Ethiopian-Israelis take to the streets to protest against racism

Thousands of demonstrators blocked major roads in Tel Aviv on Sunday to protest against racism and police brutality directed at Israelis of Ethiopian descent, the second such demonstration Israel has seen in less than a week.

The protesters succeeded in stopping traffic on some of the city's main roads, including the Ayalon freeway that cuts through the heart of Tel Aviv. Some held Israeli flags while others chanted "racist cops" as hundreds of police stood by.

The upsurge in discontent among Ethiopian-Israelis over the past week has drawn comparisons in Israel with the riots and demonstrations that erupted in Baltimore last month over police brutality against African-Americans.

Israeli police estimated the size of the protest at 2,000 to 3,000. Later Sunday evening, the protesters clashed with police at Tel Aviv's city hall, where police deployed sound grenades and pepper spray and several policemen and demonstrators were reported injured.

A similar protest staged by several hundred Ethiopian-Israelis and their supporters in Jerusalem last Thursday also turned violent.

"They don't consider us people, or Jews," said Elie Balasa, 33, who was sitting in the middle of Menachem Begin Boulevard. "There is a lot of racism - a policeman sees a black person and he starts to kick him".

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister, called a meeting for Monday with representatives of Israel's Ethiopian community, who make up about 2 per cent of the country's Jewish population.

Mr Netanyahu said he would meet Damas Pakada, an Ethiopia-born Israeli soldier who was filmed being beaten by two policemen in Holon, on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.

Anger over the video ignited the Jerusalem protest, in which Israeli police used stun grenades and tear gas against demonstrators and some protesters and police were injured.

Israeli police launched an investigation after the video footage emerged. Reuven Rivlin, Israel's president, said the anger it provoked "must serve as a warning sign, and an opportunity to conduct some genuine and thorough introspection".

Ethiopian-Israelis have been angered by what they say are double standards in policing and widespread racism in Israeli society.

Most arrived in two waves of mass immigration in 1984 and 1991, when Ethiopia was wracked by famine and war, but many of the protesters in Tel Aviv were born in Israel. Some of the people blocking traffic held their wrists together above their heads, as if they were shackled.

"It's like a bomb that has been waiting to explode for many years," said Daniel Bero, 32, a car salesman. "This has been happening since we came. It seems that they don't want us here, but the country is also ours."

Ethiopian-Israelis have also been angered by cases in which Magen David Adom, the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross, discarded blood donated by people of Ethiopian origin. Pnina Tamano-Shata, an Ethiopian-Israeli MP in the previous parliament, sought to call attention to the issue when she tried to donate blood and was told it would not be used because she had "a special type of Jewish-Ethiopian blood".

Reut Zauda, 24, one of the people protesting in Tel Aviv, said: "We came here not only because the soldier was beaten, but also because we can't give blood, our kids aren't getting into schools, and the government has been oppressing us for many years."

The Israeli protesters of Ethiopian descent were joined by some white sympathisers and leftwing MPs.

Irit Feingold, a university student, said: "I think Israeli society is racist, I think the police is racist, and I think the government is racist - not only against Ethiopians, but also against Arabs, also against foreigners."

Of the video showing Mr Pakada's beating, she said: "I was very upset, but I was mostly upset because I knew it was not for the first time."

Monday's meeting will include Israel's police commissioner Yohanan Danino and representatives of other organisations responsible for security, immigration and social services.

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