Summary
The Mizrahi resistance mo(ve)ment of 1971-1973 centred on Jerusalem’s Musrara neighbourhood, protesting the discrimination of Mizrahim despite their being Jews; in Grinberg’s account it gained recognition and improved its constituents’ economic situation but failed to win political representation (Moments of Resistance, PDF p.154).
Details
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Its “moment” sparked six months after the ceasefire ending the War of Attrition and ended when the 1973 War disabled its capacity to mobilize masses; it was a reaction to the post-1967 Dual Regime, which had created four distinct ethno-classes (PDF p.154).
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Musrara’s geographic, social and economic conditions were very similar to those of Wadi Salib Riots’ Wadi Salib, where the next ethnic uprising after 1959 started (PDF p.112).
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The protest against the discrimination of the Mizrahi lower ethno-classes voiced by the Panthers in 1971-1973 was later channeled to the right-wing nationalist party from the 1973 elections (PDF p.155-156).
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Grinberg holds that in 2013 the Mizrahi collective identity is arguably still the forbidden identity in Israel (PDF p.154).
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The movement’s leaders — Saadia Marciano, Charlie Bitton, Reuven Abargil and Cochabi Shemesh, mostly in their early 20s — came from Jerusalem’s Musrara, a pre-1948 affluent Arab neighbourhood allotted to mainly Moroccan immigrants, wedged between East Jerusalem and the new Ashkenazi neighbourhood Ramat Eshkol; they were helped by three municipality youth workers and Matzpen activists, and held their first, unpermitted demonstration on March 3, 1971 (Moments of Resistance, PDF p.171-172).
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The April 13, 1971 meeting with Prime Minister Golda Meir publicly recognised the Panthers and their claims while rejecting their authority to represent Mizrahi claims, ending in Meir’s “they are not nice guys” (as printed); the May 18, 1971 unpermitted demonstration deteriorated into clashes with dozens of casualties, and the Katz Commission that followed confirmed Mizrahi hardship and recommended income supplements and peripheral education investment, reforms that failed to change the structure reproducing the gaps (PDF p.173).
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Running with Shalom Cohen, the Panthers won 2.2% in the September 1973 Histadrut elections but, their momentum lost after the October 1973 War, failed the 1% threshold in the December Knesset elections; they split and were coopted by leftist parties toward 1977, their leaders joining two parties identified with a two-state solution and negotiations with the PLO, while the Mizrahi masses voted Likud (PDF p.173-174, 179).
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Their salient success was recognition: state resource allocation and educational reform significantly improved Mizrahi living conditions long-term; their failure to become an independent political actor is attributed not only to their leaders but to the Dual Regime’s power structure and the concerted delegitimization of autonomous Mizrahi representation by legitimate political actors (PDF p.174).
Related pages
Moments of Resistance, Mizrahim, Wadi Salib Riots, Tribal Channeling, Movements of Resistance