You’d never guess. It’s not New York, Tel Aviv or Cairo.

Years ago I was travelling in the north of Thailand and found myself in the city of Chiang Mai. For those who’ve never been, Chiang Mai is everything that Bangkok is not. There I met a young Israeli, a former soldier and Sephardic Jew whose parents had immigrated to Israel from Morrocco. He invited me to join him for a meal at a little hole-in-the-wall called Mama’s Falafel.

The key to a good falafel sandwich is the pita bread. Having grown up in the Bay Area, I thought pita meant the stale, cardboard like dics you found in plastic bags on store shelves. Not so at Mama’s. The owner, an Israeli woman who married a Thai and settled in Chiang Mai, imports all her ingredients and hand makes everything, especially the pita. Soft, warm and spongy to soak up all the spicy sauces, as my friend said, “You are lucky to find falafel like this in Israel.”

Over the meal, which included a cup of Turkish coffee so strong it set my eyeballs to quivering, he described what it felt like to lead a group of young soldiers through hostile territory. The tension, fear. I don’t recall his name, but I remember the intensity in his voice, his dark complexion revealing his Semitic roots. Then he began to talk about racism in Israel.

He said he was from the southern regions, where many of the residents were in fact Sephardic Jews from the Middle East and North Africa. He told me about how many of the Ashkanazi Israelis, those of European ancestry, looked down on their Sephardic cousins as culturally inferior, more Arab than Israeli. Blatant discrimnation is what he said.

An editorial in the New York Times by Benny Morris explains the fear that is building among Israelis about the future of their state. Demographics and geography are stacked against them, while a growing number of Arab Israelis are increasingly rejecting their nationality in favor of their Arab identity. Their Arab bretheren.

This heightened insecurity is, Morris explains, a key factor behind the latest outbreak of violence in Gaza. But what Morris doesn’t explain is the reason for the dissafection felt by scores of Arab Israelis. Why are so many of them rejecting their Israeli identity? I’ve never been to Israel, but judging from my conversation I’d venture that what my companion described has something to do with it.