Ben-Gurion privately feared Mizrahi immigration would bring criminality and Arab sympathies.

Evidence

Ben-Gurion could only have been referring to them when, in 1949, he spoke of the waves of immigration coming from “Jewish centers impoverished in both matter and spirit, which were torn asunder over many centuries from the centers of the Jewish people and the centers of human civilization.” In the same year, Ben-Gurion noted in his private diary, “we do not know how the oriental communities will be absorbed and how many criminal gangs will manage to operate among us together with the Arabs.” — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 689 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Ben-Gurion privately feared oriental Jewish immigrants as criminally dangerous allies of Arabs. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 689

Broader Connections

• Ben-Gurion privately feared oriental Jewish immigrants as criminally dangerous allies of Arabs. #corroborates (0.97) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 689