Dear Mapai: There are Mizrahis zigzagging

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1. On Sunday, Gideon Saar accused Benjamin Netanyahu of “spreading fabrications without any factual basis, incitement and division.” The reason: the prime minister’s Twitter account re-tweeted a column published that morning by Dr. Limor Samimian demanded in the opinion section of “Israel Today” (edited). Saar did not even mention the columnist’s name or refer to her claims; he simply presented it as a “fiction” provider. “And a maker of” splitting and splitting “in Netanyahu’s service. I was surprised that someone who pretends to position himself as an alternative to” babysitting “jumps so quickly into” Trumpism, “and consumes his frustrations with journalistic criticism, while defaming it as a liar and a party.

Saar announces his resignation from the Likud, last week // Photo: From Gideon Saar’s Facebook page

It would have been possible to move on, had it not been for this message from Saar from Sunday, which received an intriguing response in the Haaretz newspaper on Wednesday, and not for nothing: in the opening paragraph, under the main headline. “Last weekend, some sadness was felt in Balfour,” wrote Yossi Werter, “close to Malchut, who is employed in a very rewarding position in the Prime Minister’s Office as a ‘consultant for the Corona virus outbreak’, wrote an article … The motive was transparent and perforated like a cobra: to infect Leaving and listing an elitist image. ”

I do not want to use the expressions “resonant box” or “message page,” but miraculously, Werter, just like Saar before him, attributes to Samimian’s column demanded a propagandistic motivation in the service of Balfour. And like Saar, Werther does not present Samimian demanded in her name and title – and certainly does not refer his readers, as usual, to the source. He settles for “close to the kingdom” and notes that she is employed in the prime minister’s office “in a very rewarding position”, while manipulatively alluding to a circumstantial connection between her position and her article. He also points out to his readers that Dr. Samimian Deresh’s area of ​​expertise as a senior researcher at the Hebrew University is emergency analysis, especially in the context of epidemics.

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2. I would not dwell on this careless nonsense either, if it did not reflect, in a kind of self-conscious literary irony, an important message on the subject of Werther’s column, which is also the subject of Samimian’s column: Saar’s new party, described last weekend by none other Than Yossi Werter himself, as a “Likud-free Likud” – “without phenomena like Amsalem, Regev, Ohana, Zohar, Qara and Mark.”

This stinking expression has blown up social media, and one has to be grotesquely naive to deny its blatant anti-Oriental aroma. Add to that the fact that the first two to join Saar were Hauser and Handel (“Darbuka’s mentality”), it is already more legitimate to conclude, as Samimian demanded, that at least on the image level, Saar’s disengagement from the Likud, like figures like Roni Milo, Dan Meridor or Tzipi Livni , Is not only ideological but also sociological.

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One can understand the pressure in an storm environment from this image, and why he sweated all week to minimize damage and prove to the whole world that all of a sudden, he has nothing against Mizrahis, since he is, as everyone knows, half Mizrahi himself. Wednesday’s article by Warter is an integral part of crisis management, as it celebrates the addition of Shasha-Bitton as a “lucrative deal” that silences catalogers. “Already at this early stage,” Werter is excited, “the top of the Saar list is one and a half counts east.” Wow. He would later sail to Izenkot’s advantage as a fiery Oriental acquisition (“they will be two and a half Orientals in the first trio”), reassuring his readers that there is nothing to fear, he is indeed Oriental, but “he is not a Casablanca, respect does not play a role in him.” You can breathe.

3. It is interesting to see how racist thought patterns, and to a very large extent also misogynistic ones, drip even into a propaganda effort to deny anti-Orientalism.

Remember how Yossi Werter introduced Dr. Limor Samimian-Deresh? “. I.e .: servant of the king, if not below it. Shasha-Bitton is also right-wing, Mizrahi, educated and holds a doctorate. But she abandoned the Likud and was rude to Netanyahu, and therefore she is presented as “the most esteemed MK … she is a woman, she is Mizrahi, she was born in Kiryat Shmona and she is educated.” The condition for recognizing your value as a woman and Mizrahi, in your reality, in your achievements, in being a husband Name, consciousness and rationale – has never been more transparent and disgusting.

Gideon Saar // Photo: Oren Ben Hakon

Even counting Mizrahis’ inventory on Saar’s list (“two and a half”!) Is an insult to intelligence and the social conscience: is this what will appease or seduce Mizrahis? Inlay of Oriental Names? What, as Gabay was expected to “pass the road to the Likudniks” because it is Mizrahi? And what exactly is the message, that the world is divided into “bibistic” Orientals versus “civilized Orientals,” such as non-Casablanca, Moroccans without honor complexes, as opposed to Mickey Zohar? This is how the masses of Mizrahi Likud voters are reflected in the eyes of Saar Pinat Werter?

Samimian apparently demanded even more justice than she intended. In order to deny transparent and segregated anti-Mizrahiism, Saar – and immediately after him also Werter – had to dwarf Samiman Deresh and despise her, run to close a deal with Shasha-Bitton, count future Mizrahis on the emerging list, but reassure Haaretz readers as opposed to “Bibists” , On the list of Saar these are educated Orientals and without matters of honor. Good Orientals.

Limor Samimian demanded that she absorb it with the precision of a brain surgeon: Saar does not signal hope for the Likud of yesteryear; It signals hope for the Mapai of yesteryear – and that says it all.

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