The Dream Is Dead

The Dream Is Dead."

This was how someone described Israel to me in the aftermath of the recent Israeli election. When I heard it, a chill ran down my spine.

Out of respect for the source, I won't say who made the remark. But I will say that it came from an esteemed and respected Jerusalemite who served for decades as an Israeli dignitary and held very senior positions in government.

I knew exactly what he meant.

The dream he was referring to was the creation of an enlightened, European-style democracy for the Jewish people in the Middle East. It was the dream of the modern Zionist movement, founded by Theodor Herzl, and articulated in the Israeli Declaration of Independence.

By "dead," he meant that this is no longer the Israel we have, or are likely to have in the future. The Israel we have is increasingly becoming a Middle Eastern theological ethno-state, one that is closer in character to other countries in the region, such as Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, than to Britain and France.

In other words, the Occidental (Western, Ashkenazi) vision has lost ground to a more Mizrahi (Eastern, Sephardi) conception of a Jewish homeland.

The comment was deeply personal and emotional for the speaker. As mentioned, it came from someone who had devoted decades of his life to a particular vision of the country, one that he no longer recognizes. Incidentally, he has been retired from public service for many years.

The genius of democracy—when it functions reasonably well, not necessarily perfectly—is that its results provide a reasonably accurate portrait of where a society stands at a particular moment in time.

What are we to glean from the portrait of Israel sketched by the recent election?

The election results:

• Likud bloc (right-wing, religious, pro-Netanyahu) – 53 seats

• Opposition bloc (centrist and left-wing, secular, anti-Netanyahu) – 48 seats

• Arab parties – 19 seats

A few basic observations (admittedly, with some generalizations):

• The Netanyahu-led right-wing coalition lost its parliamentary majority.

• The parties opposed to Netanyahu collectively hold a majority of seats, although they are divided over whether and how to cooperate with the Arab parties.

• The Arab parties made the most significant gains.

A lot of people don't like the portrait they see, on both the right and the left.

On the centre-left, there is disappointment that Netanyahu's coalition still holds the largest bloc of seats. The election did not decisively end his political career, and full accountability for October 7 remains an open question.

On the right, there is unhappiness over the political gains made by Arab parties, which many on that side of the political spectrum regard as incompatible with their vision of a Jewish state and their security concerns.

Predictably, Netanyahu and his party are already alleging that the election was corrupted by fraud and outside interference.

But what I see, and I think what the speaker of the "Dream Is Dead" comment sees, is a country divided between its original Western aspirations and its Middle Eastern political reality. That the very things that distinguish a liberal democracy may be viewed by an increasingly large segment of the population as luxuries that cannot be afforded.

This shift towards a more Mizrahi political orientation is not simply the result of external factors. It is also a consequence of the changing character of Israeli society, following the social and political integration of Jewish immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East, including Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Libya and Yemen. Jews of Mizrahi and Sephardi backgrounds constitute a very substantial proportion of Israel's Jewish population, as much as 45%.

Until at least the mid-1970s, Mizrahi Jews were widely treated as second-class citizens by the predominantly Ashkenazi establishment. They enjoyed full legal voting rights and citizenship, but faced systemic discrimination, cultural marginalization and significant economic disadvantages.

The socioeconomic disparities created during those early decades have left a lasting legacy. They remain evident in aspects of educational attainment, economic opportunity and representation in some of the country's most influential institutions, including academia, the judiciary and the upper echelons of government.

Meanwhile, Mizrahi Jews, who are orthodox and more traditional than Ashkenazi Jews, have learned how to flex their political muscle.

In a way, what we are seeing today in Israeli politics is a case of chickens coming home to roost.