Abstract
This chapter offers a different perspective on the history of Mizrahim in Israel/Palestine: rather than viewing them as immigrants or perpetual newcomers, it examines their history as native inhabitants. Instead of focusing on issues of migration, absorption, and integration, it reconnects Mizrahi history with the Middle East history where they lived for centuries.
Understanding Mizrahim as indigenous situates the space and history of Eretz-Israel/Israel/Palestine within a broader Arab-Middle Eastern context, revealing the intersections between the stories of Mizrahi natives and Palestinians, as well as their shared tragedy of dispossession—from the land, from memory, and from history.
Such a perspective brings Palestinian Arabs and Mizrahim into view as inhabitants of the same space, sharing a common history and culture. Finally, the article proposes a rereading of the history of the Israeli space by situating it within an Eastern-Arab historical and geographical continuum, through the lens of both old and new natives.