Israel Forcibly Injected 100k African Immigrants with Birth Control

[Sheilbh]

Is there no way for a state to legitimately stop (even temporarily) immigrants/people living on public assistance from having children that will have to be supported by the state?

No. They can stop immigration (though not on grounds of race and, for Israel, not of Jews). Or they can stop benefits. I think anything else is far too great an intervention into personal autonomy.

[Gups]

Not when the eugenics are based on race.

Eh the Nazis did eugenics primarily on the mentally ill and disabled right?  They secretly would take out babies before the Catholics got ahold of it and protested?  Granted it was not like they are any other races in Germany to do eugenics with besides a few Senegalese-German children.

They killed a lot of Jewish babies as well.

[derspiess]

No. They can stop immigration (though not on grounds of race and, for Israel, not of Jews). Or they can stop benefits. I think anything else is far too great an intervention into personal autonomy.

This isn't being done on grounds of race in the first place.  It's being done on the basis of national origin.  And they can certainly do that.  Re: the Jewish thing they should seriously consider amending that law.  At this point it appears that too many fake Jews are getting in.

[Malthus]

I gotta agree with Viking on this one: the Forbes article is a somewhat hysterical take on the facts.

Family planning for immigrants from impoverished and uneducated 3rd world countries is always going to be problematic, and it is certainly possible that the government was less than forthcomming about what it was providing - though little proof has been advanced for that. The article in the OP though is over-the-top, verging on the absurd in its allegations. Israeli practices are not directly inspired by the Torah.   

[Martinus]

Not when the eugenics are based on race.

Eh the Nazis did eugenics primarily on the mentally ill and disabled right?  They secretly would take out babies before the Catholics got ahold of it and protested?  Granted it was not like they are any other races in Germany to do eugenics with besides a few Senegalese-German children.

They killed a lot of Jewish babies as well.

I think Valmy's post is what people think of when they are talking about nazi eugenics.

[Martinus]

I gotta agree with Viking on this one: the Forbes article is a somewhat hysterical take on the facts.

Family planning for immigrants from impoverished and uneducated 3rd world countries is always going to be problematic, and it is certainly possible that the government was less than forthcomming about what it was providing - though little proof has been advanced for that. The article in the OP though is over-the-top, verging on the absurd in its allegations. Israeli practices are not directly inspired by the Torah.   

Still, if the allegations were true, it would be pretty outrageous, wouldn't it? Because some people in this thread are apparently arguing that it would be alright (although I am still unsure if derspiess is trolling or not).

[Malthus]

I gotta agree with Viking on this one: the Forbes article is a somewhat hysterical take on the facts.

Family planning for immigrants from impoverished and uneducated 3rd world countries is always going to be problematic, and it is certainly possible that the government was less than forthcomming about what it was providing - though little proof has been advanced for that. The article in the OP though is over-the-top, verging on the absurd in its allegations. Israeli practices are not directly inspired by the Torah.   

Still, if the allegations were true, it would be pretty outrageous, wouldn't it? Because some people in this thread are apparently arguing that it would be alright (although I am still unsure if derspiess is trolling or not).

It certainly would be.

If the government of Israel was ordering doctors to administer birth control to Ethiopian women without their consent so as to reduce or eliminate the Ethiopian population, that would indeed be outrageous.

However, an actual review of the facts indicates that no-one (other than activists) is actually claiming this happened. What they are claiming is this: that some health care workers who were tasked with providing care to this community *allegedly* gave these women "injections" without the women knowing what they were. When the allegations surfaced, the Israeli government specifically ordered that no contraceptive injections be provided unless the women in question clearly knew what they were getting.

So far, I can't really fault the government - cue hysterical accusations of Jewish eeevil. 

Considering that the women in question were allegedly given "injections" in transit camps (i.e., before even comming to Israel), chances are said women did not even have a language in common with the health-care workers. It is possible those workers were maliciously giving contraceptives because they did not want little Black babies running about. It is aslo possible that there was miscommunications at work here.

It is not likely that this was official Israeli policy, given that Israel went to considerable expense and effort to pay to have these Etheopian Jews shipped to Israel. If they did not want Black people about, they could have simply left them where they were to rot, and no-one would have given a shit.

[Viking]

I gotta agree with Viking on this one: the Forbes article is a somewhat hysterical take on the facts.

Family planning for immigrants from impoverished and uneducated 3rd world countries is always going to be problematic, and it is certainly possible that the government was less than forthcomming about what it was providing - though little proof has been advanced for that. The article in the OP though is over-the-top, verging on the absurd in its allegations. Israeli practices are not directly inspired by the Torah.   

Still, if the allegations were true, it would be pretty outrageous, wouldn't it? Because some people in this thread are apparently arguing that it would be alright (although I am still unsure if derspiess is trolling or not).

