It is said that Israel’s enemies made up a story about white invaders hurting people of color in Palestine, which is not true and doesn’t make sense.
People say that 70% of Israel’s people are Jewish, but that doesn’t really mean much when it comes to skin color. Dan Feferman, who used to work as a national security adviser for the Israel Defense Ministry, said, “The truth is that in Israel you will see Jews who look black, brown, Asian, African, and everything in between.” He went on to say, “The false portrayal is wildly inaccurate and unfortunately contributes to hatred against Israel in the Middle East and around the world.”
Feferman started a nonprofit organization called Sharaka. It is made up of Israelis and Arabs who want to improve ties between the two groups instead of using race to drive a wedge between them.
Israelis come from a lot of different places. Some are Bedouins, who are from an Arab group that lives in tents and follows the stars. One in five people who live in Israel are Arab, according to national figures. The country is very diverse, and there are lots of people from all sorts of backgrounds living there.
Charles Wax, a businessman from San Diego who works with Israel, said, “They have full rights in Israel.” They can be judges on the Supreme Court. What they are can be anything in Israel. At the moment, they are fighting for Israel.
More than half of the Jews in Israel are Sephardic, which means they are not European and come from Turkey, Persia, Arab countries, or Africa. A lot of the time, these children look like what Americans might call “people of color.” Ashkenazi Jews, who make up about 45% of Jews in Israel, are often thought of as “Jews” in America. However, they are the most popular type of Jewish descendant and are not seen as “people of color.”
The 250,000 Bedouins who live in Israel make up about 3% of the country’s population. Ten thousand of these Bedouins are Black.
“The conflict shouldn’t be based on race anyway, even if all Israelis were white.” Charles Wax said, “We should look at it as a matter of right vs. wrong.”
