">has
admitted that medical authorities have been giving Ethiopian women
long-term contraceptive drugs</a> and it has been alleged that this was
done without the women’s consent.</p>
<p>If the allegations are proven, this practice may fit the legal
definition of <strong>genocide.</strong></p>
<p>The government has now ordered clinics not to renew prescriptions
for the long-acting injectable contraceptive drug Depo-Provera “for
women of Ethiopian origin if for any reason there is concern that they
might not understand the ramifications of the treatment.”</p>
<h2>Allegations of coercion and threats</h2>
<p>In some cases, the drugs were reportedly administered to women
waiting in transit camps for permission to emigrate to Israel. The <a
href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/why-is-the-birth-rate-in-israel-s-ethiopian-community-declining.premium-1.483494">women’s
allegations, reported by <em>Haaretz</em> are shocking</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We said we won’t have the shot. They told us, if you don’t you
won’t go to Israel And also you won’t be allowed into the Joint
(American Joint Distribution Committee) office, you won’t get aid or
medical care. We were afraid… We didn’t have a choice. Without them and
their aid we couldn’t leave there. So we accepted the injection. It was
only with their permission that we were allowed to leave,” recounted
Emawayish, who immigrated from Ethiopia eight years ago. She was one of
35 women, whose stories were recorded by Sebba Reuven, that relate how
they <strong>were coaxed and threatened</strong> into agreeing to
receive the injectable birth control drug.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Dramatic decline in Ethiopian birthrate</h2>
<p>The journalistic investigation was prompted by a precipitious
decline in the birth rate among Ethiopian women in Israel:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>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 <strong>almost
50-percent decline</strong> over the past 10 years in the birth rate of
Israel’s Ethiopian community.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The Genocide convention</h2>
<p>From <em>The Independent</em>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>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 <strong>racist implications in violation of
medical ethics.</strong> The Ministry of Health’s director-general was
right to act quickly and put forth new guidelines.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But if indeed the goal of those who administered the program was to
target Ethiopian women, and to reduce the number of births they have,
then the policy may be a crime under Article II(d) of the <a
href="http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/genocide.htm">Convention on
the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>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:</p>
<p>(a) Killing members of the group;<br>
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;<br>
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated
to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;<br>
<strong>(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the
group;</strong><br>
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Reasonable suspicion</h2>
<p>If the coercive contraception program were administered against
women in general, it would be unethical and abhorrent, but it can only
be genocidal if it is done “with intent to destroy, in whole or in
part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.”</p>
<p>In this case, there is no allegation that the policy was employed
against anyone except Ethiopian women. That would be one indication of
targeting.</p>
<p>These Ethiopian women emigrated to Israel under the “Law of Return,”
Israel’s racist policy to only allow those it considers Jews into the
country, while keeping out indigenous Palestinians.</p>
<p>But remember, Israeli officials and state rabbis long delayed or
denied entry to tens of thousands of Ethiopians whose Jewishness did
not meet official standards.</p>
<p>In the early 1990s, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir <a
href="http://forward.com/articles/142154/last-ethiopian-jews-finally-make-exodus-to-israel">accused
thousands of Ethiopians of secretly being Christians</a>.</p>
<p>Ethiopians, even those who came under the Law of Return and are
recognized as Jews, have faced a long, documented history of state and
societal discrimination including <a
href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/ethiopian-israelis-accuse-state-of-school-segregation-1.381933">being
forced to attend segregated schools</a>.</p>
<h2>Anti-African incitement from the top</h2>
<p>The forced contraception has also come to light at a time when <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/africans-israel">anti-African
incitement</a> and violence, <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/content/dirty-dozen-israels-racist-ringleaders/11999">stoked
by Israeli leaders</a>, has reached unprecedented proportions.</p>
<p>Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has also served as
health minister throughout his term of office, and is therefore
personally accountable for the policy, stated last year that African
migrants “threaten our existence as a Jewish and democratic state.”</p>
<p>So the atmosphere in Israel is one in which hatred and incitement
targeting Africans in general is rife and encouraged by authorities.</p>
<h2>Israel unlikely to discourage Jewish births in general</h2>
<p>It would also be illogical that Israel would institute a general
birth control policy for women it recognizes as Jewish. Israel has no
interest in decreasing childbirths by Jewish women in general, and due
its obsession with demography, <a
href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4332386,00.html">anxiously
hopes that the Jewish birthrate will accelerate and non-Jewish
birthrates will slow down</a>.</p>
<p>Israel’s two chief government rabbis also <a
href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4329319,00.html">recently
endorsed an organization</a> that specifically opposes abortions by
Jewish women and whose stated goal is “<a
href="http://www.efrat.org.il/english/about/?id=64">to increase the
Jewish birthrate in Israel</a>.”</p>
<p>But given the racism against Africans as Africans, whether Jewish or
not, it is plausible that the policy was meant to target Ethiopian
women.</p>
<p>Even if it is proven that the policy targeted Ethiopian women and
was intended to prevent births among Ethiopians, Israel could argue
that the policy had other goals than “intent to destroy, in whole or in
part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” That
would require knowing the motivations of those who planned and
implemented the policy.</p>
<p>To put it mildly, Israel does not have a strong history of
investigating itself, and while genocide is a crime that any state can
pursue, it is doubtful that signatories to the Convention will
challenge Israel’s impunity and investigate this case.</p>
</div>
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