[Peace-discuss] Racism within the ranks

[David Green]

Racism within the ranks
By Yehudith Harel

Al-Ahram Weekly
2-8 September 2004

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/706/op63.htm

Zionism also trampled over Arab Jews, writes Yehudith
Harel*


While struggling for truth and equality, true
partnership and
reconciliation between Jews and Palestinians, we need
to address
the wrongs inflicted by Zionism not only on
Palestinians but on
Arab Jews as well. While doing so we're not damaging
or diluting
the struggle for truth and equality between Jews and
Palestinians
but on the contrary, strengthening it, making it more
powerful by
giving it another dimension which can also help us to
mobilise
wider groups in Israeli society to support our cause.


One must state clearly that one cannot compare the
discrimination
and oppression of the Palestinians in Israel and the
occupied
territories with that of the oriental or Arab Jews.
Nor should one
overlook the major national component of the
Jewish-Palestinian
struggle and the immense present day suffering of the
Palestinians
at Israel's hands. One should not forget that Zionism
constitutes
first and foremost an assault against Palestinian
Arabs. While
Arabs and Jews can never become equal within its
premises, while
an Arab Palestinian can never become the prime
minister of Israel,
Jews of all origins have at least in theory the
potential of
becoming equal one day. Indeed, in recent years we see
more and
more Jews of oriental or "Arab" origins in high
offices,
especially in politics and the military. This
notwithstanding, one
can delineate some important points of relevance which
indicate
why one cannot and should not separate the struggles
against both
oppressions, especially not while criticising Zionism
and its
vices regarding the Palestinians and while trying to
formulate an
alternative vision based on truth and equality for
all.


Several, not all, expressions of the discrimination
and oppression
of both groups came from the same psycho-political
"source", even
if not from the same root, and begot the same
practical attitude
towards them. First, the European- colonialist
attitude of the
Zionists, looking down on the "natives" and regarding
them as
second class and inferior in being "oriental", "Arab"
and
culturally "underdeveloped". Second, the cold,
calculated and
instrumental attitude towards both groups: oriental
Arab Jews were
treated by the Zionist movement like objects not
subjects, and
their fate and well being did not count in face of the
"big
national ideals" and achievements sought by the Jewish
nationalist
movement which was, after all, completely Ashkenazi,
both in
origins and in essence. Therefore, the Zionists could
oust the
majority of the Palestinian community and oppress and
discriminate
against the remaining ones; bring in oriental Arab
Jews almost
like imported cattle and practically "throw them off"
vehicles and
thrust them in the new developmental cities in the
desert and in
other remote agricultural settlements, doing so "for
the benefit
of the State" and the Zionist cause. There was no
consideration
whatsoever of the welfare of those people. There are
many
well-documented instances in the historical record
indicating this
instrumental attitude.


Third, the deep cultural disdain and contempt that
survives to
this very day. The culture of oriental Arab Jews was
Arab, the
culture of the "enemy", which has been and is still
looked down
upon, de-legitimised, disdained and seen as inferior.
Their
Judaism was one of a traditional mode, in sharp
juxtaposition to
the secular aspirations of the Ashkenazi Zionists.
Therefore, in
order to be accepted by and belong to the hegemonic
Jewish
collective -- that is the Ashkenazi one -- the
oriental Arab Jew
had to distance him or herself from Arab culture and
Arab-Jewish
identity, which was a mild, traditional school of
Judaism, and
assimilate into the Israeli nationalist Ashkenazi
secular culture.
This same attitude remains prevalent among Ashkenazi
elites, who
find the emergence of traditional Jewish Sephardic
protest
movements like Shass not only utterly
incomprehensible,
unacceptable and even repulsive, but also a "cultural
threat". The
mainstream and hegemonic Jewish-Israeli cultural
orientation is
completely Western in aspiration -- if not in real
practice and
content. It has shifted from the traditional
Euro-centric
orientation to be predominantly Americanised. To this
very day,
Jewish-Israeli "oriental" culture is not considered
mainstream nor
equal, but rather fringe and inferior. This is the
case despite
the adoption and integration of folkloric elements
from the
Orient, mainly in the gastronomic and popular music
realms.


Since the foundation of the State of Israel there has
existed
long-standing and clearly institutionalised
discrimination against
oriental Arab Jews and Israeli Palestinians in the
allocation of
funds for education, job opportunities, land
ownership, etc. It's
true that Israeli Palestinians are more severely
discriminated
against, are even lower down the ladder, but the roots
of this
discrimination and its socio-economic outcomes are
pretty much the
same, let alone the national component. The outcome of
the
Ashkenazi attitude towards oriental Jews, their Arab
culture and
traditions, including their specific stream of Judaism
and Jewish
identity, has had a strong negative political
significance.


