“Does SOME of that sentiment also come to the Shas members, because they are predominately Sephardic and they (maybe??) think the Ashkenazim have “taken over” the economy (or at least gained the most economically), since Israel became an independent state??”
There is some of that. The Shas actually broke from a Haredi political party largely because it was dominated by Ashkenazi, and they (the Shas) wanted a “more authentic” Middle Eastern culture for Israel. A lot of Druze, interestintly enough, vote for the Shas, for this reason.
Again, that too was just my instinct, and it brings up a point that an author has made in a recent book “A World Without Islam” by Graham Fuller.
Given his political bias (he seems to be an entrenched Marxist, in spite of over 25 years as a CIA intelligence analyst), in his book HE DOES present a lot of details about Middle East history in the modern era, and earlier.
(His political worldview comes through in his analysis if the history he reports on and that insures I am not trying to promote his book - he often sounds like an unreformed Pravda political operative).
However, his primary thesis is that even if Islam had never arisen, culture alone would have presented points of tension and even possible conflict, between “the west” and the Middle East. I think there are SOME threads of truth in that idea. Whether or not that idea has the primacy of importance today, that he gives it today, I am not well informed enough to comment on.