NY Times: Israel Wavers on Entry of Ethiopians

[La_Serpiente]

Israel Wavers on Entry of Ethiopians

MEVASERET ZION, Israel (AP) -- The arrival of thousands more Ethiopians in Israel has run into increasing opposition amid suspicions that many of the would-be immigrants may not be the descendants of Jews who converted to Christianity as they claim.

Cabinet ministers also have voiced doubts in recent days about the government's decision to lift immigration restrictions on the community of 20,000 Ethiopians, known as the Falash Mura, saying it would cost too much in Israel's weakened economy, battered by more than three years of fighting with the Palestinians.

Veteran Ethiopian-Jewish immigrants have cautioned the government against taking in their countrymen, contending many are charlatans whose claims of Jewish descent are a ploy aimed at getting out of famine-ridden Ethiopia.

``More than 60 percent (of the Falash Mura) have no connection to Israel,'' said Dani Adeno Abebe, an Ethiopian-Jewish journalist. ``They are a crowd of hitchhikers,'' he said, warning the government could face an influx of hundreds of thousands with spurious claims to a Jewish past.

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Israel Wavers on Entry of Ethiopians

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