Behind Election Lurks Israel's Ethnic Divide

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By Dimi Reider | Published March 11, 2015 Behind election lurks Israel's ethnic divide

The use of racially loaded code words at an anti-Netanyahu rally highlights the inter- Jewish racism that has plagued Israeli society and politics since day one. A look at the correlation between ethnic background and voting patterns.

Tens of thousands of people at a demonstration calling to replace Netanyahu as Israel’s prime minister, Rabin Square, Tel Aviv, March 7, 2015. (Photo by Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

The anti-Netanyahu rally in Tel Aviv Saturday night was meant to be a high point of the campaign to oust Israel’s prime minister in next week’s general elections — a last hoorah before a triumphant storming of the polls. But as such events go, it left a lot to be desired. The turnout was unimpressive, the speakers predictable, and the mood, attendees reported after the event, was surprisingly lethargic.

The reason Israelis are still talking about the rally days later is not because of a passionate speech delivered by the former chief of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, Meir Dagan, but rather because of a highly embarrassing – and potentially, electorally damaging – speech by an artist and frequent Haaretz contributor, Yair Garboz.

Garboz opened the rally by describing how he viewed Israel with Netanyahu at the helm, indulging in a popular habit of attributing the most extreme aberrations and abuses of powers to a tiny, unrepresentative minority.

They told us that the man who killed the [former] prime minister [Rabin] was part of a delusional, tiny handful of individuals,” he said. “They told us he was under the influence of rabbis detached from reality, part of the crazy margins. They said those of yellow shirts with black badges, who shout “death to Arabs”, are a tiny handful. They told us the thieves and the bribe-takers are only a handful. That the corrupt are no more than a handful…. the talisman-kissers, the idol-worshippers and those bowing and prostrating themselves on holy tombs - only a handful… then how is that this handful rules over us? How did this handful quietly become a majority?

WATCH: Yair Garboz speaks at the anti-Netanyahu rally [Hebrew] דבריו של יאיר גרבוז בעצרת להחלפת השלטון

In the heated discussion that ensued, Garboz insisted he wasn’t referring to anyone of any particular ethnic origin. But to most Israelis, the phrase about “talisman-kissers” and “tomb worshippers” was as much a dogwhistle phrase as former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani’s remarks, a few weeks earlier, that Obama “wasn’t brought up the way [you and I were]” was to black Americans. Some Ashkenazi Jews do all of the above too, usually in connection to the tomb of the 19th century Rabbi Nachman of Breslaw in Uman, Ukraine. But talismans and pilgrimages are a well-known staple in the lives of Jews from Middle Eastern and North African countries – also known as Mizrahim.

Although many Israelis — usually Ashkenazi European Jews, descendants of the founding elites of Related stories the state — like to portray Israel as a “melting pot,” the story of Mizrahi Jews in Israel is one of fierce and Israeli Black Panther: Mizrahim relentless discrimination. When they arrived, usually must boycott the elections as refugees driven from Arab countries by the far By Haokets | February 20, 2015 ripples of the war of 1948, the Labor Zionist governments of the time ensured Mizrahim were What Mizrahi activists really want: housed in camps and far-flung frontier settlements, A ten-point program denied jobs and robbed of their tremendous cultural By Haokets | February 14, 2015 heritage. They were even violently shamed out of speaking their native Arabic. The bubbling indignation The prestigious award that only goes to Ashkenazi men and discontent at this treatment found its outlet over 20 years later, when Mizrahi voters ousted a Labor By Orly Noy | February 13, 2015 government to replace it, for the first time, with the Likud. Jewish immigrants from Yemen at a camp near Rosh Ha’ayin. (Photo: GPO)

The Likud’s liberal-capitalist approach opened a path for many Mizrahim through the hitherto tightly controlled nepotist economy set up by the Labor Zionists. The same Labor party today tends to frown on any mention of the Ashkenazi-Mizrahi divide, insisting it is a thing of the past and that bringing it up today is divisive and inappropriate.

But the Likud emphasized individual opportunity rather than collective rights, and this being the case, never bothered with affirmative action or far-reaching systemic reforms; it made it easier for ambitious individuals to overcome discrimination, but did not do nearly enough to prevent the discrimination in the first place.

To this day, a Mizrahi child is much more likely than an Ashkenazi one to be sent to a “vocational” school, which condemns him to a career of skilled menial labor. Despite tremendous advances in recent years — no thanks to any left-wing party – Mizrahim are still badly under-represented in upper-middle class professions and in academia.

Garboz’s remarks were not merely patronizing and prejudiced, throwing such innocuous — and to many, cherished — experiences as pilgrimage into the same category as corruption, genocidal racism and murder. They also highlighted a tremendously important and painful political divide that usually goes unseen by foreign observers: Israeli voters attribute considerable importance to the ethnic affiliation of a party, even if it is not explicitly stated. This affiliation tends to be almost as decisive as a party’s political stance.

A week before the rally, this all too frequently ignored reality was confirmed by a rare survey broadcast by Channel 10 that asked for whom Ashkenazis and Mizrahis intended to vote. The resulting division could not be clearer: 55 percent of the potential voters who support the Zionist Camp, which is the current standard bearer of Labor Zionism, are Ashkenazi, and only 22 percent are Mizrahi. Kulanu leader Moshe Kahlon (Photo by Activestills.org)

Among the voters for the Zionist Camp’s more liberal cousin, Meretz, whose stronghold is among Tel Aviv academics, professionals and members of kibbutzim, 69 percent are Ashkenazi and 12 percent are Mizrahi. The Jewish Home, a product of the historic Ashkenazi Religious Zionist movement, has 46 percent Ashkenazi voters and 31 percent Mizrahim; its reputation among Mizrahim was damaged further when chairman Naftali Bennett recruited and then dumped former soccer star Eli Ohana, in a move that was widely perceived as blatant tokenism. Yesh Atid, an “apolitical” centrist capitalist party appealing to Israel’s urban young professionals, has 51 percent Ashkenazi voters and 29 percent Mizarhi.

Meanwhile, Likud, the original vehicle of Mizrahi electoral awakening, boasts the most equal division between the two communities, with 41 percent Ashkenazi voters and 39 percent Mizrahi. Kulanu, a centrist party led by a prominent Mizrahi, ex-Likud politician Moshe Kahlon, comes close to the Likud balance with 36 percent Ashkenazi voters and 42 percent Mizrahi. Shas, the only party so far to bill itself as a party by Mizrahim for Mizrahim, specifically, ultra-Orthodox Sephardic Jews, boasts 75 percent Mizrahim among its voters and only 5 percent Ashkenazis.

These results are further borne out by the voting data from the 2013 elections, processed into map form by the Madlan real estate portal. Hover over Tel Aviv, its northern suburbs or any of the kibbutzim that dot the map, and you will see overwhelming votes for Labor, Meretz and Yesh Atid. Look over Tel Aviv’s poorer southern suburbs, like Bat Yam and Rishon Letzion, or over the far-flung “development towns” where the original Mizrahi immigrants were shunted, and see the color change to blue, with overwhelming votes for right-wing parties or Shas.

Israeli left-wingers who like to claim that intra-Jewish discrimination is a thing of the past also like to wonder loudly — and often sneeringly — why the poorest Israelis continue to vote for Netanyahu, even though his ultra-capitalist economic policies hurt them first. The question should rather be who and what they are voting against, and how the left-wing parties can begin to recognize and address these grievances, past and present.

An earlier version of this post appeared on The Middle East Eye.

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