عاجل لأعضاء المنبر بخصوص مذكرات اللواء عمر محمد الطيب عن ترحيل الفلاشا ..

Quote: Krieger later flew to Jerusalem to inform the Israelis that an understanding had been reached and then finalized plans with the Sudanese official in Geneva. The refugee affairs coordinator at the U.S. embassy in Khartoum, Jerry Weaver, met with Sudanese Vice President and Security Chief Omar Tayeb and secured his agreement to a plan for evacuating the Ethiopian Jews. Weaver, the Israeli Mossad, and the Sudanese secret police then devised the secret operation. That operation, later known as “Operation Moses,” began on November 21, 1984, and continued until January 5, 1985. Every night during that period, except the Sabbath, buses would pick up groups of about fifty-five Ethiopian Jews from the refugee camps and take them to Khartoum where they would board Boeing 707s. The planes belonged to Trans European Airlines, a Belgian company owned by an Orthodox Jew, and were used routinely as charter planes to carry Muslim pilgrims to Mecca. Altogether, thirty-six flights carrying approximately 220 passengers flew first to Brussels and then on to Tel Aviv. A total of 7,800 Ethiopian Jews was rescued by this method. News of the airlift eventually leaked out. When the Israeli government confirmed the stories, the Sudanese ordered the operation stopped. The Ethiopian government was outraged, but most Americans reacted jubilantly and shared the feeling of admiration aptly expressed by William Safire: “For the first time in history, thousands of black people are being brought into a country not in chains but as citizens.”