Israel's socio-economically disadvantaged class of non-Ashkenazim from the periphery – referred to as "Second Israel" by Dr. Avishai Ben-Haim – is again being dragged into a political fight it didn't seek. This time, it's the anti-Netanyahu protesters doing the dragging. To bolster the thesis that these protesters are anarcho-leftist-Ashkenazim getting money from the New Israel Fund, Ben-Haim has been brought into the fray. The protesters are portrayed as First Israel – that is to say, the privileged class taking aim at the symbols and character of Second Israel. And just like that, Israelis in the periphery are being used as a tool in the cynical argument between those who actually have power. The satiated are exploiting the hungry, again.
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Let's start with the facts. Second Israel has suffered the brunt of the corona crisis. Most of the confirmed cases hail from Israel's weakest communities. These aren't just the ultra-Orthodox and Arabs. These people also come from the most disenfranchised families and neighborhoods in these towns and cities. This is due to a dearth of resources, congestion, professional assistance, and other factors. To make matters worse, they have been blamed for spreading the virus.
Second Israel has also suffered the harshest economic blow. The one million people who are newly unemployed are part of the lower class. Their average salary was around NIS 7,000 per month. The National Insurance Institute of Israel only pays them about NIS 3,500 per month in unemployment wages. With the corona crisis already entering its fifth month, Second Israel is losing all of its social safety nets, which were scarce to begin with. Many people are slipping below the poverty line. According to figures released by the National Insurance Institute, if we were to measure the current poverty rates we would see at least a 20% rise in the number of Israelis living in poverty. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke about the moments in which it's "impossible to sit on the fence." Standing in support of Second Israel means pushing for a dramatic political change of direction.
Amazingly, Ben-Haim's thesis is backward. In his eyes, "First Israel" is behind the recent protests across the country, with the intention of toppling the prime minister. Second Israel, according to Ben-Haim, is protecting Netanyahu. A half-truth is worse than a lie. Ben-Haim's thesis is based on an analysis of the "Black Flag" movement, which has focused on Netanyahu's alleged corruption, and whose members are mostly financially stable Ashkenazim who vote center-left.
His thesis ignores the new protest movement that represents a far broader agenda. When small-business owners take to the streets, they represent the tens of thousands of self-employed Israelis, many of whom hail from the periphery. As the corona crisis has doubled food consumption in the home, exacerbated violence in the home, amplified the need for better access to high-speed internet, and more, one cannot simply dismiss and whitewash the 2020 protests with a stroke of the "Black Flag" brush.
This thesis also puts the people of Second Israel into a box where the only criteria is swearing allegiance to the "only king of Israel," Netanyahu, preferably pronounced with the right Sephardic twang. These people do indeed exist, but they are a negligible minority within Second Israel, the peripheral towns and cities, in which the Sephardim (Israelis of Middle Eastern origin), Russian and Ethiopian immigrants, Arabs, and Haredim live.
The truth is that Second Israel is alienated from the political game. In the peripheral municipalities, voter turnout is far lower than in the more affluent municipalities. In 2015, for example, 53% of eligible voters in the periphery cast ballots in the general election. The national average was above 70%. Those who do vote and do see themselves as part of the political game, hold a political worldview that is far more complex than "only Netanyahu." These people are less interesting to those who want to continue using them.
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