No less enlightening than the second Israel theory are the public reactions to it.
It has long been a widespread convention on the left that Dr. Avishai Ben Haim is an agent of hatred, sows division and incites hatred. This is a clear syndrome of denial, or better: denial. Within the framework of our critical discourse regime, you have permission to provide a diagnosis of the cultural and institutional attitude towards Mizrahim and the social periphery, Only when the prognosis involves accusing the Zionist project of Orientalism, or presenting contemporary Orientalism as an alarming illustration of the entrenchment of racist neo-populism in Israel.
It should be remembered that a short time before Ben Haim started driving the foxes crazy, there was a renaissance of a "new" oriental discourse, from the Ers-Poetika group to the docu-series of Amnon Levy ("The Sectarian Demon", 2013) or Ron Kahlili ("Arsim and Flowers - The Elites The News", 2014).
These were welcomed, because they did not particularly challenge the self-confidence of the centers of cultural power in Israel.
On the contrary, they confirmed their basic assumptions.
It has long been a widespread consensus on the left that Avishi Ben Haim is an agent of hatred, sowing division and instigating Shisui, Ben Haim, photo: Oren Ben Hakon
Ben Haim returned to the old, and unfashionable, theses on the structure of the divisions in Israeli society, and especially to that smooth and existing overlap between the sectarian-social divide and the political divide.
Right and Mizrahi, left and Ashkenazim.
It was a sociological convention that no one thought to dispute, and it is still valid today.
Not hermetically sealed, but there.
There were times when the intellectual field looked for ways to explain it.
Today he does as much as possible to remain silent.
This is not the missing hand
There is a reason for this manipulative silence.
Until ten, maybe 15 years ago, it was possible to tell the Mizrahim that the Likud was beating them no less than the formation and the work.
He may have brought their representatives, for the first time under equal conditions, into the centers of political power - in the Knesset and the government - but he did not improve their situation at all.
You don't buy an apartment for a child with pride in the branches.
In the last generation, it is possible to look at the results of the social leadership led by the Likud even with the naked eye and without having the statistical reports of the CBS in hand.
The construction booms in the suburbs of the peripheral towns, the shopping centers at every intersection, the new neighborhoods around the central cities, the revolution of highways between the center and the periphery, the flourishing of colleges and the liberation of the cultural field.
Even in "Wonderful Land" they abandoned the levels and switched to tortillas.
It is not the disappearing hand that is responsible for this.
This is a policy of removing barriers and encouraging local education and entrepreneurship, which created what Uri Cohen and Nissim Leon defined as the "Eastern middle class".
There is even an oriental nouveau riche.
Look for her in Netivot.
The construction booms in the intersections of the peripheral towns, the shopping centers at every intersection, the shopping mall in Kiryat Shmona, photo: Yehoshua Yosef
This puts out of mind anyone who wants to see peripheral and eastern loyalty to Likud and the Right as an expression of "Shabbats", "sects", "emotional voting", "herds", "tribalism", and how is it possible without "a product of a multitude of feelings of deprivation".
And the racism embedded in the repeated accusation of Likud supporters of irrational voting, does not reflect only arrogance, but mostly opacity.
Gross alienation, seven, to the class experience of "the others", social, economic, cultural and political emancipation.
The things add up one after the other: those who until the 1980s and 1990s were taken out of the mainstream of Israeli society - are now walking in independent transportation channels.
They do not need protection from the council and they are not passive patients of the welfare services;
They are independent actors working to advance their interests in positions of influence they have honestly occupied, in equal political competition.
Therefore, what we are witnessing now, on the bridges and in the television studios, the same panic, almost hysteria, the possible return of the Likud to power, and more under the leadership of the architect of the new social structure - is also, to a large extent, a class reaction.
It is easy to see who the most hostile elements are: veterans of the security system, the cultural establishment, the legal field, academia.
It is no wonder that some of the Motzash stars on the bridges belong to the exact same social fields, in which, under the auspices of "institutional autonomy", clear patterns of underrepresentation of peripheral groups are preserved. We need to empirically test whether the bridges near Zichron Ya'akov or Nahalel are filled with Motzash members of Ein Hod and Beit HaShetika - or in veterans of Or Akiva and Afula.
I have an educated guess.
What is Israeli in our eyes
The government of change was the government of the middle-upper class;
Retired lords of the land, deprived of some class privileges.
Not only economic - although the class leap of the eastern middle class clearly threatens the relative advantage.
In my opinion, this is mainly the cultural privilege.
Their monopolistic control in shaping Israeliness was significantly limited.
Suddenly there are other partners, equal in their position.
Maybe even more dominant.
The democratization of Israel was felt in the most painful place.
in the social status.
It's no wonder that some of the mochas stars on the bridges belong to the same social fields, protest on a bridge in Tel Aviv, photo: Koko
It is only natural that their hero is the man who liked to ask - and from that also determine - "what is Israeli in your eyes", and it is no wonder that the prevailing sentiment in this discourse is "to fight for the house", "return to normality", "sane people".
In vain we accused Lapid of running away from presenting a clear ideological position.
His message is clear: urgent restoration of the previous social structure.
Back to the good old order, in which there are no doubts about the appearance of the face of standard Israel, and it moves in the space between the Yayer-Lapidite branches and the Gentian machoism.
The government of change provided tight regulation on the excessive pluralism led by the national camp.
Too many ultra-Orthodox, Mizrahim, Serogs, ultra-Orthodox and Russian speakers have raised their voices here. All this multiculturalism is out of control. We'll send in trooper troops to bring order where Shimiri Regev ran amok. Merav Cohen and Shasha Biton will demonstrate a sane and civilized alternative to Amsalem and Distal Atbarian. You Bring the notes, and they will bring the wheelbarrows. For the first time I agree with the realists: this is indeed a fight for the face of the country.
I, on the other hand, am simply one of those who really like the wrinkles.
were we wrong
We will fix it!
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