Millionaires in the pool: Mizrahim as a fig leaf | Opinion

Within two days, two very different events took place in Kiryat Shmona. Gadi Eizenkot arrived for a political meeting at Beit HaKhan. The next day, the program "The Patriots" arrived in the city and was received with exceptional warmth (full disclosure: the undersigned is a regular panelist on the program "The Patriots"). In this article, I intend to focus on the sociology of the two events: who is perceived as a guest arriving in the city, and who is accepted as a voice that grew from within it?

Kiryat Shmona is one of the historical arenas where the Israeli power distribution was exposed. Below sat the residents of the development town; above, in the kibbutzim of the Upper Galilee, sat the elite serving the young, pioneering, contributing, and devoted state, but also one possessing lands, connections, social capital, and direct access to decision-making centers. We all remember the famous statement by Menachem Begin from the early eighties, who referred to the words of a resident of Kibbutz Manara as a "millionaire in the pool," looking down from above at the residents of Kiryat Shmona.

Since then, Israeli society has changed. Mizrahim have entered academia, the army, the media, and politics. But it does not necessarily follow that the hegemony has changed. Because changing the face on the storefront is not necessarily a change of the power structure in the back room.

An expression of this can be found in Gadi Eizenkot. Eizenkot is a member of a family of Moroccan descent, but family origin does not necessarily teach about a worldview, and his biography does not teach about political representation for Moroccans. Because the important question is not where a person came from, but whom he represents after reaching a position of power; which institutions he seeks to change, and which institutions he seeks to protect; who adopts him, and why.

In this respect, Eizenkot is the ideal candidate for the old hegemony. He gives it an Israeli, security-oriented, and more Mizrahi face, without truly threatening its power structure. Around him, the old media centers, senior security officials, the Kaplan camp, tycoons, and representatives of the juristocracy can gather — and at the same time present themselves as the "new Israel." Thus, the old hegemony can artificially present itself as a supposedly "diverse coalition," at the center of which remain the same institutions and the same rules of the game.

An important distinction in this context is between descriptive representation and substantive representation. Descriptive representation counts how many Mizrahim are sitting around the table. Substantive representation asks questions related to the context and power behind the scenes: who set the seating order, who drafted the menu, and who remained the owner of the table? Therefore, sophisticated moves by the hegemony to preserve its power involve opening its gates to members of groups that were previously excluded. But, and this is a big but: it promotes from among them those who grant it legitimacy, provided they do not challenge the structure they are asked to represent.

Naama Lazimi's story illustrates this well. Lazimi was born in Migdal HaEmek, presents herself as a representative of the periphery and the Mizrahi struggle, and built a significant part of her public identity around social struggles. However, when Ehud Barak's severe words about immigration from North Africa and Arab countries were exposed, she did not immediately stand at the head of the struggle against him. Far from it. The day after the storm, she sat beside him in one of the Knesset committees and did not immediately distance herself from his words.

Barak expressed himself in a conversation with Jeffrey Epstein, his close friend, and said that the founders of the state were forced to absorb the waves of immigration from Africa and the Arab world, while today, according to him, it is possible to be more "selective" and monitor the "quality" of the immigrants. In a sense, Ehud Barak is the "millionaire in the pool" that Menachem Begin spoke about. Because he is the one who knows which Jews are desirable human material, and which Jews the state was forced to absorb against its will. A chilling racist selection was modeled by Ehud Barak in his terrible words.

Only after she absorbed sharp criticism, among others from the undersigned, did Lazimi write that Barak's words were indeed severe. However, instead of placing at the center the worldview that was exposed in his words, she turned her response mainly into an attack on the "poison machine" and on those who dared to demand that she condemn him. So even when the condemnation came, it was qualified, late, and enslaved to the defense of the camp. In doing so, Naama Lazimi proved that she is no more than a "useful idiot" for preserving the power of the old hegemony.

I am not arguing here that Lazimi does not believe in the Mizrahi struggle, but that the problem is deeper: because when the Mizrahi struggle clashes with the political alliance with the old elite, it sometimes turns out what the hierarchy of loyalties is. In other words: the Mizrahi identity is displayed in the storefront; while the hegemony is preserved behind.

This is how hegemony works in an era when it is no longer possible to openly defend the old hierarchies. It does not tell Mizrahim to stay outside. It invites them inside, but only on the condition that they do not ask who the landlord is. It needs Eizenkot, Lazimi, and other figures not to dismantle the old order, but to give it a new look and immunize it against criticism.

This is the depth of the Kiryat Shmona story. This is not directly about a struggle between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim, nor about the question of the candidates' origin, but it is a struggle for control over the keys to the state. So one can be Moroccan by origin and defend the power centers that looked down on Moroccans for years. And one can also grow up in Migdal HaEmek and still serve as a fig leaf for the elite that sat by the pool.

So the old millionaires can no longer afford to look as they did in the past. Therefore, they are diversifying the storefront. But as long as they determine who will enter, who will be promoted, and what is forbidden to challenge, then the pool is still theirs.

Prof. Moshe Cohen-Eliya is an expert in constitutional law, and founder of "Masad HaAretz - The Research Institute of the People of Israel."