Israel to World: "Suck It."

http://www.jta.org/news/article/2013/01/28/3117976/israels-health-ministry-orders-halt-to-injectable-contraception-for-ethiopian-women

“At no time did JDC coerce anyone into engaging at family planning at its clinics," a JDC spokesman in New York told JTA in December after the news show aired. "Those options were totally voluntary and offered to women who requested it. They chose the form of contraceptive based on being fully informed of all the options available to them.”

Dr. Rick Hodes, the medical director of JDC's operations in Ethiopia, said injectable contraceptives are the option of choice in Ethiopia.

"We do not inform the Israeli authorities who is on family planning, and I have no idea what happens once they arrive in Israel," Hodes wrote in a letter on the Failed Messiah website that was published Sunday.

"Injectable contraceptives are the most desired throughout the country. They are easy, culturally preferred, and offer the ability to be on birth control without a woman informing her husband, which is an issue here."

http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-to-demand-apology-for-anti-semitic-netanyahu-cartoon/

How is this antisemetic

not to thread police but this might be a better place to ask?
Is this anti-semitism?

Not to be all blame-the-victim here, but is it possible some of the Ethiopian women might have initially accepted the offer of a discreet form of birth-control despite knowing their husbands might not approve, then later had second thoughts and confessed, but played up the extent to which they had felt pressured?

lol

"not to be all blame-the-victim but *proceeds to vigorously blame the victim*" is, without sarcasm or judgment, one of my favorite rhetorical devices, partially because it never makes the unpalatable thing you're about to say any more palatable but we all try it anyway

This looks pretty bad. Whether it was an official official policy or a semi-official policy or just some unofficial action by people with power over the matter remains to be seen, but none of those look very good.

Mordy, I don't see how other evidence of Israel generally having a good or progressive health system is relevant. Israel has its fair share of racism and there are definitely individuals in israeli government who I would not put it past to enact something like this, even if it wouldn't be necessarily supported by the majority.

I think I'd prefer to wait for any source or evidence beyond the initial journalist and 35 anonymous interviews.

Like this is being stated in the most inflammatory way, but there is scant evidence and certainly no one has "admitted" to anything like every story has claimed in the headline.

35 anonymous interviews is nothing to sneeze at, and the statistics show that 57 percent of deepo provera prescriptions were for ethiopians when they make up 2% of the population. Don't you at least find that at least eyebrow-raising? Do you think ethiopian women just especially love birth control?

How do you interpret the admission of the health ministry director general that women received the shot "without understanding the consequences" in light of these other facts? Do you think he just means "oops, we didn't do a good job of explaining"?

I think that he was responding to accusations that they did this by reasserting Israeli policy.

Ministry Director-General Roni Gamzu said the decision did not imply he accepted the allegations by the Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI).

I think that anonymous interviews are very hard to interpret. The bits I've read from them are jumbled and confused. Some accuse Israel of misleading them about what the drug was, some accuse Israel of not letting them immigrate without taking the drug, some accuse the refugee agencies in Ethiopia, I haven't seen any actually implicate anyone in the Israeli health administration or in Israel. There is no certainty about when this happened (in Israel? among a particular doctor? among numerous doctors?, who was involved in this decision if it even ever happened, etc. 35 ppl mistakenly taking bc could be attributed entirely to confusion/misrepresenting interviews/language difficulties (not just between doctor-patient but between journalist-subject).

Regarding 57% for Ethiopians:

Rick Hodes, medical director in Ethiopia for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, a non-governmental organization that helps to facilitate immigration to Israel, denied the accusation that women are coerced into receiving the injections before leaving for the Jewish state.

"Injectable drugs have always been the most popular form of birth control in Ethiopia, as well as among women in our program," Hodes wrote on Twitter.

Do you believe that the non-governmental organization American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee has been involved in a national conspiracy with the Health Department in Israel to keep Ethiopians from reproducing? Because that seems absolutely insane to me.

Well that due released a vague statement so I guess to assume anything other than what he said is insane

A civil rights group representing a small group of people complained that women were being dosed with birth control without knowing it, responsible head of department emphasizes publicly that there is no such program and doctors should be vigilant in response to the concerns.

Totally insane.

If you're going to shutdown a secret government initiative to sterilize an ethnic group, and you decided to broadcast shutting it down to the media in response to accusations from a civil rights group, why would you then deny the program?

Itisamystery.gif

Just deny it completely. You only release the statement he released if you're being a responsible dpt head.

