With their steadfast attachment to values like patriotism and religion, Mizrahi Jews in Israel befuddle US liberals by viewing their universalist vision with horror. For an explanation, liberals should listen to what sociologist Nissim Mizrachi has to say, writes Jonathan Tobin in JNS News (with thanks: Melvyn):
Mizrahim naturally support Netanyahu
Liberal
American Jews are generally confused when it comes to Israelis. On the
one hand, they claim to have empathy and support for Jews of color. But
in order to inflate the number of those who fit that fashionable
category, which offers an opportunity for post-Black Lives Matter virtue
signaling about race issue, they must conflate Mizrahi Jews who trace
their origins to countries in the Muslim world with black or Hispanic
Jews into one catch-all category. But while concern about treating all
members of the Jewish community fairly are well-founded, the
condescension implied in the effort only increases the contempt with
which most of the Mizrahi world views this mindset.
This is amply illustrated by the latest attempt by
The New York Times to
explain to its uncomprehending left-wing readership why certain
populations don’t vote as they think they should. So in an effort to
elucidate the stubborn refusal of red-state Trump voters to vote in a
manner that the chattering classes think is in their interests (i.e.,
for liberal Democrats who promise more social justice and entitlements),
the
Times has turned to Israel for an explanation. Jerusalem bureau chief David Halbfinger took a
deep dive into the question as to why Mizrahi Israelis vote for the right-wing parties and support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Just
as American liberals are frustrated by the failure of their appeals to
white working-class voters, the same is true of Israel’s left-wing
parties. The Israeli left offers a Mizrahi population that is more
likely to be disadvantaged the sort of socialist benefits that ought to
entice them, as well as a more universalist view of human rights that
promise more inclusion that are instead viewed by this segment of the
population as not only undesirable but a threat to their community and
the nation. Halbfinger
finds his explanation in the work of Israeli sociologist Nissim
Mizrachi, who came to his attention as a result of a lengthy
interview published in
Haaretz in
January. In it, Mizrachi (who, as his name indicates, is himself a
product of an upbringing in a poor Mizrahi Jerusalem neighborhood with a
mother who had immigrated from Iraq) tried to tell the readers of the
left-wing newspaper why Mizrahim were solidly behind Netanyahu and the
right.
Much like the 2004 book
What’s the Matter With Kansas? in
which journalist Thomas Frank sought a reason for that state’s poor
farmers’ loyal support for Republicans, the answer is not in economics
but values.
According
to Mizrachi, values and identity—and the security issues related to
them in the Jewish state—all make it nearly impossible for the left to
make progress with a demographic group that now forms the majority of
Jewish Israelis. It’s not that, as American liberals complain, people
vote against their interests or that they are too backward to understand
or appreciate liberal values. On the contrary, Mizrahim view the
liberal vision of the Israeli left—in which the Jewish nature of the
state is downgraded or shunted aside as being less important than a
belief in universalism and democracy—with horror. As Mizrahi has
written, Mizrahim came to Israel to be in a Jewish state where their
rights and security would be protected. They don’t view themselves as an
oppressed minority group or desire “inclusion.” They just want Israel
to be a Jewish state whose security is defended without compromise.
Hence comes their natural support for Netanyahu, Likud and other
right-wing parties—just as they supported Menachem Begin in the past—and
their utter disdain for the Israeli left, even if it seeks to portray
itself as the champion of the oppressed.
Read article in full
More about Nissim Mizrahi
There is more to the leaning of most Mizrahim to the nationalist Likud party than Prof Mizrahi and Mr Tobin seem to think. One thing is that the "left-wing" "socialists" exploited the workers economically, and not only Mizrahim. The Histadrut labor union also was one of the biggest if not the biggest capitalist in Israel. The Histadrut was supposed to represent the workers but it also had its own factories, companies and other enterprises. And in some of these companies, it liked to place Labor party hacks into managerial jobs to keep them employed and fed without working too hard. Thus many of these enterprises were top heavy with management, unnecessary management economically speaking. For instance, Alliance Tire Co. was a profitable privately owned business in Israel and made good tires. Then it was bought by the Histadrut --part of the Mapai/Labor party/Mapam complex. They loaded management with superfluous party hacks and the company started losing money.
ReplyDeleteAnother example, several years after coming to Israel, my wife got a teaching job with the Amal network of schools run by the Histadrut. To keep the job she had to open an account in Bank haPoalim [= Workers' Bank], then owned by the Histadrut, and join the Klalit health fund, also owned by the "leftist," "socialist" complex (although we already belonged to another health fund). Now, you should know too that in Israel teachers got tenure after one year teaching in a school. Hence, after one year, she was dismissed from her job in order not to give her tenure, although she was a good teacher. She was not the only one. That is how the Histadrut protected the workers, in this case teachers.
So there you have other reasons to loathe the Histadrut and the "left." Moreover, the bad dream of Oslo and its bloody aftermath deter people from listening to the peacemongers. And Israelis do not have to be Mizrahim in order to be repelled by "peace" rhetoric and peacemongering [which is pretty much equivalent to warmongering].
Eliyahu