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Author Topic: Mizrahim, Ashkenazim and the Israeli Labor Party
Ken Burch
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posted 28 April 2006 05:02 PM      Profile for Ken Burch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
It strongly appears that the Labor party may have cost itself victory in the most recent Israeli election because the Ashkenazim(Northern European Jewish)wing of the Labor movement couldn't tolerate the election of a Mizrahi(North African Jewish)leader, Amir Peretz.

Can somebody tell me why the Ashkenazi within Labor would be so seemingly bloody-minded about this?


From: A seedy truckstop on the Information Superhighway | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fear-ah
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posted 28 April 2006 05:21 PM      Profile for Fear-ah        Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Ken Burch:

Can somebody tell me why the Ashkenazi within Labor would be so seemingly bloody-minded about this?

Racists...? Pure and simple...it's not complicated.


From: Vancouver | Registered: Jul 2004  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
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posted 29 April 2006 04:23 AM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Actually, it IS a lot more complicated. In the past 20 years or so under people like Shimon Peres, the Labour Party strayed far from its original socialist roots and became basically the party of gterritorial compromise with the Palestinains and was more small l liberal socially. Its typical voters became the educated urban elite who are typically ashkenazi. Under Peretz, Labour drastically changed its emphasis to being one of being a fighter for the underclasses and taking on issues like poverty - and the poor in Israel are largely Mizrahi (Sephardic). The more middle class askenazi types that had backed Labour followed Peres into the new Kadima party - but Peretz won a lot of new support from Mizrahi who had previously voted Likud.

Its not fair to call it racism - its simply that the party campaigned on very different issues.


From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
josh
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posted 29 April 2006 09:27 AM      Profile for josh     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
What Stockholm said is basically correct. But there always has been a degree of snobbery within the Ashkenazi elite toward the Sephardim.
From: the twilight zone between the U.S. and Canada | Registered: Aug 2002  |  IP: Logged
ohara
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posted 29 April 2006 09:32 AM      Profile for ohara        Edit/Delete Post
Yes the kind of political "snobbery" we may see in any country with a democratic political base.
From: Ottawa | Registered: Jan 2005  |  IP: Logged
josh
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posted 29 April 2006 09:34 AM      Profile for josh     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I agree Ohara. I'm not singling out Israel on this. Relax.
From: the twilight zone between the U.S. and Canada | Registered: Aug 2002  |  IP: Logged
ohara
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posted 29 April 2006 11:13 AM      Profile for ohara        Edit/Delete Post
I know you are not, just wanted to emphasize your point.
From: Ottawa | Registered: Jan 2005  |  IP: Logged
sidra
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posted 29 April 2006 11:38 AM      Profile for sidra   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Apparently we are able to make a shameful social phenomenon simply disappear, as in no longer existent, by changing one word.

There is no racism in Israel. There is no racism in Saudi Arabia. There is no racism in France. There is no racism in Canada.. what you are talking about is snobbery !


From: Ontario | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fear-ah
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posted 29 April 2006 01:00 PM      Profile for Fear-ah        Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by sidra:

There is no racism in Israel. There is no racism in Saudi Arabia. There is no racism in France. There is no racism in Canada.. what you are talking about is snobbery !

You nailed it...LOL

...and they we so obvious about it too!!!


From: Vancouver | Registered: Jul 2004  |  IP: Logged
Ken Burch
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posted 29 April 2006 01:01 PM      Profile for Ken Burch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by ohara:
Yes the kind of political "snobbery" we may see in any country with a democratic political base.

It's a natural democratic outcome for leading figures in a party to work for their own party's defeat simply because they believe their party's new leader is from an ethnically inferior group?

I'm not sure. And no, I'm not singling out Israel for special attack in raising these questions, if that is what you are insinuating, ohara.


From: A seedy truckstop on the Information Superhighway | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
ohara
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posted 29 April 2006 04:02 PM      Profile for ohara        Edit/Delete Post
I understand. I just find it odd that often when such points are made Israel becomes the living example. As well it permits those who don't know better to use this as just another way to attack Israeli society. See above.
From: Ottawa | Registered: Jan 2005  |  IP: Logged
B.L. Zeebub LLD
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posted 30 April 2006 12:39 PM      Profile for B.L. Zeebub LLD     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by ohara:
I just find it odd that often when such points are made Israel becomes the living example.

Imagine that in a thread about the Israeli Labor Party in the Middle East and Central Asia section of the board.

