Posted on 11/11/2026 3:30:47 PM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
Most Israelis were born and raised in the country, and marriages between Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jews have increasingly blurred boundaries inherited from their grandparents’ countries of birth. Yet, ethnic identity remains a potent campaign weapon...
Yinon Magal, a host on the pro-Netanyahu Channel 14, called Gadi Eisenkot a “monkey”, portraying the son of Moroccan immigrants as a figurehead controlled by Ashkenazi elites.
“They put a monkey; behind him are all the elitist Ashkenazim who manage him,” Magal said...
Among traditional Likud voters wary of Israel’s established elites, Eisenkot’s Mizrahi background and working-class roots are important selling points.
Magal’s attack sought to undermine that appeal with a familiar message: whatever Eisenkot’s origins, the people supposedly controlling him belong to the same establishment Likud voters have long distrusted.
Ethnic identity has shaped Israeli elections since well before Likud’s historic victory in 1977. Discrimination against Jews arriving from North Africa and the Middle East left grievances over housing, education, employment and cultural recognition. Menachem Begin offered those voters both political representation and public respect.
The defining moment came in 1981, when entertainer Dudu Topaz used “chah’chahim”, a derogatory Israeli slang term targeting Mizrahi Jews and mocking how Arabic-accented Hebrew sounded to European-descended Ashkenazi elites...
Magal’s language cannot be separated from its ethnic framing. The Hebrew word for “monkey” can describe a frontman, but the accompanying references to Eisenkot’s origins and Ashkenazi handlers made the racial implications difficult to ignore.
Netanyahu subsequently condemned the remark as “highly inappropriate”, while accusing the opposition of failing to condemn insults against Likud voters.
(Excerpt) Read more at thejewishindependent.com.au ...
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Jim
I knew you posted this article without looking.
You only ever post Divisiveness, as if you were a paid Soros Troll.
You sound just like Yinon Migal.
Go Eisenkot!
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