Israel said on Thursday it would start moving the last remaining Ethiopian Jews to Israel next week, completing the resettlement of a community that traces its roots to the bible's King Solomon and Queen of Sheba.
But the Ethiopian government warned it would not permit the departures this time to take the form of the mass airlifts of the Ethiopian Jews, or Falasha Mura, staged by Israel during times of crisis in Ethiopia in 1984 and 1991.
"We would like to bring all Falashas to Israel beginning next week. We believe they should live in Israel," Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom told reporters.
There are at least 18,000 Jews in Ethiopia, most of whom are thought to be keen to emigrate to Israel to escape poverty.
Shalom toured the northern region of Gondar on Wednesday, the home region of the Ethiopian Jews, and held talks with members of the community.
Many of Ethiopia's Jews were forced to convert to Christianity in the 19th century and now wish to assert their Jewishness and emigrate to Israel. In Ethiopia they live primarily in poor villages where they are subsistence farmers, with a close-knit social structure and family life.
An estimated 80,000 Ethiopian Jews live in Israel. About 8,000 were airlifted to Israel in 1984, fleeing hunger and political turmoil, and some 15,000 were flown to Israel in 1991 at the end of Ethiopia's civil war.
Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin, speaking alongside Shalom, said that while Ethiopian Jews had the right to go anywhere in the world, the Ethiopian government would not want the departures this time to take the form of a mass exodus.
"The Ethiopian government has no objection for the Ethiopian Jews to travel to Israel," Seyoum said. "(But) in today's Ethiopia, there is no need for an organised intervention as in the 1980s and 1990s."
Since 1991, few Ethiopian Jews have left the country except relatives of those who have already emigrated.
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