For centuries, Jewish communities lived across the Arab world as part of the region’s social fabric. They weren’t outsiders. They weren’t foreigners. They weren’t “minorities” in the modern sense. They were Baghdadi Jews, Yemeni Jews, Egyptian Jews, Syrian Jews, Tunisian Jews — people whose language, food, music, humor, and worldview were Arab to the bone. They wrote Arabic poetry, ran Arab newspapers, composed Arab music, and shaped the cultural life of cities like Baghdad, Cairo, and Sana’a.
So what happened? How did a population that once belonged fully to the Arab world become a political bloc inside Israel — one that overwhelmingly votes for the right wing, and is often mobilized as a weapon against Palestinians and against the memory of their own Arab past?
The answer is a mix of trauma, manipulation, state engineering, and the brutal politics of identity in a settler‑colonial project.
The rupture: 1948 and the forced unmaking of Arab identity
When Israel was created in 1948, the region was thrown into upheaval. Arab states were dealing with the shock of a European‑backed settler project planted in Palestine. Israel’s founding war displaced 750,000 Palestinians. Tensions exploded. In that climate, Arab Jews were suddenly treated as potential fifth columns, even though most had no connection to Zionism and didn’t see themselves as part of the project.
Some communities faced pressure, violence, or state suspicion. Others were targeted by Zionist underground operations designed to accelerate Jewish flight. In Iraq, bombings in Jewish neighborhoods — still debated today — pushed families to flee. In Yemen, the mass airlift known as Operation Magic Carpet uprooted tens of thousands. In Egypt, political turmoil and nationalism made Jewish life increasingly difficult.
Arab Jews didn’t leave because they were “naturally Zionist.” They left because the region was collapsing around them, and Israel positioned itself as the only escape route.
But once they arrived, they discovered they weren’t wanted as equals.
The shock of arrival: racism, segregation, and erasure
Israel was built by European Jews, and it was built in their image. Arab Jews — Mizrahim — were seen as backward, primitive, uneducated, “Oriental.” They were dumped in transit camps, shoved into poor development towns on the margins, and used as demographic buffers near borders.
Their Arabic language was mocked. Their culture was dismissed. Their history was rewritten. Their Arabness was treated as a stain.
Israel needed their bodies, not their identity.
The state’s message was simple:
You are not Arab. You are Jewish. And your Arab past must be erased.
This wasn’t accidental. It was policy. Schools taught Mizrahi children that their parents came from “uncivilized” societies. Media portrayed Arab Jews as inferior. European Jews dominated politics, economy, and culture. Mizrahim were expected to assimilate into a European narrative of Jewishness that had nothing to do with their lived reality.
The trauma of losing home was compounded by the trauma of being told that home was shameful.
How the right wing captured Mizrahi identity
By the 1970s, Mizrahim were fed up. They were poor, marginalized, and treated as second‑class citizens. The left‑wing parties that founded Israel — dominated by European Jews — had failed them. So when Menachem Begin and the Likud party came along, promising respect, recognition, and revenge against the Ashkenazi elite, Mizrahim listened.
Begin didn’t erase their pain. He weaponized it.
He framed the left as elitist Europeans who despised Mizrahim. He framed the right as the champion of “the people.” He tied Mizrahi anger to nationalism, militarism, and anti‑Arab sentiment — a tragic twist, given Mizrahim’s own Arab roots.
Over time, Mizrahim became the backbone of Israel’s right wing. Likud, Shas, and other conservative parties built their power on Mizrahi neighborhoods, Mizrahi grievances, and Mizrahi identity politics.
The irony is brutal:
A population uprooted from the Arab world was turned into a political tool against Arabs.
Why many Mizrahim vote right wing today
It’s not because they were “always conservative.”
It’s because of a long chain of engineered experiences:
State‑imposed identity loss. Israel forced them to reject their Arabness to be accepted as Jews.
Socioeconomic marginalization. Decades of poverty and exclusion pushed them toward parties that promised revenge against the old elite.
Militarized nationalism. Mizrahim were overrepresented in frontline combat units, tying their identity to the military and hardline politics.
Narrative manipulation. Israeli politics framed Palestinians as the threat and the left as the enemy of Mizrahim.
Religious revival. Parties like Shas fused Mizrahi pride with conservative religious politics.
This didn’t happen overnight. It was built over generations.
The cost: a severed history
Today, the term “Arab Jew” is treated as political provocation. Many Mizrahim reject it because they were taught to. They were told that Arabness equals the enemy. They were told that their parents’ culture was inferior. They were told that their history must be rewritten to fit the Zionist story.
But the truth remains:
Arab Jews were Arab.
They lived as Arabs.
They contributed to Arab civilization.
And their erasure was engineered.
The forgotten possibility
The tragedy is not only what was lost. It’s what could have been.
Arab Jews could have been a bridge between Palestinians and Israelis.
They could have been living proof that Jewish identity and Arab identity are not opposites.
They could have been the antidote to the myth that coexistence is impossible.
Instead, they were turned into instruments of division.
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📽️ Credit: Uncivilized Media
