[The European Conservative] Forgotten in the Promised Land

Oriental Jews may well have been discriminated against throughout Israel’s early decades, but Michale Boganim’s latest documentary vastly exaggerates their current plight.

In review: The Forgotten Ones — From the Promised Land to Oblivion, Documentary by Michale Boganim (2022), 1h33m.

Sometime in the early 1970s, an outcast posse of young ethnics rose to fulminate against their country’s barren promise of colourblind opportunity for all. Seamlessly blending political activism with social programs to uplift their community’s lot, these militants dodged the draft and denounced the nation’s broader militaristic culture for distracting away from the domestic iniquities of police abuse and de facto segregation. When given the chance, some of them ran for office on an avowedly Marxist platform, either merged into the wider left or as a standalone party. Yet due to their past record of (petty) criminality and their refusal to rule out armed struggle, they were soon enough vilified by the press and the wider public. Upon being infiltrated and spied upon by the government, they ultimately dismantled. If you’re thinking “Black Panthers”, your guess is only nominally right.

Continue reading the entire piece on The European Conservative here.