Mizrahi (Eastern) citizenship emerges from the political standpoint that views poverty, social rifts, and the violence within Israeli society and between Israelis and Palestinians as socio-political processes. These processes are not a predetermined fate. Humans shaped and produced them, and therefore humans can change them. Poverty, ignorance, war, and social polarization are products of social circumstances and political decisions. Mizrahi citizenship is a political perspective that strives to shape circumstances and policies that produce a different, democratic reality. A reality founded not on a culture of war, but that is rather grounded in hope in our present and future. The Mizrahi Civic Collective (MCC) was founded by a small core group that strives to form a broad civil movement against the old and new orders, which can be summed up by the slogan: “No to the judicial reform and no to the old order!” The horrific massacre that took place on October 7th, 2023 created an existential crisis for many of us. At the same time, we see how our democracy continues to weaken, and we know it is our obligation to collectively imagine and strive for another horizon.

The Democratic Vision of “No to The New Order and No to the Old Order!” is More Relevant Than Ever.

Long before the 2023 war, many of the core founders of the MCC organized a petition against Israel’s Nation-State Law (2018). This law was a constitutional event that further entrenched the negation of Arab people, Arabic language and culture. The law positions Arabs and Arabic in opposition to Jewish values while targeting the civil rights of the Palestinian citizens of Israel. The culmination of this constitutional moment in the “judicial reforms” of January 2023 led to the establishment of the MCC. We formulated a democratic vision and published position papers in the fields of law, education, housing and space, social justice, environment and climate, gender and LGBTQ studies. The main point of these papers was the presentation of a Mizrahi civic position calling for a constitutional change in Israel, along with the establishment of democracy and equal citizenship. Written in the spirit of past Mizrahi struggles  (of Israeli Jews of the Middle East and North Africa), the call strives to eliminate gaps and promote social justice and peace.

In the government’s plans for a new order we see a constitutional, theocratic, anti-liberal and anti-social coup. These plans can only deepen the social and political divides in Israel. The greatest losers will be those already in the margins, namely, Mizrahim, Ethiopian Jews, Bedouins, Palestinians in both Israel and in occupied Palestine, asylum seekers, and foreign workers. The MCC declares its opposition to this new regime and its judicial reform, but it also refuses to go back to the old regime. The old regime is based on a semblance of democracy that is rooted in racist and violent preconceptions of the Other, just as much as it is predicated on a hostile perception of the Middle East, characterized by the Israeli phrase describing the country as a “villa in the jungle.” The State of Israel, its legal system and society are in a desperate need of change, but not the kind offered by these regimes. Rejecting both the old and the new orders, the Mizrahi Civic Collective offers a new path, one that is relevant and hopeful.

An Alternative Viewpoint: Between Jewishness and Arabness

The MCC is based on two main tenets. The term ‘civic’ emphasizes the importance of bringing democratic, equal citizenship to populations who have never enjoyed the fruits of the so-called Israeli democracy. The term ‘Mizrahi’ reflects a political stand that continues the social justice struggles of generations of Jews who migrated to Israel from the Middle East and North Africa. We ask to stop denying that Israel is at the heart of the Middle East and the Arab world. As Mizrahim, we see a potential for partnership and belonging to the region in our cultural and historical heritage as members of the Arab and Muslim world.

These principles are our guiding light. We tirelessly strive to achieve equality and to correct injustices with distributive justice, transitional justice, and acknowledgement, through active civic engagement and governmental participation of all people: all nationalities, all genders, all religions, and all ethnicities between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

We propose a process of repair, drawing inspiration from our position in an intermediate space: between Jewishness and Arabness, center and periphery, oppressor and oppressed, between various centers of influence. From this intermediate space, we can offer conceptual diversity and an agenda that takes different groups into account, the disempowered and the privileged, the marginalized and hegemonic. This point of view opens up a wide range of community actions, including ways to connect the weakest and strongest parts in our societies. This is what makes us unique. We have experienced the wrongdoings of the past—our parents, ourselves, and our children carry with them a sensitivity and awareness to discrimination, and therefore an obligation to correct it.

