The myth of the Mizrahim.

(From Guardian Unlimited)

There is no denying that in Israel there is discrimination and an ethnic divide. Choice quotes from Israel's leaders in the 1950s do betray contempt for Mizrahim -- the 40% of Jewish Israelis who hail from Arab lands. As Rachel Shabi writes in Not The Enemy , they were portrayed as 'weak, dirty, poor, culturally deficient and superstitious".

That's because many immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa were poor, badly educated, unwashed and superstitious. Israel took in the most destitute, the poor, the sick, the elderly and the stateless -- because they were Jews with nowhere else to go. Those with education, means and …