Israel’s unexpected racial alignment tells us a lot about its current politics

What does America’s left wing Democrat party’s racial alignment look like?  Not surprisingly, white Europeans with liberal perspectives combined with most of the minority communities. 

What does Israel’s current right wing government; e.g., the Likud party’s racial alignment look like? Surprisingly, it consists mostly of minorities. A fact that is often ignored by the anti-Israel crowd who accuse Israel of being an apartheid state, is that Israel’s majority population is comprised of Jews of color; Jews who escaped from Arab lands (Sephardic or Mizrachi), Iran, and Ethiopia. 

This is the mirror opposite of the U.S.  The darker skinned “minority” is the core base of support for Israel’s right-wing government. This minority also is deeply rooted in traditional values.

As background, Sephardic or Mizrachi Jews had been returning to Israel for the past millennium in trickles. Then came the pogroms and ultimately the unspeakable Holocaust in Europe.  The result was a huge influx of European Jews returning home in the last century and a half. The surrounding Arab nations subsequently expelled their Jews, many of whom were long established in those countries, and they, too, fled to Israel, arriving after the European Jews.  The darker-skinned arrivals were often treated as second-class citizens by some of their European Jewish counterparts.  They ended up living in difficult conditions mainly in the periphery. Most brought strong religious values and traditions.

Today 54% percent of the Israeli Jewish population is either Mizrachi, Persian or Ethiopian. 

Mizrachi political clout has been increasing since 1977 when their first real champion, Menachem Begin, was elected. Nevertheless, the liberal left has been able to hold the levers of power via the activist courts as the Supreme Court, for all intents and purposes, has been self-appointing new judges with the same European lineage and secular values.  Hence, the court does not reflect the population.  One-third of Jews in Israel, regardless of heritage, are religious and another-third are traditional.  Yet the Supreme Court is almost exclusively none-of-the-above; i.e., white secular Europeans.  Hence one reason for the current political drama. 

In terms of trajectory, unlike the U.S., birth rates are much higher in Israel in the religious and traditional populations with typically 3-6 children per family.  Hence, demographic trends among this group are painting a picture of robust families with more traditional and religious values. The left-wing secular Jews of European heritage understand their grip is slipping and we are witnessing a pushback against a tide they will not likely be able to stop. 

More interestingly, in another generation, it will be difficult to make the heritage distinctions we can today as intra-marriage between cultures continues on an uptick.  More than 35% of newborns even five years ago were from intra-married couples. Together this portends more robust families and a blending of cultures with traditional and religious values.  This trend differs from the U.S. where marriage and replacement rates of 1.7 per couple pose other challenges.  So, despite the current upheaval, the racial political alignment and trajectory forecasts a different reality from the U.S., but God willing, a healthy future for the Jewish state. 

Gary Schiff is a resource consultant, guide and writer connecting Israel and the U.S.

Image: Israel Defense Forces, via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 2.0