I'm not saying that there isn't dubious shit going on in the reporting, but to call it "insane" is a bit much. Granted your biases are certainly playing a part in my skepticism.

I don't think the reporting is insane. I think the reporting is shameless. I think taking it at face value (esp if you're otherwise a critical news reader) is insane.

If you think people who take 35 testimonies into consideration have a mental disorder, then okay. Kind of offensive, though.

You haven't seen those testimonies. You just have the characterizations of those testimonies of a reporter from Haaretz to rely upon.

If it was a NYT reporter I would feel entirely different.

Yeah, that's where I get my dubiousness from. Still, to say press releases prove once and for all anything seems a bit naive.

goykbe

I'm not saying that some press releases prove anything. I'm arguing that the wisest response to this story is some skepticism until there is more evidence or better sourcing. It is very rare for Western democratic governments to engage in long term eugenics programs (though I admit, not unheard of).

Xpost. No doubt. Still, he called salon reporting this story as true as anti Semitic but how he doesn't think the journalism is anti Semitic so who knows wtf he thinks.

It's a very dramatic accusation. When something very dramatic is argued, you should hold out for more careful evidence. If someone claims, idk, Jessie Ware is Jewish is barely matters. But when you accuse a government of committing eugenics, idk, I want something firmer than the word of a Haaretz reporter trying to convey the results of 35 anonymous interviews with women who mostly don't speak any Hebrew or English.

I agree that more sources are necessary, mordy, but I don't think the evidence on hand is completely and utterly dismissible.

If you don't see how anti-semitism might play into the promotion of this story -- idk.

Israel was also accused of committing genocide in Jenin, mostly on the basis of anonymous reporting and little original research.

If you don't see how you want this story to be not true and you tend to find anti semitism in a lot of things then idk

To be fair, maybe you'd be just as quick to believe such a story written about another first world democracy, like the United States or France or the UK. I doubt it, though.

As I said in the other thread, anti-America Imperialism probably plays a much larger role then a hatred of Jews.

I would believe that the us and the UK would do this so fast you're head would spin.

I would be similarly skeptical of a story reported in a similar way about the United States and I would be similarly confused about how someone could so easily accept it.

xpost

It is very rare for Western democratic governments to engage in long term eugenics programs (though I admit, not unheard of).

Eugenics, no, but there is a long history of Western democratic governments giving drugs, injections and things of that nature to unwitting, often uninformed, participants, who also frequently happen to be in a position of vulnerability (immigrant, poor, black).

You clearly don't live in the US

lets talk about the drugs the US gave to central and South Americans a few decades ago...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willowbrook_State_School

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/12/17/121217fa_fact_khatchadourian

xpost State sponsored eugenics is a pretty uncommon thing. We've given all sorts of shit to all sorts of people for all sorts of reasons, but I don't think the US government was ever out to eradicate a people.

I would much more easily believe an accusation of medical ethical infringements done on small groups in limited studies; at a particular institute, or in a particular small city, or on a unit of soldiers. I find it much harder to believe as a broad secret racial eugenics program.

Yeah, that's stupid (not being sarcastic). Why would Israel invite - airlifted, even - in a whole load of immigrants just to try to decimate their numbers? Assuming any of this is accurate, one of your other hypotheses is likely true, or that there was some rogue racist agent.

I pretty much cosign with everything written here: http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2013/01/did-israelis-force-contraception-on.html

The idea that doctors - especially in doctors who willingly travel to Ethiopia, people who would be among the most dedicated medical professionals on the planet - would conspire to effectively sterilize black women is simply not plausible.

What you must believe to believe this is just. idk.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctors'_plot

My guess - and it is only a guess - is that Ethiopian women were generally enthusiastic about the idea of birth control. And as Dr. Hodes says, the idea of injectionable contraception was appealing to them - because they don't have to tell their husbands.

This is the key to understanding the story. The Ethiopian husbands would generally be averse to their wives taking birth control, so they must do it in secret - and the Depo-Provera is by far the best method to keep their husbands from knowing. They simply tell them that they were receiving inoculations or some other excuse.

where is the blogger getting this from

if a "guess" is "key to understanding the story" im not really inclined to give it any more credibility than those "35 anonymous interviews"

I don't get that the fact they would travel to Ethiopia makes it less plausible if their purpose is to sterilise black people. Again, I do think there's something bogus about this.

It's his theory max. I don't know what explains these accusations. I just know that Haaretz's explanation does not make any sense.