Still they are just unsupported allegations.

I liked how the electronic intifada manages to be outraged both over Israel paying to move black jews into Israel AND genociding them with birth control.

Giving long term contraceptives to women with husbands opposed to birth control or to women who are not capable of getting and taking the regular pill is common practice and usually controversial. The US had the big controversy with Norplant (which works for 3 years) and the suggestions that it was a hidden means of conducting genocide against black and minority women.


It also seems that giving depo is normal in africa

http://gantdaily.com/2012/02/17/who-clarifies-guidance-on-hormonal-contraception-and-hiv/

(note, this is discussing how women using depo are at a higher risk of getting hiv, though the correlation-causation issue isn't really brought up)

More commonly known by the brand name, Depo-Provera, this drug is the backbone of most African family-planning programs.

this is probably due to the fact that A) the husband can't stop the woman from taking the shot or sabotage it and B) it is cheaper, more reliable and controlled by the clinic rather than the unreliable third world patient.

and finally a daily beast article about why depo is the best option for contraceptives in africa

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/10/06/study-linking-depo-provera-birth-control-to-hiv-infection-in-africa-has-faulty-data.html

That's why injectable contraceptives like Depo-Provera are so important to the more than 6 million women in sub-Saharan Africa who use them as a crucial tool for pregnancy prevention. By simply getting a shot once every three months, women who live far from health-care facilities have a reliable way to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Also, for women who feel they cannot or do not want to let their male partners know they are on birth control, Depo-Provera is a discreet and appealing option.

[Valmy]

Considering that the women in question were allegedly given "injections" in transit camps (i.e., before even comming to Israel), chances are said women did not even have a language in common with the health-care workers. It is possible those workers were maliciously giving contraceptives because they did not want little Black babies running about. It is aslo possible that there was miscommunications at work here.

It is not likely that this was official Israeli policy, given that Israel went to considerable expense and effort to pay to have these Etheopian Jews shipped to Israel. If they did not want Black people about, they could have simply left them where they were to rot, and no-one would have given a shit.

Wait so perhaps it is misleading to declare the Israel was using physical force to give black women birth control?

[The Minsky Moment]

There's enough smoke here to justify a very serious inquiry into whether coercion was employed.   There may be more innocent explanations but that is what inquiries are for.
Unfortunately one cannot expect this to be covered rationally in the press as the word Israel is the leading cause of acute knee spasms all over the world.

[Admiral Yi]

Still a little weird coming from Forbes.

[derspiess]

FWIW, Ethiopa has the world's 12th highest TFR at 5.39.

[The Minsky Moment]

Still a little weird coming from Forbes.

It's hard to know what to make of this.
The Forbes article appears to be sourced from an article in the UK Independent.  The Independent story provides direct quotations from women claiming they were coerced and misled and cites investigative reports from an Isreali journalist.  That seems pretty solid although I suppose one could contend that there was a "failure to communicate" or something like that.

The Independent article goes on to mention the hostility of the haredim towards the Ethiopian Jews, which is true (and disgraceful).

But it then goes onto quote Netanyahu as saying "'that illegal immigrants from Africa "threaten our existence as a Jewish and democratic state'"  That is extremely misleading - Bibi was talking about non-Jewish illegal guest workers from North Africa, not the Ethiopian Jews who are none of those things.  The use of that quotation to suggest Netanyahu views the Ethiopian Jews as a threat is at best really bad journalism and raises questions about editorial motivation.

[CountDeMoney]

I guess there aren't any Black Jews in Poland.
Can't imagine how that could have happened.

They're there, all right.  At the airport, boarding their connecting flights.

[grumbler]

The known facts

Ethopian Jewish women were without their knowledge or consent being given contraceptive injections.

We don't know anything of the sort.  We know that some Ethiopian women are now claiming that they didn't know that they were getting birth control injections.  We have no idea whether or not they are saying this because it is true, or because they didn't tell their husbands that they were getting birth control and now must deny that they ever knew it.

The Isreali health ministry ordered that giving these injections routinely should stop and only be given to those women who can understand the consequences of the injection.

Correct, though this could be a new policy, or it can be a re-iteration of an existing policy.  The Israeli government has a vested interest in having us believe the latter.

everything else is speculation and rather wild speculation at that...

We also know that the Ethiopian-Israeli birth rate has declined by 20% in some time period.  That isn't an unexpected outcome in societies where women have career alternatives to motherhood, but there are those who seek another explanation.  Conspiracies are always good for news copy. 

Given that conspiracy theories also provide the pinheads among us the opportunity to babble about Nazism and eugenics, and thus indirectly entertain the rest of us, I rather like conspiracy theories.