Most Israelis are not white Europeans

Hen Mazzig

Los Angeles Times

Despite what many leftists in the U.S. and Europe think, “Israel isn’t a country of privileged and powerful white Europeans,” said Hen Mazzig. The Left often now frames the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in terms of race, portraying Israelis as white European Jews who fled Nazi oppression and “who in turn became oppressors of people of color, the Palestinians.” This “intersectional” narrative is often used to justify “any and all attacks” on Israel, but it is historically wrong. The majority of Israelis are like my family—Mizrahim, of Middle Eastern and North African descent. For generations, Mizrahim lived in the Middle East but “without sovereignty and equality.” These Jews were persecuted in Muslim countries such as Iraq (where my grandfather was executed in 1951). When Israel was born, more than 850,000 Middle Eastern Jews sought refuge there. Like the Ashkenazic Jews from Europe who fled the Nazis, and the 200,000 Ethiopian Jews who came later, these new arrivals “sacrificed all they had” to build and defend the Jewish state in the land where our story started. Israel is not a colonial invader, but “a place where an indigenous people have reclaimed their land and revived their ancient language.”

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