High court refuses petition, paving way for arrival of thousands of Ethiopian refugees

The High Court of Justice refused to hear a petition that prevented the government from bringing over Ethiopians eligible for Israeli citizenship, clearing the way for thousands of Ethiopian refugees to arrive shortly, Immigration and Absorption Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata says.

In November, the government approved a plan to let some 9,000 Ethiopians with first-degree relatives in Israel immigrate under the Law of Return. However, this effort was blocked by the right-wing Israeli Immigration Policy Center, which petitioned the High Court of Justice on the grounds that the Ethiopians in question were not themselves Jewish or the direct descendants of Jews.

As the court considered the matter, the government’s plan was not able to proceed.

Today, the court determined that the government’s decision was not subject to judicial review, prompting the Israeli Immigration Policy Center to take back its petition. As a result, the court removed its injunction on the plan.

“These immigrants waited for no reason and were left separated from their families, their parents, their siblings, their children and more. The war in Ethiopia and the coronavirus pandemic made their situation worse and the time has come to bring them home to Israel,” Tamano-Shata says in a statement.

She adds: “Soon landing alongside the immigrants from Ukraine will be immigrants from Ethiopia.”

The decision and the remarks came a day after Tamano-Shata accused her ministerial colleagues of hypocrisy in fighting far harder to bring Ukrainian refugees eligible for citizenship who were fleeing a brutal war to Israel than they did to bring Ethiopians facing similar circumstances.

“All Israelis are brothers. As I promised, I will be a minister for everyone. I will fight to bring over Jews from Ukraine alongside immigration from Ethiopian and from anywhere in the Diaspora where someone wants to immigrate to Israel,” she says.