These are the phases I see Arab Jews as having gone
through:
First, coming to Israel, being discriminated against,
looked down
upon and humiliated because they were "Arab Jews" --
ie belonging
to Arab culture and yet practicing Jews; trying their
best to
integrate in many ways, among others by "forgetting"
and
repressing and denying their Arab cultural roots,
sometimes even
turning against them by adopting "Ashkenazi"
(quasi-Western and
secular) ways of life and strong anti-Arab positions
in order to
differentiate themselves from the despised and feared
"enemy". At
the same time, "those 'bloody' WASPs (White Ashkenazi
Sons of
Pioneers)", who never really accepted oriental Jews as
their
social equals nor gave them the feeling of really
belonging to the
collective, all of a sudden have started a "romance"
or even a
political "love affair" with their former enemies, the
Palestinian
Arabs. All of a sudden they sympathise with the
Palestinian cause
and its suffering, speak out and demonstrate in their
favor and
even socialise with them. They were never as
sympathetic to the
pains and suffering and sense of oppression and
discrimination of
oriental Jews -- sentiments that were demonstrated in
the 1960s
and 1970s in the Wadi Salib uprising and by the Black
Panther
movement. It seemed to them that the leftist Ashkenazi
elites and
their rank and file regarded and treated Palestinians
and Arabs
much better than themselves. When I heard the
recurring curse of
"Arab lovers" shouted by oriental Jews at leftist
demonstrators, I
understood it as coming from the very painful
experience of the
"rejected child" who feels rejected in favour of a
hated rival and
who is crying out for equal recognition, love, care
and
acceptance.


Second, the Ashkenazi elites and the hegemonic
Ashkenazi society
never really accepted Arab Jews socially. The major
circles of the
Israeli Zionist left were, and still are, almost
purely WASP.


Third, even nowadays, the majority of these WASPs in
the Israeli
left deny the claims of systematic and
institutionalised
discrimination, exclusion and marginalisation,
experienced and
asserted by oriental Jews and their descendants and
their
consequent pain, sense of humiliation and overall
lower social and
economic status. They blame them for being unfairly
and endlessly
discontent, intentionally misinterpreting the
difficulties of the
immigration absorption years, and attributing to them
imaginary
and baseless intentional racist discrimination on
behalf of the
establishment. They blame them for eternally "wailing"
and
complaining instead of "taking their fate into their
hands",
assuming responsibility and working hard to improve
their
situation. To make their point they always bring up a
minority of
successful and well-integrated Arab Jews who have
"made it".


The above process lead to antagonising the majority of
Arab Jews
against the predominantly Ashkenazi left and equally
so against
Palestinians and Arabs and their just cause, in
support of which
the left is united. It gradually pushed them into the
arms of the
political right and to "Arab-hating" positions. One
can easily see
that their hatred of the "Ashkenazi" left, conceived
by many
oriental Arab Jews as "Arab-lover", is a direct result
of the
above-described attitude of the Ashkenazi elites
towards them. The
former's refusal to acknowledge the discrimination and
humiliation
of Arab Jews -- just like the denial of the Nakba --
and the
refusal to assume any responsibility for the events of
the 1950s
and 1960s and up until today, only aggravate and
deepen these
sentiments of anger and frustration and anti-left and
anti-Arab
sentiments and political positions.


While criticising Zionism and the wrongs inflicted by
it on
Palestinians, we must at the same time acknowledge and
criticise
sincerely and with real empathy -- not just as lip
service -- the
wrongs it inflicted on oriental Arab Jews. We must
commit
ourselves to redress all these wrongs; otherwise we
will not speak
truth nor achieve equality for all, and will never win
Arab Jews
over to our cause. Moreover, we must seriously revise
Israel's
Jewish community's conscious choice opting for a
complete and
exclusive Western cultural orientation. We must strive
to widen
the scope of our cultural orientation by recognising
Arab culture
not as a rival but as a complimentary, equal and
legitimate
cultural option, source of inspiration and enrichment.
Such a
strategy may not only widen our horizons and enrich
us, but also
open the door for normalising our existence in the
Arab Middle
East.


* The writer is an Israeli scholar and peace activist.



		
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