This is more of your textbook hasbara, ohara. In this case, the technique is to attempt to shift the focus of the debate away from the subject matter and suggest that the topic alone infers an undue bias against Israel. This is often coupled with the suggestion that when criticising anything, one must also include criticism of all other criticisable things...

An important question about racism in Israeli society has been raised. Informatively, you have chosen to consider such racism mere "snobbery". I think this is an important point, but not in the way you might suggest. The fact that you can use such a word to describe insidious forms of racism should make us look closer at "snobbery" and how class and ethnic/race divides overlap. I agree that "snobbery" and "racism" can in many cases be used to describe the same phenomena. Many catagories are common to these invidious comparisons - i.e. mannerisms, customs of speech and dress, laziness, lack of intelligence or sophistication, etc. In the case of the Ashkenazim and Mizrahim, we can also throw in physical characteristics, so that the line is not all that clear.

Class and race are often closely intertwined. For instance, in North America you can often hear anti-black racism expressed as a kind of class-bias. When middle-class whites complain about blacks, they usually don't mean educated, professional blacks who have assimilated into the economic middle-classes. No, when their milquetoast distaste for black people is expressed, the figure they criticise is the black who lives in the ghetto, in poverty, participates in crime, speaks in what whites consider slang, and behaves socially in ways that are considered foreign to "genteel" middle-class society.

In my experience, the anti-Mizrahim racism that exists in Israel is of much the same kind. The veneer that keeps us from calling it all-out racism is nationalism.

[ 03 May 2006: Message edited by: B.L. Zeebub LLD ]


From: A Devil of an Advocate | Registered: Sep 2004  |  IP: Logged
Ken Burch
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posted 02 May 2006 08:41 AM      Profile for Ken Burch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Just so you understand my precise position on Israel, ohara, let me explain it here briefly...

I support the left wing of the Israeli peace movement. I believe that, if Israel is to avoid reducing itself to nothing more than an authoritarian militarist government that is democratic in name only, it needs to accept a Palestinian state, and a Palestinian state making up all the pre-1967 lands of the West Bank and Gaza. The settlements need to be dismantled, unless those living within them were willing to live as citizens of Palestine and in equality with the Palestinian Arabs living around them.

The Israeli government needs to stop its policy of discouraging and attacking people who push for reconciliation between Palestinians and Jews(a policy which, for example, has led that state to condemn Daniel Barenboim for his efforts to promote peace and reconciliation through joint Israeli/Palestinian musical ensembles).

The checkpoints need to come down.

There must not be any more uprooted olive trees and interruptions of water supplies. Even you would have to agree that those last two steps were immoral as most of the people who were victimized by them had nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.

I also believe that, within Israel, if it is to survive and to retain any legitimacy, it needs to treat Sephardic and Mizrahim Jews, as well as its own Arab citizens, with full equality.

This is necessary, in my view, so that the social democratic character of the Israeli state can not only be restored but enhanced, with the slide towards Netanyahu-style yuppie arrogance arrested(as it should, of course, be arrested everywhere else).

This means that people who would ordinarily support a political party in Israel should not stop supporting it just because its new leader is of a different ethnicity and is progressive, rather than bland centrist. Had the Labor voters who said "ewwww, I can't support a Mizrahi, icky icky boo boo" been able to put that aside, Labor would likely have prevailed in the election and the hard right would be on the defensive.

And I believe that Palestinians need, for their part, to accept the Jewish fact in Palestine. That is, whatever arrangements are made and whomever ends up with power over what, Palestinians need to accept that Jewish people have as much right to live in parts of Palestine as Arabs do, and to live in peace as well.

I thank Hamas for its moratorium on suicide bombers, and call on all other Palestinian factions to announce the same step, since the only people killed by the suicide bombing attacks are innocent civilians who had nothing whatsoever to do with that the IDF has done in the West Bank and Gaza.

I think this is a balanced approaced.


From: A seedy truckstop on the Information Superhighway | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 02 May 2006 03:34 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by sidra:
There is no racism in Israel. There is no racism in Saudi Arabia. There is no racism in France. There is no racism in Canada.. what you are talking about is snobbery !

!


From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
N.Beltov
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posted 02 May 2006 03:50 PM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Nice to see you, Cue. I can't believe you missed the sarcasm associated with the post you quoted. But perhaps I'm missing something here.
From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 02 May 2006 10:21 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
It is chess notation.
From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
N.Beltov
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posted 02 May 2006 11:16 PM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Cueball: It is chess notation.

Hmm. Then, perhaps ?! (dubious move) or ?? (blunder) rather than ! (good move) would be appropriate.


From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged

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