In 1977 newly-elected Prime Minister Menachem Begin ordered the Mossad to bring Ethiopia's Jews to Israel.
In order to do what PM Begin ordered, the Mossad needed Ethiopian Jews from Israel's then-tiny Ethiopian Jewish community and from the Ethiopian Jewish community in Ethiopia and Sudan to serve as operatives on the ground in Ethiopia and Sudan. It recruited a group of Ethiopian Jewish operatives and set them to work.
Over the next eight years, these men would risk their lives. Some would be arrested and tortured. Some killed. Most gave up years of their lives for the cause. At least one defied orders from his white Mossad superiors and rescued Ethiopian Jews when the Mossad, without Begin's knowledge, had decided to forgo rescue. (This would lead to the ostracism of this operative and a lifetime of suffering, yet his work opened the escape routes that later were used by Ethiopia's Jews and led directly to Operation Moses. To be clearer, he found and developed the escape routes later used in what became Operation Moses.)
None of these men were paid.
In 2000, a government committee found all these men – some who had already been named Prisoners of Zion – deserved compensation. But only a few got paid and most of those who did seemed to have received their compensation because of who they know – not what they did.
So the group is now demanding that the government's decision be implemented and that all Ethiopian operatives be equally compensated. They also want the state to recognize their work.
I know several of these men (although not the ones pictured above). They deserve compensation and they deserve recognition and honor.
I know what Menachem Begin would have done, and it would not have taken a lawsuit to get him to do it. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for Ehud Olmert.
[Hat Tip: KK.]