'White' Israelis ask 'Would you shoot me?' ahead of Ethiopian rally
"It's a shame that the police depict us as a terror organization," said organizer Shahar Mula.
By TAMAR URIEL-BEERIEthiopians demonstrating against discrimination in J'lem(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Israeli citizens and celebrities have come out in support of the Ethiopian Jews' protest on Wednesday afternoon, video taping themselves asking, "would you shoot me?"The trend and the protest come in light of the January 18 death of 24-year-old Yehuda Biadga in Bat Yam at the hands of police officers after he rushed at them, knife in hand. Biadga, according to his family, was suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.The Ethiopian community in Israel took harshly to this treatment, claiming that it was due to the color of his skin. Hagos Ubo, Biadga's brother-in-law, asked in an interview, "How long will they keep treating our ethnicity like this?"Following this ordeal, the Jewish-Ethiopian community is protesting at 3 PM in Rabin Square, Tel Aviv. Shahar Mula, one of the organizers, said that "the protest will be civilized and organized.""It's a shame that the police depict us as a terror organization," he continued. "We are not terrorists."Many non-Ethiopian Israelis are coming out in support of the protest, uploading videos of themselves to social media saying, "Would you shoot me?" The question is in reference to the accusations of police brutality towards the Ethiopian community in particular."We see acts of violence towards Ethiopian Jews on a daily basis, but Yehuda's case is the last straw," Mula said.
