“This is a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle,” Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu said in a
speech last October, days into the
Israel-Hamas war. His mention of “the jungle” recalls a popular Israeli expression, attributed to former Prime Minister Ehud Barak three decades ago, that Israel is “a villa in the jungle.” The jungle, in this case, is the Arab world, and the Palestinians in it are the “
beasts”...
...But the idea goes back even further, to the early Zionist thinkers. Theodor Herzl, the Austro-Hungarian father of modern Zionism, wanted to establish a state where Jews could be safe from the violent antisemitism they’d long faced in Europe. He painted a vision of a Jewish state in Palestine that would grant civil rights to the Arabs who remained there. He
argued that by bringing Western civilization to the region, Jews would be
benefiting the local Arabs economically and culturally — and that the Jewish state would “constitute part of the wall of defense against Asia; we would serve as an outpost of civilization against barbarism.”
But from the early days of the state, there was a group that didn’t buy the justification: Jews with roots in the Arab and Muslim world.
Called Mizrahim in Israel, these Jews today make up the
largest ethnic group in the country. They mostly immigrated to Israel after 1948, and for much of the country’s history, they’ve been victims of the same kind of anti-Arab ideology that is wielded against the Palestinians. For centuries, Mizrahi Jews had enjoyed high status in their countries of origin in the Middle East and North Africa, which ranged from Iraq to Egypt to Morocco. But when they landed in Israel, they found that the new state was ruled by European Jews, called Ashkenazim, who overwhelmingly viewed them as primitive and culturally backward.
This movement offers a counterpoint to the “villa in the jungle” view of Israel — an alternative vision for how Jews and Palestinians can live together on the land. It also offers a more nuanced way to think about contemporary debates on the meaning of indigeneity, nationhood, and colonialism in Israel-Palestine. The vision of Mizrahi-Palestinian solidarity seems even more important in light of what has actually happened in more recent decades: Mizrahim drastically
moved to the political right, and solidarity with Palestinians became Israel’s road not taken. Understanding that swerve is key to understanding what went wrong in Israel’s history that made it unable to imagine coexistence with an Arab people. And it may be key to building a better future for all.
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