Mizrahi Jews of southern Israel are 'cannon fodder'

The story that the media have missed in the recent Gaza war is that the southern Israeli towns targeted by Hamas rockets are mostly populated by Mizrahi Jews. Until the current fragile cease-fire, they had exchanged intimidation and insecurity in Fez and Benghazi for a game of 'Iranian' roulette - running for the bomb shelters in case the next Kassam or Grad rocket has their name on it.

The radical leftist Smadar Lavie, writing in the Palestinian Electronic Intifada, goes as far as to call these oriental Jews 'cannon fodder":

Most of Ashdod, like 50 percent of Israel's citizens, are Mizrahim, the largest of the three groups who constitute the citizenry of the state. Mizrahim means "Easterners," in Hebrew. These are Jews whose origin is in the Arab and Muslim World, or in the former-Ottoman margins of Europe. The second-largest group, 30 percent, are the Ashkenazim, Jews of East and Central European origins. They are the ruling elite. The third group, 20 percent, are the Palestinian citizens of Israel.

It is mostly Mizrahim who have been hit by the Hamas missiles. From 1948 on, the self-proclaimed socialist Ashkenazi-Zionist regime purposefully settled them as cannon fodder in the border zones of the state they had carved out of Palestine. The regime planted the Mizrahim in villages from which it had expelled the Palestinians, in order to prevent their inalienable right of return home. Mizrahi communities resented the condescending paternalism of the Ashkenazi hegemon and its pretensions to socialism. No wonder they gave their support to the underdog -- the right-wing bloc. In private, the leaders of the right-wing, who are also Ashkenazim, refer to the Mizrahim as "monkeys" and "Indians."

And how did the Ashkenazim buy Mizrahi loyalty? By reviving Mizrahi culture. Give 'em bread and circuses. The fact that oriental music is back in fashion is not an organic trend, but a deliberate conspiracy by the Ashkenazi elite.


But, recognizing the need to retain Mizrahi loyalty, the Ashkenazi right-wing leaders have invested state funds in a revival of Mizrahi culture. This revival followed several decades during which the left-wing eradicated Mizrahi culture because they conceived of anything Arab as primitive. Cleverly, the right-wing has also provided safe-seats, both in local government and at national level, for a cadre of young Mizrahi politicians whose loyalty was not in doubt.

How very clever of them. But the trouble with Smadar's twisted logic is that Mizrahim have no free will of their own - they have to be manipulated by the Ashkenazi elite and plied with 'safe seats'. This is the patronising racism that drives the Israeli Far Left.