Eisenkot Campaigns on Moroccan Roots in Sderot, Testing Likud's Hold on Israel's Mizrahi Voters

Anyone stepping off the train on the edge of Sderot, in western Israel, is met by a wall of campaign advertising. Posters for the right-wing Likud and the far-right Otzma Yehudit carry a range of slogans. One poster appears more than any other: that of the liberal Yashar party. Its slogan, "Rosh Memshala Dialna," joins the Hebrew words for "prime minister" with a Moroccan Arabic phrase meaning "of our own."

The choice is deliberate. Gadi Eisenkot, Yashar's leader and the main challenger to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is of Moroccan origin and grew up in Eilat, a city with a large North African Jewish population. With elections set for Tuesday, his campaign in Sderot and other towns on Israel's sociopolitical periphery leans heavily on that background.

Sderot sits in the Negev desert, about 75 kilometers (45 miles) south of Tel Aviv and a kilometer from the Gaza border. It has a large Moroccan Jewish community and has become a symbol of Moroccan-Jewish culture in Israel, visible in music, cinema and politics. It is also a bastion of the Israeli right. In 2022, Likud took more than 40% of the vote there, against 23% nationwide, and other parties in Netanyahu's far-right coalition also drew strong support.

That pattern grows out of an old divide between Ashkenazim, Jews of European origin, and Mizrahim, Jews mostly from the Middle East and North Africa. By estimate, about half of Israel's Jewish population, some 4 million people, is of Mizrahi origin. After the state's founding, the ruling socialist party Mapai, whose leadership was largely Ashkenazi, pursued discriminatory policies. Mizrahim were often expected to "Europeanize" rather than keep their own culture, heritage or Arabic. European immigrants often got better housing and jobs, while many Jews from Arab-speaking countries were sent to Ma'abarot, temporary transit camps frequently in remote places with little infrastructure. Many became "development towns" that stayed underfunded compared with central Israel, and poverty followed. Sderot is among the best known.

Likud, founded as a right-wing alliance in 1973, used that resentment effectively under Menachem Begin. Mizrahi support helped produce the Mahapach, the upheaval in which Likud first defeated the socialist camp and took power. Mizrahim have been tied to Likud ever since, though the party has never had a Mizrahi leader.

This year the issue has drawn particular attention. Yashar accused Likud of sidelining its Mizrahi politicians, and its slogan "Netanyahu: Let the Mizrahim give interviews" mocked the omission. On live television, the right-wing journalist Yinon Magal, one of Netanyahu's most vocal supporters, claimed Eisenkot was controlled by elitist Ashkenazim and called him a "monkey." Netanyahu, who is of European origin, condemned the remark.

Daniel Ben-Simon, a Morocco-born, award-winning journalist and former member of parliament, told DW that Magal's comments may have pushed Eisenkot to embrace his roots, but that the move carries historical value regardless. "People don't use terms like 'Dialna' with pride," he said, noting that Israeli society long tried to erase the Arab identities of North African Jews. In his view, Eisenkot is "leaving the frame" society set, creating an Israeli-Moroccan identity, and is "the first to allow this double identity to be expressed and still feel at home."

Sderot has also changed under pressure. For two decades its closeness to Gaza has made it a frequent target of Hamas rocket fire, and in the October 7, 2023 attacks more than 50 people were killed there. In the three years since, the population has grown by about 5,000 to 40,000, with many young families arriving out of idealism and for government benefits. The national-religious community is increasingly prominent, and it tends to vote for Bezalel Smotrich's far-right Religious Zionism, a main partner in Netanyahu's coalition. Those votes still count for Netanyahu's bloc, but Likud itself could lose ground in Sderot.

Whatever Tuesday brings, Sderot's image as a Moroccan Jewish city is unlikely to fade. Ben-Simon said an Eisenkot victory would strengthen the ties such towns have to their Moroccan roots.