Zionism also trampled over Arab Jews, writes Yehudith Harel* While struggling for truth and equality, true partnership and reconciliation between Jews and Palestinians, we need to address the wrongs inflicted by Zionism not only on Palestinians but on Arab Jews as well. While doing so we're not damaging or diluting the struggle for truth and equality between Jews and Palestinians but on the contrary, strengthening it, making it more powerful by giving it another dimension which can also help us to mobilise wider groups in Israeli society to support our cause. One must state clearly that one cannot compare the discrimination and oppression of the Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories with that of the oriental or Arab Jews. Nor should one overlook the major national component of the Jewish-Palestinian struggle and the immense present day suffering of the Palestinians at Israel's hands. One should not forget that Zionism constitutes first and foremost an assault against Palestinian Arabs. While Arabs and Jews can never become equal within its premises, while an Arab Palestinian can never become the prime minister of Israel, Jews of all origins have at least in theory the potential of becoming equal one day. Indeed, in recent years we see more and more Jews of oriental or "Arab" origins in high offices, especially in politics and the military. This notwithstanding, one can delineate some important points of relevance which indicate why one cannot and should not separate the struggles against both oppressions, especially not while criticising Zionism and its vices regarding the Palestinians and while trying to formulate an alternative vision based on truth and equality for all. Several, not all, expressions of the discrimination and oppression of both groups came from the same psycho-political "source", even if not from the same root, and begot the same practical attitude towards them. First, the European- colonialist attitude of the Zionists, looking down on the "natives" and regarding them as second class and inferior in being "oriental", "Arab" and culturally "underdeveloped". Second, the cold, calculated and instrumental attitude towards both groups: oriental Arab Jews were treated by the Zionist movement like objects not subjects, and their fate and well being did not count in face of the "big national ideals" and achievements sought by the Jewish nationalist movement which was, after all, completely Ashkenazi, both in origins and in essence. Therefore, the Zionists could oust the majority of the Palestinian community and oppress and discriminate against the remaining ones; bring in oriental Arab Jews almost like imported cattle and practically "throw them off" vehicles and thrust them in the new developmental cities in the desert and in other remote agricultural settlements, doing so "for the benefit of the State" and the Zionist cause. There was no consideration whatsoever of the welfare of those people. There are many well-documented instances in the historical record indicating this instrumental attitude. Third, the deep cultural disdain and contempt that survives to this very day. The culture of oriental Arab Jews was Arab, the culture of the "enemy", which has been and is still looked down upon, de-legitimised, disdained and seen as inferior. Their Judaism was one of a traditional mode, in sharp juxtaposition to the secular aspirations of the Ashkenazi Zionists. Therefore, in order to be accepted by and belong to the hegemonic Jewish collective -- that is the Ashkenazi one -- the oriental Arab Jew had to distance him or herself from Arab culture and Arab-Jewish identity, which was a mild, traditional school of Judaism, and assimilate into the Israeli nationalist Ashkenazi secular culture. This same attitude remains prevalent among Ashkenazi elites, who find the emergence of traditional Jewish Sephardic protest movements like Shass not only utterly incomprehensible, unacceptable and even repulsive, but also a "cultural threat". The mainstream and hegemonic Jewish-Israeli cultural orientation is completely Western in aspiration -- if not in real practice and content. It has shifted from the traditional Euro-centric orientation to be predominantly Americanised. To this very day, Jewish-Israeli "oriental" culture is not considered mainstream nor equal, but rather fringe and inferior. This is the case despite the adoption and integration of folkloric elements from the Orient, mainly in the gastronomic and popular music realms. Since the foundation of the State of Israel there has existed long-standing and clearly institutionalised discrimination against oriental Arab Jews and Israeli Palestinians in the allocation of funds for education, job opportunities, land ownership, etc. It's true that Israeli Palestinians are more severely discriminated against, are even lower down the ladder, but the roots of this discrimination