Palestinians. This was the reaction of some of the spectators.
One of the commentators on YouTube noted:
In the Federal Republic of Germany you get imprisoned for saying in public that Hitler was right.
What kind of people are they in the video?
To which another commentator replied:
The two Israelis, Jews of Arab origins, identify the protesters as Ashkenazi (Jews of European origin), and clearly intend their words as a slur for Ashkenazis. In Israel, Jews of Arab origins have been systematically discriminated against and oppressed since the beginning of the state.
What sort of discrimination? This is a quote from an article about squatters who took over a community center the Israeli government was going to tear down in Gilo, a settlement south of Jerusalem in the West Bank. They occupied it & formed a kibbutz run by poor & unemployed Israelis.
Asi and Siga Chai are among the founders of the kibbutz. Asi is a fix-it man supporting Siga and their four children. Like most of the compound's residents, Asi's family came to Israel in the 1950's from Morocco, and like many Mizrahim (Jews from North Africa and the Middle East), he has a long history of trouble with the government. Walking or driving down the streets of Jerusalem, he is frequently stopped by police and soldiers who think he might be a Palestinian. But if they see Siga with him--she is a light-skinned Ashkenazi Jew from Eastern Europe--they relax and let them move on.
As the article explains, discrimination hasn't made Mizrahis sympathetic to the Palestinians.
Mizrahim, who are the clear majority in Gilo's absorption center, in urban slums, and in isolated "development towns" on the periphery of the country, make up 45 to 50% of the Israeli population. They have a reputation for tough anti-Arab politics, stemming in part from oppression some experienced as minorities in the countries they came from. Suicide attacks on Israeli civilians also have a profound effect, and have claimed many Mizrahi and working-class lives.
Radical Mizrahi activists on the left identify several other deep and complex forces that shape this attitude. Many Mizrahim feel pressured to deny their own Arabic heritage to prove their loyalty to a state founded and defined by Ashkenazim. And decades of discrimination and mistreatment by the Labor Party governments that ruled Israel until 1977 have left a strong bitterness and mistrust. Many Mizrahim perceive that "peace" efforts led by Labor and liberal movements are playthings for Ashkenazi elites who care more about Palestinians than about poor and unemployed Israelis.
Rachel Shabi, an Iraqi-Israeli journalist, expands more on this:
Iraqi-Israeli journalist Rachel Shabi, whose book We Look Like the Enemy details the discrimination faced by Arab Jews and the continued stigmatisation of Arab-Jewish culture in Israel, speaks to Weekend Review from Tel Aviv about a rich culture that is in decline under the dominance of a more acceptable European-Jewish culture.
*Was writing the book an eye-opening experience for you?
What became apparent to me when I came back to Israel was that the culture of Jews from Arab countries was not valued. They had a very low status. It really opened my eyes that it's still so prevalent and is such a painful issue for so many people.
There is awareness among the Mizrahis (Jews of Middle Eastern origin) that there is a continuing and blatant socioeconomic and cultural discrimination that persists.
*How much pressure do Mizrahis face to assimilate into the Ashkenazi (European Jewish) character of Israel?
A lot of pressure. I've spoken to so many people who grew up in Israel and recall the social messaging that everything about you — your parents, your culture, your history and your heritage — is common, uncivilised, barbaric and associated with the enemy. And if you want to get ahead in Israeli society, then you really need to drop those customs. It's a story that keeps repeating itself. So many [Mizrahis] would recall spending their childhood building up a fake identity to belong in Israel. All countries have social pressure but in this instance it's trying to persuade the majority population to adopt the preferences of the minority.
*Has Israel managed to craft an identity for itself yet?
It is still a work in progress. But the interesting thing is that the people who pioneered the nation were predominantly European Jews who had a very clear idea about what its identity should be and that was very clearly set to European tastes.
Palestinian Jews, who were here and watched the influx of Jews from Europe, thought the exact opposite. They thought Jewish culture was Arab culture and that the Europeans were the ones that had deviated from Jewish culture.
*Do you think that Mizrahis could, in the future, demand a redefinition of the character of Israel that is more in line with its geographic context?
I am hopeful. But I don't think it necessarily has to come from the Mizrahi community. I've met plenty of European Jews who recognise that, learn Arabic and openly say: "We live in the Middle East and need to find a way to integrate in the region and not act [like] and aspire towards Europe." You don't have to be Mizrahi to have a Mizrahi outlook.
*Are you concerned that the oriental identity of the Mizrahis will wither as time passes?
Yes. On the one hand the Mizrahi accent, which of course is the original Hebrew accent that is closer to Arabic, has been effectively wiped out and people who still speak it are pretty much ridiculed.
But then you see these examples of resilience, of people making efforts to relearn, remember and restore that culture and you think it will survive against the odds.
Whenever people have tried to raise that flag they have been told: "We mustn't do that because that undermines our unity and our national security."
Until Israel makes peace with itself, it won't be able to make peace with its neighbours.
Also, Israel has embraced free market economics, & instead of spending on health, schools, & welfare, spends on Occupation in the West Bank. From the article about Gilo:
Yet limited budgetary resources are poured into the military and the settlements. As shown by Hannah Kim in the Israeli daily Ha'aretz, the right wing is replacing social programs inside Israel with massive investments in housing, education, and other services in the settlements ("Welfare State over the Green Line," May 25, 2004). For many low-income Israelis with relatives in the settlements, support for the right wing and the Occupation becomes one of the few ways to ensure that their families' basic needs are met.
So any future peace settlement must assure that the benefits of it go to the poorest Israelis. Israel will be able to find peace with Arabs when being an Arab Jew isn't anathema.
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