MSNBC headlines a story on Israel's shutting the doors to further Ethiopian immigration with a photo of Jerusalem policemen violently subduing an Ethiopian protester. The photo seems inappropriate in the context. The story is about complex issues of identity and assimilation. The photo has nothing to do with the story, but instead tries to provoke the American audience's gut reaction of white men subduing a black man. The issue is far more about the Ethiopian immigrants' primitive backgrounds, rather than race; assimilating thousands of people who have never used a flush toilet into a modern society is bound to be complicated.
Maybe the MSNBC editors are simply asking whether Israel's "right of return" is itself racist. A fair question, but why not just ask it straight out?
Or maybe there's something wrong with the American do-gooders who set up these camps for Ethiopians to prepare for moving to Israel. The scene in Charlie Wilson's War of evangelical congressmen in Pakistani refugee camps comes to mind. Or Kipling's poem about the "white man's burden." If Ethiopian villagers need modern conveniences so much, wouldn't it make more sense to simply donate those, rather than pressure another country to adopt them?