Professor Marandi didn’t mince words when he laid out the reality of who holds power in Israel: "You're from eastern Europe. You're European. All of you are Ashkenazi Jews who are running the country, they're from eastern Europe." He was right. The people who built the modern state, staffed its early institutions, and still dominate its political, military, and cultural elites are overwhelmingly Ashkenazi Jews whose families came from Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Czechoslovakia, and the rest of Eastern Europe. They are European. They are not indigenous to Palestine. They arrived, displaced the native Palestinian population, and established a state that continues to be run by the same Eastern European networks. Marandi simply said out loud what the historical record shows. The early Zionist leadership, the founders of the state, and the continuing power structure all trace back to Eastern Europe. Pretending otherwise is a deliberate rewrite of history.