Ethiopia has assured the United States it will not prevent Jews remaining in the strife-torn country from emigrating, former Sen. Rudy Boschwitz (R-Minn.) said Tuesday.
Boschwitz served as President Bush’s special envoy to Ethiopia and is credited with helping to negotiate the Operation Solomon airlift that brought more than 14,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel on May 24 and 25.
The airlift began three days after Ethiopian leader Mengistu Haile Mariam fled the country and ended scarcely three days before the capital fell to rebel forces.
Speaking to reporters after receiving the Presidential Citizens Medal at the White House, Boschwitz said, “We did get an agreement from the new government that there will be no barriers to their leaving,” he said.
The agreement covers “several hundred, perhaps,” left in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, Boschwitz said.
It also covers “1,000 or 1,500 left up in Gondar,” he said, referring to the northern province where most of the country’s Jews lived before migrating to the capital.
Asked about the chances of getting to Israel the tens of thousands of Ethiopians who have converted from Judaism to Christianity, Boschwitz said, “I leave that to the liturgical department (in Israel). That’s a little bit out of my line.”
But he added, “I don’t think that the Ethiopian government has any particular reason to create barriers for anybody (who) wants to leave.”
‘SOMETHING WONDERFUL HAS HAPPENED’
Bush, in presenting the medal to Boschwitz, said the airlift “unfolded with dazzling speed” and became “one of the most humanitarian airlifts in history.”
“I think that for all Jews around the world this was an event of emotional proportions, and I just want you to know that I share in that emotional feeling, that something wonderful has happened,” the president told 70 guests, mainly from the organized Jewish community.
Bush also presented Special Awards for Exceptional Service to Irvin Hicks, deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs; Robert Frasure, director of African affairs on the National Security Council; and Robert Houdek, U.S. charge d’affaires in Addis Ababa. They assisted Boschwitz in the negotiations.
Among those at the ceremony were leaders of the United Jewish Appeal, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, American Association for Ethiopian Jews and North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry.
Nobody from the Israeli Embassy was invited to the ceremony. But an embassy official was not upset. “It was a private ceremony, as far as we know. We don’t run the White House operation.”
Comedian Jackie Mason, who attended the ceremony, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, “This is the first time the gentiles have done so much for the Jewish people.”
“I was joking before it happened, because I said to myself this was a terrible predicament,” he said. “Now, thank God, this is phenomenal!”
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