Independent Mizrahi Citizenship and the Democratic Failure

Mizrahi citizenship opposes the divisions between Arabs and Jews, Haredim (the ultra-Orthodox) and Hilonim (secular people), women and men, and Mizrahim and Ashkenazim (European Jews). These structures perpetuate the failure of Israeli democracy. We propose to base citizenship in Israel on ideas of freedom and equal opportunity in thought, expression and action. Instead of the hardening of national, ethnic and class categories, we suggest concepts that will expose and repair the socio-economic exclusion of certain groups within the two nations, the Palestinians and Israelis. This position begins by exposing the failures and neglect of local and national governance which have stifled the possibility of democracy and social justice.

Our position, which connects social justice and democracy, places economic well-being and peaceful existence as its primary goal, both within Israeli society and between the Jewish and Palestinian nations. Developing and strengthening an identity that is democratic, active, and independent within marginalized individuals and groups, redistributing resources, and recognition in past wrongs—these are the means by which we strive to realize our goals. We aim for a sustainable, peaceful existence between the two nations, requiring us to sharply criticize the governing systems inside and outside the Green Line.

The Day After the War

The terrible slaughter on October 7th, 2023, and the ongoing war on Gaza have further distanced us from the possibility of living side by side. The prospect for a sustainable, equitable solution for both nations has never felt more distant. Our cries for living in dignity, security, equality, and peace have been muffled by the sound of bombs. The war amplifies the existential threat of both nations, which in turn feeds notions of mutual revenge. The first casualties are the residents of the geographical and social periphery, who have always served as human shields for the rest of the country. Yet, under a general reality of neglect, there are those who are neglected more than others: in Israel, excluded and marginalized populations, such Arab villages and children, are more likely to be harmed. In the occupied Palestinian territories, the first to pay the price of war were those in refugee camps and in Area C. In Gaza, only those with resources and connections will escape the horrors of this war.

The old and current orders are keen to perpetuate the way of life by the sword through ongoing and extreme militarization. Those who cannot bear arms—women, children, Palestinians, refugees, and other marginalized communities—will remain at the bottom rung of the ladder. “Total victory”—the right-wing slogan—means that the entire budget is allocated to a never-ending war, damaging public services and social security, and exacerbating inequality. “Total victory” will strengthen the centralized government, weaken local governance, and lead to silencing of citizens.

A History of Crisis and Kinship

As Jews of the Middle East and North Africa, our history is full of crises as well as intimacy with Arab society and Islam. We carry historical memories and lessons of Jewish life in Arabic and centuries of movement in a shared space. These allow us to embrace the belief that solidarity and trust in mutual help in times of need are possible. We believe it is our duty to fight for the right of Palestinians and Jews to live a life of security and self-determination. We acknowledge the existence of the Palestinian people as a historical fact that cannot be disputed. Our future and the future of Palestinians depend on each other and are inextricably intertwined.

The moment of crisis, trauma, and grief of October 7th, 2023, leaves only one path if we wish to choose life: A mass Israeli and Palestinian movement that places a firm demand on mutual safety and protection.

A Call for Mutual Rescue

It is our obligation to save each other, the two nations between the river and the sea, from a cruel fate of war and terrorism—and do everything in our power to prevent harm of citizens of both nations, including different ethnic, gender-based, and social groups. We must abandon the ethos of self-defense, which repeatedly justifies structural hierarchy throughout the region from the river to the sea. Instead, we replace this ethos with a commitment to save all of our communities, Palestinian and Jewish. We are determined to break the cycle of despair created for us by those committed to false visions of ethnic cleansing, slaughter, genocide, and a second Nakba. What we need is a civil movement working to establish alternatives to the zero-sum game of “conflict management” in the spirit of the old order; alternatives to the Israeli occupation; to the militarization and population transfer that the current regime aspires to achieve.

