What’s happening?
Antisemitic rhetoric is on the rise, feeding off a narrative that claims Israel is a “white colonizer state,” which misrepresents the diverse ethnic landscape of the country and exacerbates hatred towards Jews.
Why it matters
This distorted view of Israeli society simplifies the complex fabric of racial, ethnic, and religious identities in Israel. It paints the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in misleading racial terms, resonating with the “woke” ideology prevalent among younger generations in the West. Furthermore, it fuels violence against Jews and endangers both Israelis and Jewish people worldwide.
By the numbers
Contrary to the image of a homogeneous society, more than half of Jews in Israel are of Sephardic ancestry—originating from Turkey to North Africa and further afield—often having the appearance of what many would label as “people of color.” Nearly 45% of Israeli Jews are Ashkenazim, maintaining their familial roots in Europe.
Diverse beyond religion
National statistics reveal over 20% of Israel’s roughly 9.4 million residents are Arabs with full civil rights, including service as high-ranking jurists. Furthermore, over 250,000 Bedouins are living within Israel’s borders, where they maintain their unique cultural heritage.
The misconceptions
This harmful misconception that Israel practices “white supremacy” leads to antisemitism harnessing peace and reconciliation between Israel and its neighbors as heavy casualties. Ignoring Israel’s multicultural reality successfully divides Americans across racial lines, promoting international apathy, or even antipathy, towards the Israeli state.
On the ground
Stories of shared grief from the faces of terror victims reveal Israel’s diversity, where the backgrounds of those affected trace back to over 30 different nations. Such attacks, like the one on October 7 that claimed the lives of numerous Bedouins, starkly contrast reality with a pervasive yet inaccurate racist colonial narrative.
What’s the real picture?
Variegated threads weave through Israel’s demographic tapestry; a burgeoning Black population, including thousands of Jews of Somali and Ethiopian heritage as well as African-American Jews from the Midwest, has long called Israel home.
International geopolitics
Political organisations such as the National Students for Justice in Palestine perpetrate divisive rhetoric, arguing against the existence of a Jewish state on the basis of opposing “racism.” This rhetoric gains traction and spawns protests globally, heightening the severity and relevance of the misallocation of racial tropes to the conflict.
The bigger picture
This argument has evolved with the left’s changing perception of Israel. Originally seen as a liberation from British colonization in 1948, the tides turned after the Arab-Israeli conflict in 1967. The realignment of the left’s narrative makes race the pivotal crux against Israel, denying its historical and contemporary identities.
Bottom line
The charges levied against Israel feed a false narrative, relegating a multifaceted society to a base ‘occupied-oppressor’ model. Disentangling historical, cultural, and ethnic richness from the tapestry of antisemitism remains an active part of the contemporary struggle against bias and misconception.
This story was first published on foxnews.com.