ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses the relations between the immigrants and the other main groupings in Israeli society that are considered non-Western/Oriental groups, namely the Mizrahim and the Palestinian-Arab citizens in Israel. It examines the existing and expected impact of these immigrants on the social map and the political culture in Israeli society. Ethnic conflicts have become one of the main sources of social and political instability in the twenty-first century. One of the major sources of ethnic conflicts is connected to migration and population movements. The immigrants’ position within Israel’s social fabric has remained stable over time. In the earlier survey, the respondents ranked the groups by social distance as: Secular Ashkenazi Jews; Sephardic Jews; ultra-Orthodox Jews; Ethiopian Jews; and Arabs. That is, the respondents perceived themselves to be closest to secular Ashkenazi Jews and most distant from Arabs, with Ethiopians ranked very close to the Arabs and Sephardic Jews ranked midscale.