One of the most damaging stereotypes promulgated by the anti-Israel crowd is the “white European colonialism” myth. In other words, it is claimed that since the overwhelming majority of pre-1948 Jewish olim are of Ashkenazi descent (i.e. Israelite refugees who settled in Central/Eastern Europe during the Middle Ages), Israel’s rebirth is essentially a European settler colonial construct and therefore an “injustice” against the Arab population of Palestine, who are believed to be indigenous. And we all know how civilized, progressive people are supposed to treat settler colonial states: boycotts, isolation, and delegitimization. For this reason, it has become the centerpiece of contemporary antisemitic propaganda, and remains a popular slogan among those who want nothing more than to bring the Jewish state down.
But what’s even worse is our preferred method for responding to this libel. Instead of confronting it head on, we offer what amounts to little more than an evasion. What I’m referring to here is the “more than 50 percent of Israel is Sephardic and Mizrahi” counter-argument. It is ineffectual, lazy, and akin to applying bandages to axe wounds. By immediately moving the subject over to Sephardim (the majority of whom returned after Israel’s War of Independence), you are tacitly conceding to the anti-Zionists that Israel’s rebirth was, in fact, a European colonial project. And just how do you think people will respond if you tell them “Israel may have been established by thieving colonizers from Europe, but hey! Look at those Sephardim! They came from Arab countries, right? That means they’re legitimately Middle Eastern, so we can just ignore all of that earlier colonial business!”? Do you think that’s going to convince them of Israel’s legitimacy? I can almost guarantee that it won’t. At first glance, it may seem like an easy and convenient rebuttal, but it is deeply flawed and doesn’t disprove anything.
So the question remains, how *do* we respond to this accusation? The answer is a simple one. We do away with the profoundly ridiculous conception of Ashkenazi/European Jews as “white European converts” and remind our interlocutors of who they really are: Israelites. They’re not foreign immigrants from Europe, they’re returning natives. Anyone with an understanding of indigenous status will be able to see how they, along with most other Jewish groups, meet all of the criteria for inclusion.
Genetic studies are particularly useful here, but one should not overlook phenotypes (that is, physical/facial features) either. Ashkenazim are often categorized as “white Jews” in contrast to “Jews of color”, but anyone who has spent a significant amount of time around Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews would know that this is nonsense. It is almost impossible to distinguish the former from the latter, or from other Levantine groups (e.g. Lebanese, Syrians, Druze, etc). In fact, Jews living in Central/Eastern Europe were frequently characterized as ‘dark-skinned Asiatics’ by the indigenous European populations they lived with. Evidence of this can be found in the writings of European philosophers, scholars, and historians from before WWII. Immanuel Kant, for example, once famously remarked that Central European Jews were “the Palestinians who live among us”. Not even the philosemites of the time questioned their origins in the Fertile Crescent.
All of that being said, it’s easy to see why many people would rather just point to Sephardim/Mizrahim instead of deconstructing this myth directly. There are many who desire to give more of the spotlight to a Jewish population whose history and plight has largely been overlooked. This is perfectly understandable, but there are better ways to handle this topic. It is a worthy cause on its own merits, and as a Mizrahi Jew myself, I feel we deserve more than to be used as red herrings in a discussion that, frankly, has very little to do with us. Whether we like it or not, Ashkenazim are the main target of the colonialism myth, so they should be the main focus in deconstructing it. There’s really no other way.
