A BBC documentary on the rescue of Ethiopian Jews lies, not because the BBC is anti-Semitic or any of the other canards normally thrown at it, but because a former Mossad agent, intentionally or not, has tried to sell the world a story that isn't completely true.
Missing from this documentary are the following:
• The fact that the first rescues from Sudan were done by Baruch Tegegne, who pioneered the escape routes and showed the ISraelis it was possible to use them for mass rescue.
• The fact that Moshe Dayan, as a senior member of Menachem Begin's government, intentionally leaked the first Israeli rescue and thereby killed it.
• Ethiopian Jews fled to Sudan in 1983 and early 1984 in large part because they were told by Mossad agents that the messiah would come there and bring them on wings of eagles to Israel. But then Israel did not follow through, causing hundreds to die in squalor.
• The fact that 1984's Operation Moses was leaked first by the National Religious Party and after that by senior American Jewish community figures acting on behalf of members of the Israeli government. When those leaks didn't kill the rescue – largely because the US upped the amount of bribe money it was paying Sudan's leader – the Israeli government itself in the form of Shimon Peres announced the rescue was ongoing. That announcement killed Operation Moses – and killed at least 3,000 stranded Ethiopian Jews.
• Yitzhak Shamir did not want to rescue Ethiopian Jews. Neither did Shimon Peres.
• The US Government spend millions of dollars on Operation Moses, it carried out a followup rescue, Operation Joshua, to get as many stranded Jews out as possible, and played a key role in Operation Solomon. You'd never know this from the BBC's film or from anything the former Mossad agent says in it, but it's true.
• A man who played a key role in Operation Moses, Operation Joshua and Operation Solomon, former US Senator and Ambassador Rudy Boschwitz, is never mentioned at at all, even though without him none of those rescues would likely have taken place.
• Ethiopian Jews were lied to by every Israeli government save, perhaps, what Menachem Begin personally said and tried to do. Begin was only modern day prime minister who really cared about rescuing Ethiopian Jews and the only one who made it a priority without being pushed or forced.
Ethiopian Jews should know the truth, but most do not, largely because of censorship in Israel and the propensity of Jewish and Israeli leaders to lie. They were saved because of what a small group of American and Canadian Jews (primarily the American Association for Ethiopian Jews under the leadership of Nate Shapiro) did in concert with a handful of Ethiopian Jews, primarily Baruch Tegegne, and through the kindness and help of the United States government. This is your true heritage, the real history of your rescues. If your rescues had been left to Yitzhak Shamir or the NRP's (Mafdal's) Rabbi Yosef Burg, you'd likely all be dead.