The enthusiastic response to the fact that the two candidates who will take part in the second round of Labor Party primaries on July 10 are from Mizrahi origins does an injustice to Knesset members Amir Peretz and Avi Gabbay. It ensures that the old debate over ethnic issues remains within the boundaries of an outdated political discourse and diminishes the candidates' achievements.

It is no coincidence that Shas Party Chairman Aryeh Deri was quick to jump on the Mizrahi bandwagon. He responded to the two candidates' victory with this festive tweet: "Forget about politics and political blocs. The very fact that the Labor Party, the party that continues the legacy of [the predominantly Ashkenazi] Mapai party, elected Peretz and Gabbay tells us that we’ve made significant headway on the Mizrahi issue."

Deri heads an ultra-Orthodox Mizrahi party. He was the foremost campaigner to bring ethnic discrimination to the forefront of the political discourse. He did it for the past three decades, and he continues to do it today. Without that festering sense of victimhood, Shas would lose the very reason for its existence. When Deri congratulates the Ashkenazi Labor Party, he is bringing the ethnic demon to the forefront again and perpetuating it.

Deri should have been more precise. Gabbay and Peretz were not the first Mizrahim chosen to lead the Labor Party. Late Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer, who was born in Iraq, did it in the early 2000s. Peretz, who was born in Morocco, already once headed the party after defeating Shimon Peres, one of the most powerful icons of the Ashkenazi Mapai establishment, in 2005.