and its socio-economic outcomes are pretty much the same, let alone the national component. The outcome of the Ashkenazi attitude towards oriental Jews, their Arab culture and traditions, including their specific stream of Judaism and Jewish identity, has had a strong negative political significance. These are the phases I see Arab Jews as having gone through: First, coming to Israel, being discriminated against, looked down upon and humiliated because they were "Arab Jews" -- ie belonging to Arab culture and yet practicing Jews; trying their best to integrate in many ways, among others by "forgetting" and repressing and denying their Arab cultural roots, sometimes even turning against them by adopting "Ashkenazi" (quasi-Western and secular) ways of life and strong anti-Arab positions in order to differentiate themselves from the despised and feared "enemy". At the same time, "those 'bloody' WASPs (White Ashkenazi Sons of Pioneers)", who never really accepted oriental Jews as their social equals nor gave them the feeling of really belonging to the collective, all of a sudden have started a "romance" or even a political "love affair" with their former enemies, the Palestinian Arabs. All of a sudden they sympathise with the Palestinian cause and its suffering, speak out and demonstrate in their favor and even socialise with them. They were never as sympathetic to the pains and suffering and sense of oppression and discrimination of oriental Jews -- sentiments that were demonstrated in the 1960s and 1970s in the Wadi Salib uprising and by the Black Panther movement. It seemed to them that the leftist Ashkenazi elites and their rank and file regarded and treated Palestinians and Arabs much better than themselves. When I heard the recurring curse of "Arab lovers" shouted by oriental Jews at leftist demonstrators, I understood it as coming from the very painful experience of the "rejected child" who feels rejected in favour of a hated rival and who is crying out for equal recognition, love, care and acceptance. Second, the Ashkenazi elites and the hegemonic Ashkenazi society never really accepted Arab Jews socially. The major circles of the Israeli Zionist left were, and still are, almost purely WASP. Third, even nowadays, the majority of these WASPs in the Israeli left deny the claims of systematic and institutionalised discrimination, exclusion and marginalisation, experienced and asserted by oriental Jews and their descendants and their consequent pain, sense of humiliation and overall lower social and economic status. They blame them for being unfairly and endlessly discontent, intentionally misinterpreting the difficulties of the immigration absorption years, and attributing to them imaginary and baseless intentional racist discrimination on behalf of the establishment. They blame them for eternally "wailing" and complaining instead of "taking their fate into their hands", assuming responsibility and working hard to improve their situation. To make their point they always bring up a minority of successful and well-integrated Arab Jews who have "made it". The above process lead to antagonising the majority of Arab Jews against the predominantly Ashkenazi left and equally so against Palestinians and Arabs and their just cause, in support of which the left is united. It gradually pushed them into the arms of the political right and to "Arab-hating" positions. One can easily see that their hatred of the "Ashkenazi" left, conceived by many oriental Arab Jews as "Arab-lover", is a direct result of the above-described attitude of the Ashkenazi elites towards them. The former's refusal to acknowledge the discrimination and humiliation of Arab Jews -- just like the denial of the Nakba -- and the refusal to assume any responsibility for the events of the 1950s and 1960s and up until today, only aggravate and deepen these sentiments of anger and frustration and anti-left and anti-Arab sentiments and political positions. While criticising Zionism and the wrongs inflicted by it on Palestinians, we must at the same time acknowledge and criticise sincerely and with real empathy -- not just as lip service -- the wrongs it inflicted on oriental Arab Jews. We must commit ourselves to redress all these wrongs; otherwise we will not speak truth nor achieve equality for all, and will never win Arab Jews over to our cause. Moreover, we must seriously revise Israel's Jewish community's conscious choice opting for a complete and exclusive Western cultural orientation. We must strive to widen the scope of our cultural orientation by recognising Arab culture not as a rival but as a complimentary, equal and legitimate cultural option, source of inspiration and enrichment. Such a strategy may not only widen our horizons and enrich us, but also open the door for normalising our existence in the Arab Middle East. * The writer is an Israeli scholar and peace activist.
