Promo for right wing rally seeks to resurrect decades-old rifts over ethnic slur

24 April 2023, 4:16 pm

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A still from a video encouraging Israelis to join a demonstration on Thursday night in favor of the government's judicial overhaul plans, with the claim that the coalition and its supporters are the victims of "seeping racism" by their opponents. (Screenshot used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

A video promoting the planned “million man march” of the right wing on Thursday seeks to resurrect a decades-old rift over an ethnic slur.

The video encouraging people to join the demonstration in Jerusalem to counter the mass anti-government protests posits the opposition to the judicial overhaul as part of a so-called struggle by liberal Ashkenazi elites to keep down Sephardic Jews.

The video shows first Likud prime minister Menehem Begin responding angrily to slurs and then shows public figures using apparently derogatory terms over the last three decades.

Repeated throughout are people using the term “chah’chahim,” an old pejorative based on how Arabic-accented Hebrew sounded to Ashkenazi-Israeli ears.

https://twitter.com/uTKJAbcp48zw3lJ/status/1650167774826602496

The use is an allusion to an infamous incident ahead of the 1981 election in which Israeli TV personality Dudu Topaz branded Likud voters “chah’chahim” at a Labor party rally, drawing a fiery counter-speech from Begin.

“We are bringing back justice,” the promo says.