The world has been taught a dangerous lie about Israel. In universities, media studios, activist movements, and diplomatic forums, Israel is increasingly described as a white European colonial project. This accusation is not only false; it is historically illiterate. It erases the Jewish people’s ancient connection to Zion, and ignores the suffering of Jews expelled and persecuted across the world. But Israel has also made a serious mistake. Too often, Israel has failed to show the world the full face of the Jewish people.
Where are Ethiopian Israelis in Israel’s international media strategy? Where are black Zionist voices on CNN, Fox News, the BBC, and major English-language Israeli platforms? Where are Ethiopian Jews in senior diplomatic conversations, government delegations, public diplomacy campaigns, and Knesset leadership?
If the world falsely claims Israel is a white colonial project, why is Israel not placing Ethiopian Jews, Mizrahi Jews, Yemenite Jews, Moroccan Jews, Persian Jews, and Indian Jews at the center of its answer? This is not only a question of diversity. It is a question of truth.
Ethiopians as Zionist proof
Ethiopian Jews are not Israel’s diversity story. We are the Zionist proof that Zionism is not a European invention. We are proof that the Jewish people are ancient, indigenous, and bound to the original place in Jerusalem across race, geography, and language.
For generations, Ethiopian Jews prayed for Zion. We dreamed of Jerusalem. We preserved Jewish identity in Africa under isolation and longing. We carried Zion in our prayers, our memory, our faith, and our bones.
That is why the anti-Israel colonial narrative collapses when it meets the Ethiopian Jewish story. A colonial project does not explain black African Jews walking through deserts and leaving everything behind because their ancestors taught them Jerusalem was home. A colonial project does not explain Moroccan, Iraqi, Yemenite, Persian, Kurdish, and Indian Jews returning after centuries of exile, persecution, and displacement to the land of their origin.
The Jewish people are not one color. We never were. Israel is not Europe transplanted into the Middle East. Israel is the national home of a scattered people returning from every corner of the earth.
Yet our representation does not match that truth. When Israel speaks to the world, it too often presents a narrow image of itself: the same polished voices, familiar accents, and old political circles. Many are talented and patriotic. But they are not enough. They do not show the whole Israel.
Our enemies understand imagery and narrative. They understand that if they can make Israel look foreign, white, colonial, and disconnected from the Middle East, they can weaken Israel’s legitimacy among young people, minorities, Christians, conservatives, liberals, and undecided audiences.
So why are we helping them by hiding the very Jews who destroy their argument?
Representing Israel to the world
As an Ethiopian Israeli, a black Jew, and a Zionist, I am tired of being treated as a symbol instead of a strategist. Ethiopian Jews are often celebrated when Israel wants an emotional rescue story. That story is true, and it matters. But we are more than a rescue story. We are soldiers, parents, students, writers, activists, public servants, and citizens. We are not asking to be included as charity. We are demanding to be included because Israel needs us.
This is why I look with respect and hope at the Yashar party and its leader, Gadi Eisenkot. Eisenkot, a great Israeli leader of North African Moroccan Jewish origin, represents a future in which Israeli leadership does not have to come from only one old elite. As a possible future prime minister, his rise would send a powerful message: A minority Jewish background is not an obstacle to national leadership. It can be part of its strength.
Yashar’s language of responsibility, service, unity, and rebuilding trust is important. But unity cannot remain abstract. It must become visible in leadership. A party that wants to govern for all Israelis should include the full Israeli story in its Knesset list, its diplomacy, and its strategy rooms.
Israel must stop acting as if only one type of Israeli can represent the Jewish state to the world. Why should Israel not show a black Ethiopian Israeli as an international diplomatic expert, a prime minister’s strategic adviser on the Abraham Accords, a senior public diplomacy voice, or a future deputy foreign minister?
Israel has trusted figures like Ron Dermer to shape high-level diplomacy. Now it must trust Ethiopian Israelis and other minority Jewish leaders to do the same. We do not only belong in Israel’s rescue story – we belong in Israel’s strategy room.
Representation is not only moral. It is strategic. Black Ethiopian Israelis can speak to audiences that may never listen to a standard Israeli spokesman. Mizrahi Jews – the descendants of local Jewish communities in the Middle East and North Africa from biblical times into the modern era – can explain that the Jewish story is deeply Middle Eastern. Moroccan Jews can show that North African Jewish history is part of Zionism. Persian Jews can expose the lie that Jews are foreign to the region.
Together, these voices tell the truth: The global Jewish people are indigenous to the Land of Israel and are the original people of that land. There are Ethiopian Israelis who are educated, culturally aware, familiar with Western and international politics, and able to communicate across languages, societies, and diplomatic environments. That makes them not only part of Israel’s story but valuable representatives of Israel’s future.
The next Israeli government must understand this. If a party says it wants national unity, it must include the full nation. If it wants to repair Israel’s international standing, it must elevate voices that speak with moral authority. Not as decoration. Not as tokenism. But as leadership.
Let Ethiopian Jews speak. Let black Zionists lead. Let Israel’s face defeat the lies.
The writer is a former New York City Supreme Court detective, an investigator and educator in conflict resolution and restorative peace, and a moral diplomacy expert. His upcoming book, Moral Diplomacy for a Broken World, is inspired by the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.