Hmm...why would an Israeli Jewish American be talking about racism against Arabs?
Good question.
I'm not entirely sure how the conversation came up, but, just like many of my previous posts, this post originates from a conversation with my dad.
It has died down a bit, but, ever since 9/11, many American residents became anti-Muslim, especially Arab-Muslim. This is a very unreasonable, if understandable (not justifiable), prejudice; even more so because, to my knowledge, more sects of Islam have preached peace longer than sects of Christianity.
But I said the prejudice is understandable, and so it is. All forms of prejudice can be understood, if taken from the proper prespective. Extreme Jihadists destroyed the Twin Towers and humans have a tendency to generalize and a need to lay blame. This combined led to rasicm against Arabs in the United States.
What of the other country I name as a part of my identity, Israel? If American racism is understandable, than Israeli racism should be even easier to comprehend. But to what extent? Jews, as favored scapegoats of many civilizations and eras, should hesitate to discriminate so widely.
Allow me to clarify my point. I do not disagree with the safety measures and laws put in place by the Israeli government that may discriminate. The vast majority of those truly do add to the safety of many Israeli citizens and I want my family to be safe. I, however, believe that discrimination against individual Arabs by individual Jews may be just a tad much. For example, Israelis (and Palestinians) treat a Palestinian's life as being worth less than an Israelis life. Now, to explain why I added the paraentheses to the previous sentence. The belief in the unequal value of lives probably comes from how the different cultures value being alive and the bodies of loved ones. Islam does celebrate martyrdom, so being alive is not quite as important. Therefore, the value of an individual palistinian life is seen as less by the Palistinians as a whole compared to an Israeli life as seen by Israelis as a whole. Also, a repeat occurrence that may continually enforce this inequality in value is the prison-trade. Israel will regularly trade over a hundred Palistinian prisoners to get back a soldier whom they are not even sure is alive. Both sides can, from this, be seen as equating ~100 Palistinians to a possibly already dead Israeli.
I, being Israeli, am likely to be a bit biased. Please let me know if you think it overly impacted my interpretations. Also, a question: what do you think of the unequal valuing of life? Are my assumptions right? Do both sides see a Israeli life as more valuable? Or am I totally off base?
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I heard about the prisoner exchanges from a friend of mine who's Israeli, but when I heard it I hadn't thought it meant Palestinians value their lives less, although you could be right. I thought it meant they valued their people more, because they're forcing Israelis to get the short end of the stick with each prisoner exchange-- but you could be right, I just hadn't thought of that before.
ReplyDeleteI don't think most Palestinians value their lives less, however, although they may value individualism or materialism less. Perhaps people who lean towards being more extreme and value martyrdom value their life on earth less than an Israeli does, but I don't think that translates to valuing Israelies more, especially seeing as many of those who martyr themselves are doing it to kill Israelis (or those supporting Israel). They may not value themselves as an individual much, but they value their people and their cause a lot more than they value any Israeli life.
I think most Palestinians consider their own lives as valuable as an Israeli would consider their own, although they may value Israeli lives less seeing as they feel discriminated against by Israelis. When I was a freshman I corresponded with some students in the West Bank, and they were all very frustrated with the lives they had relative to Israelis. They wanted peace with Israel, and I think most Palestinians just want a peace agreement, but they were also very angry because they had less economic opportunity, education opportunity, freedom of movement, and sovereignty than Israelis do. They feel disenfranchised because they believe Israel is just as much theirs as anyone else's holy city, and yet they're separated by it from a wall and checkpoints (literally, they can see Al Aqsa from their second floor windows). I think many Palestinians see themselves as not getting a fair share of what's rightfully theirs, for the very reason that they see their lives as just as valuable or more valuable than Israelis', and that's what makes up the entire conflict.
whoops, sorry, I meant to say 'value Jerusalem' as a holy city-- not Israel, of course.
ReplyDeleteA point of clarification: I meant that they value being alive less, not themselves less. The more religious Palistians truly believe they will go to heaven and value this highly.
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