Racism against Arabs

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?

George Orwell...Animal Farm

In class yesterday, we discussed Orwellian naming of the USA PATRIOT Act. This reminded me of one of George Orwell's books, "Animal Farm". As a child, I would watch an animated cartoon version, dubbed in Hebrew. A few years ago I read the book.

As I mentioned in my "Praise Obama!" post, my dad was born in the Soviet Union and, as such, knows a lot of the history of how the communist entity came to be. When analyzing both the book and movie, I realized just how analogous "Animal Farm" is to the Soviet Union's history. Both began with the overthrow of a tyrant (czar/farmer) and eventually, through many other analogies, suffer, under the rule of an oppresive dominant class, far worse than they did under the original tyrant. Orwell's brilliance is incredible.

"Animal Farm was written in 1945, a time when ideals of workers' rule were still popular among many in Europe. Making no direct reference to the Soviet Union, Orwell shows exactly how every system of the kind the Soviet Union attempted to institute will fail. I sincerely hope that those who have read "Animal Farm" understood how its story can be applied to all nations and states. This leaves me with one question: do others understand "Animal Farm" the way I do? Do you think it is truly a representation of all communist systems' doom?



George Orwell - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell
Orwellian - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orwellian

Suadi Arabia: Friend or Foe?

In class, both Thursady and Friday, we spent quite a bit of time talking about Iraq and the Middle East in general. I'm Israeli-born and I have family in Israel, so everything going on in the entire region is important to and rather emotional for me. This may be why I know something that many Americans do not. The men who planned and executed the 9/11 attacks were neither from Iraq nor from Afghanistan. They were not sent by Saddam or the Taliban. The men were Al-Qaeda, from Saudi Arabia. But wait just a minute. Aren't the Saudis our "friends"? That's exactly what they are, just "friends", allies, not really friends of our country.

Saudi Arabia is the greatest breeding ground for jihadists. Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups sprung from its desert. True, they are not threatening everyone with nuclear weapons, like Iran, but Saudi Arabia is a large supplier of dangerously religious and violent people. I hope America's alliance with the home of Mecca is a case of "keep your friends close and your enemies closer".

A question for the reader: why do so few people know the origin of the 9/11 attackers?

Justice of the Peace vs. Interracial marriage

Does a justice of the peace have a right to decide whose marriage licenses they sign? Apparently not. (Seems like a good thing to me.) This is the second article I saw on the topic in as many days. Bardwell, the justice of the peace in question says that "he doesn't marry [interracial] couples because he's worried about their children's futures." The article quoted many people who say that his refusal to marry these couples is racial discrimination.

Is it racial discrimination to make a decision based off one's knowledge of others' racism? Republican Governor Bobby Jindal wants Bardwell's license revoked immediately. I think this is may be too harsh, if Bardwell is truly acting in the best interest of any future children. However, I do not know the laws in this matter and a justice of the peace must obey the law.

But why is this particular instance such a big deal? Bardwell has denied other interracial couples their marriage licenses, and I am certain that there have been many other occurrences of justices (of the peace and others) breaking the law. I just hope that an attempt is made to treat all such justices fairly, since those who make the news tend to get a harsher punishment then those who do not.

Ambidextrous

Wandering aournd in my head, as I often do, I found a memory of a friend of mine complaining to me about how nothing is made for "lefties". Being a leftie in a right-handed world cannot possibly be the most convenient thing. Our right-handed individual desks at school are a good example. Lefties cannot rest their writing hand on an armrest as they write, unlike righties.

How does "handedness" come about? (I think it has to do with the dominance of the right or left hemisphere of the brain but I have no research to back this up.) Are you stuck with a dominant hand from birth? Or can you change it? Several of my leftie friends have told me that lefties are more likely to be ambidextrous than righties. If that it true, then why? I think it is because our society is oriented to right'handed people, from scissors to how we learn to hold a basketball for a freethrow shoot (right-hand : push and left-hand : guiding support). Many lefties just learn the rightie way of doing things.

So, being ambidextrous is useful for lefties, but what about for righties, like me? If losing a hand were a frequent occurrence, I would suggest that everyone teach themselves to be ambidextrous. Since that is not the case, righties really have no need for this skill. (But I am going to try anyway.)

What do you think of our right-dominant society? Should a greater effort be made to accomodate lefties?

Nobel Peace Prize

The first thing I did this morning (yay! no school!), half-asleep, was turn on my T.V., since I had no desire to do anything more involved. My parents had left it on a news channel. In less than a minute I was wide awake, wondering if I was suffering from hallucinations. Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. Huh? I promptly turned off the T.V.

Just a few minutes ago, I found an article talking about much the same thing. Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. I started wondering, who makes up the committee that decides who gets a Nobel? Is their a separate committee for each Nobel Prize? Does the Nobel Peace Prize mean anything, especially after a known terrorist, Yazar Arafat. recevied one? And what in the world did Carter and Gore do? And, finally, why is there no mention of a conservation/Republican winning a Nobel Peace Prize?

I have yet to find an answer to any of these questions and help would be appreciated.

But back to what I wanted to say earlier. Why did Obama receive a prize when the nominations closed 12 days after he came to office? He hadn't done anything yet. Then, I remembered. The committee had previously given Nobel Peace Prizes based off promises alone, as they did with Arafat. (I do not mean to say that Obama is in any way analogous to Arafat, just that the committee's behavior to both is the same.)

What do you think of Obama's award? Should he have gotten the Prize for his promises alone? Remember, the decision of who gets a Nobel is supposed to be based entirely on what was done before the nomination deadline, which was 12 days after Obama's administration took office.

Religion and Slaveholding

In class on Friday, I said that slaveholding can be seen as a kind of religion. It was only a few hours ago now that I began to wonder exactly what religion is and just how similar it is to the slaveholding culture of the Old South around the time the Frederick Douglass was a slave.

Dictionary.com gives a number of definition for religion, the below definition seems the clearest and broadest to me:
 --a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects

If we are to use this definition, then an absolutely enormous number of things could be called a religion, slaveholding being one of them. Many slaveholders, "a number of persons", agree on a "set of beliefs and practices". This includes the belief in the inferiority of those of African descent, the slaveholder's right to unquestioned obedience, and, in a large number of cases, that the slaves are better off staying that way, that the slaveholding arrangement benefits everyone.

Do you think slaveholding could be seen as a religion? Or did I use too broad a definition?