ISRAEL - Currently, the streets of many American cities are filled with crowds of people armed with signs, protesting the violent death of George Floyd, a black man, who was killed by white, former police officer Derek Chauvin. But the increased public speculation on systemic racism and discrimination is not unique to America; instead, the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement is present in nations worldwide, including Israel—the “Holy Land,” known for its claimed acceptance of all people regardless of race or faith.

Ethiopian Protesters Confront Israeli Police Over Death of Unarmed Teenager, Photo Flickr

On June 30, 2019, in the Israeli town of Haifa, 18-year-old Solomon Teka decided to spend some time at a neighborhood park. While there, he got into a small fight with a few other teenagers. A nearby off-duty police officer attempted to break up the fight after identifying himself. According to the officer, this caused the men to turn violent against him, and fearing for his life, and he aimed a warning shot. The bullet hit Solomon Teka, who later died in medical care.

Teka was an Ethiopian Jew, a dark-skinned ethnic minority in a majority white country. The Ethiopian Jews have long endured systemic racism in Israel. Many of them are either migrants or descendants of refugees from the nearby countries of Ethiopia and Sudan, flocking to the Holy Land in search of religious freedom. However, their dreams are soon shattered as they continue to suffer from ingrained racism. Ethiopian Jews have the highest poverty rate in Israel and continue to be searched, tried, and arrested at a much higher frequency than any other community. They are often treated as second class citizens. Solomon Teka’s death was the last straw—thousands of protesters took to the streets, calling for a stop to the excessive use of police force against Ethiopian Jews.

The protests blocked many major Israeli roads, halting commuting traffic from nearby cities. In Tel Aviv, protesters shut down the Ayalon Highway. While the Tel Aviv protests continued to be mostly peaceful, other cities were plagued with violence, as people burned tires, vandalized buildings, and fought with the police.

Both sides of the violent riots suffered greatly—over a hundred protesters were arrested, and a similar number of police officers were injured. The police turned to tear gas and increased force in retaliation to rioters who threw stones and gas bombs at them. Through all of this, the Ethiopian Jews’ message remained clear: they were tired of the institutionalized racism that was ingrained in both the country of Israel and its police forces. These past protests and those of today’s Black Lives Matter demonstrations are eerily similar—presenting the possibility that action against racism has been futile so far.

At one point in the protests, things seemed to take a turn for the better. In an attempt to answer the Ethiopian Jews’ pleas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu initiated a ministerial committee on the integration of Israeli citizens of Ethiopian origin. However, this action was increasingly hard to implement, as the majority of the targeted citizens were low-income citizens and did not have access to the Prime Minister’s committee.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan agreed that action against the country’s deep-rooted racism was necessary. Rivlin issued the following statement:

“This is not a civil war. It is a shared struggle of brothers and sisters for their shared home and their shared future. I ask all of us to act responsibly and with moderation. My home is your home. Let us continue to stand together like a wall against violence, any form of violence, and to fight together for our shared home.”

However, both figures shared the sentiment that violent protests would be met with the requisite police force and whatever means necessary to quell the riots.

Authorities initially arrested the suspected police officer on charges of possible manslaughter. But they soon released him into house arrest, causing protests to rise once more. Charges against him were reduced to involuntary manslaughter, which is used in the case that the accused acts dangerously with clear violent intent, although not with the purpose of killing. The maximum sentence for involuntary manslaughter is 12 years, but Israeli courts usually only issue one or two years.

A few days after the charge, legal counsel began entertaining the idea of reducing it to negligent homicide, which has even fewer consequences. The officer was not also fired from the force, despite the call to do so by Tebeka, an organization that defends the rights of Ethiopian Jews in Israel.

In a statement taken by the L.A. Times, Teka’s family lawyer asked for “the truth to be uncovered, and justice served.” He also mentioned that the “police and the State Prosecutor’s Office, in their public statements, show a tendency to attribute reduced responsibility to a police officer who killed our beloved in his prime,” alluding to the racism permeating Israel’s legal forces.

While the Teka family continues to fight for an appeal following the officer’s reduced charges, the Black Lives Matter movement in Israel has flared up once again due to the death of George Floyd in America. Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the U.S. diplomatic mission in Tel Aviv, holding signs emblazoned with the words “Black Lives Matter,” “George Floyd,” and “Solomon Teka.” Because every name that is added to the list of racism-related deaths is a reminder that we, as a global community, are still far from equality for all.

*A Note of Importance: As a South Asian-American, I acknowledge that I can never truly understand the day-to-day struggles that people of African descent endure. However, as a human being, I fully support and stand by the BLM Movement; furthermore, as a writer, it is my responsibility to use the given platform to objectively detail the following situation as I see fit, allowing readers to interpret my work as they wish. ~ Sayuni Dharmasena