Social justice, distributive justice, peace, and equality are the only values that have the power to provide safety, protection, stability, and prosperity to all residents in the region. The only alternative to the deadlock we are in is to dedicate ourselves to a process of repair that acknowledges the existence of two nations between the river and the sea, in peace, prosperity and safety. In this long process, the political and the economic will be embedded within a future-oriented itinerary. We must develop a new political imagination. We must create new logics in which one injustice does not justify another. We must fight for the hope that the life of one collective does not justify another. Our vision takes off of a hopeless reality toward a horizon—a desire for life. We believe that many people in both nations share this vision.

The Cornerstones of Our Vision:

1. The sanctity of life and limits of power

Prioritizing continuing the war over the immediate release of the hostages in an exchange deal reflects a choice that elevates the culture of war above all else. The immediate release of the hostages in this deal is the commend of the hour and of life. Humanitarian aid is not a bargaining chip. This is the essence of our view: first of all, we honor the sanctity of human life. This is the alternative to war, and the starting point for searching for possible solutions to the historical conflict. Only a conscious and courageous historical compromise that recognizes the limits of power will guide us towards a sustainable future.

The MCC calls on everyone, Palestinian, Mizrahi, Ashkenazi, Russian speakers and Ethiopians, asylum seekers and refugees, Muslims, Druze, Jews and Christians, secular, traditional, religious and ultra-Orthodox, women and men, gay and straight people, to join us! Together, we will unite the civil voices of Israelis and Palestinians and use them to sanctify our lives and our common future.

1. Foreign and domestic policy are inseparable

Foreign and security policy cannot be separated from domestic and economic policy. The Israeli occupation and the “management of the conflict” agenda are closely related to the vulnerability of the weaker sections of society. The vulnerability of the geographic and social peripheries in the north and the south of the region, which lack regional parliamentary representation, obliges us to respond. We must respond to these citizens who cry out for a life with dignity, safety, equality, and peace. They are not the enemies of Israeli society or the Israeli State. They only seek to live peacefully and safely, with equal and full participation in shaping the regime in Israel. Marginalized and poor populations within each nation are the first to pay the price of violence and to fall victim to policies of intimidation and polarization. They are the first to lose their livelihoods, their jobs, their communities, and their resources. For them, the need to end this war and achieve a political settlement is paramount, existential and real.

1. Resistance to Violence as a Solution

As we did before October 7th, we issue a warning that the new order amplifies the discourse of violence, fear, separation, oppression, and deportation. This discourse will only strengthen the cycles of chauvinistic violence and revenge into which both societies are repeatedly thrown. The security-oriented policy is intensifying these cycles, leading to violence and bloodshed that increase from round to round. 

The old order does not offer a safer future. The strategy of “managing” the conflict between the nations destroyed and suppressed Palestinian movements and communities inside Israel and in the occupied territories. In the process, it damaged democratic values under the pretext that it is possible to be both “Jewish and democratic,” while maintaining peace and security. The violence between the two nations is also the responsibility of the old order, and therefore we declare: “No to the old order and to the new order.”

1. Collaborative Strategies and Release from the Shackles of the Past

A violent and complex history of the relationship between the two nations continues to unfold alongside dialogue and recognition of mutual existence. According to this history, there will always be a danger that either side will degenerate into fascism, motivated by a desire to eliminate the other. From this arises our common moral duty to fight these tendencies and to bring to an end both the Israeli occupation and the massacres. We must stand in the way of the extremists, racists, militarists and the vengeful, on both sides, and convince both nations to join us on the path of peace and mutual trust. We must continue our search for ways of living in dignity, creating spaces for dialogue, mutual guarantee, protecting religious, cultural, social and economic rights within the borders of tolerance, and relentlessly defending against the desire for colonial annexation and extermination.

Our doors and our hearts are open to all those who wish to join us in our struggle to live in peace and dignity. We are committed to fixing injustices, past and present, without creating new ones. We strive to be open-minded and independent, without fear of political persecution. We are determined to act with courage and willingness and to pay prices for our values, especially in the search for a resolution to the conflict. Our commitment is to future generations, to planting seeds for our children and grandchildren, and to building, not destroying. Our spirit is the spirit of Eastern citizenship, in which Jewishness and Arabness are inseparable. The political expression of this citizenship is a plurality of voices, beliefs, and solutions rooted in one truth: the sanctity of life, justice and peace.