Mizrahi resistance must be framed Jewishly to avoid reproducing the Jewish-Arab dichotomy.

Evidence

The success of Shas has demonstrated that any Mizrahi approach must also be a “Jewish” one. Any other attempt will necessarily reproduce the Jewish-Arab dichotomy. It is only as a Jewish attitude that a Mizrahi perspective can effectively challenge the Zionist paradigm and its implications. That is why previous attempts to address the issue in terms of class or ethnicity have failed to have a significant impact. Otherwise, the phrase “Arab-Jew” remains meaningless, and has no function in the molding of Israeli discourse. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 669

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A compressed political-philosophical argument: the path of resistance is constrained by the very taxonomy that produces the subordination — the subaltern must fight within the dominant category (‘Jewish’) rather than outside it (‘Arab-Jew’) or in class terms.
• XREF: Strong resonance with postcolonial theory (Spivak’s strategic essentialism) and with the reader’s broader interest in how subordinated groups must mobilize within hegemonic categories.
• SEED: Could be an essay angle: the strategic paradox of identity politics — how effective resistance requires adopting the dominant framing, and what that forecloses.