An Ethiopian immigrant rues the day he moved to Israel

By Allyn Fisher-Ilan JERUSALEM (Reuters) - When Sendeku Belay thinks about how his life has turned out, the 36-year-old believes he would have been better off staying in Ethiopia than moving to Israel. "Had I known Israel would work out like this, I would have preferred to die in Africa of starvation," says Belay of his 13-year struggle to integrate into Israeli society. After working as a farmer in his native land, Belay came to Israel as a hopeful 23-year-old along with hundreds of other Ethiopian Jews who migrated in the early 2000s. He learnt Hebrew and did mandatory military service. But when it came to joining the workforce, he saw closed doors. He now works as a dishwasher at an army base on occupied land in the West Bank. "We give the country our years of service. What does the country give us back? Nothing," said Belay, who supported the protests by thousands of Ethiopian Israelis in Tel Aviv on Sunday against police brutality and racism. More than 50 police officers and 12 protesters were injured in one of the most violent demonstrations Israel has seen in years. Police used horses and stun grenades to try to control the crowds. The spark was a video shot a week ago showing two Israeli policemen beating a uniformed Ethiopian-Israeli soldier as they tried to arrest him, despite there being no sign of provocation. The video and several other incidents have raised questions about Israel's treatment of minorities. The 135,000-strong Ethiopian community, many of whom were brought to Israel on secret flights in the mid-1980s and early 1990s, is particularly on edge. Besides confrontations with police, many complain about the difficulty they have registering their children at neighborhood schools and about the experience of having blood donations rejected by the health authorities citing the risk of disease. Some Ethiopian Israelis have done well - many have successful army careers, an Ethiopian woman won the Miss Israel beauty pageant in 2013 and an Ethiopian doctor has been cited as a hero of Israel's rescue operations in Nepal. But there is still deep frustration. Belay is angry about his meagre wage of 4,000 shekels ($1,000) a month, saying he made three times that before an altercation cost him his gun license, which meant he could not get a more lucrative job as a security guard. Ethiopian households earn 35 percent less than the national average and only half earn high school diplomas, compared with 63 percent for the rest of the population. "There's racism here, just like in the United States," said Maliso Zemana, a fellow migrant, pointing to the recent protests there against urban police brutality. "Israelis want us to do military service, but otherwise they don't seem much to want us around here," said Zemana. Israeli lawmaker Avraham Neguise, one of a rising cadre of successful Ethiopian immigrants, urged his compatriots to rise above social obstacles, pointing at government assistance he said helped him to get ahead. "We have leaders among us who can be integrated. We don't have to think that all that has been must stay the same," Neguise, 57, said on Army Radio. (Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)