One of the unintended results of the current round of mayhem in Israel and Palestine has been a reminder of the rampant racism within Israeli society. The racism is not just directed at Palestinians, as one might expect, but against anyone who looks “Arab,” which includes Mizrahi Jews. The rampage of violence of the past few weeks offers numerous examples not just of Israeli Jews who murdered Palestinians in cold blood, but of Ashkenazi Jews who attacked Mizrahi Jews, assuming they were Palestinian.
This Israeli Channel 10 report shows that while Ashkenazi Jews may stay off the street for fear of attack by Palestinians, Mizrahim doubly stay off the street. One of their major fears is being mistaken for an “Arab” and attacked because of their accent or skin color. They won’t take public transportation, since some of the brutal attacks by Palestinians have been on buses. They are afraid that armed Israeli Jews will single them out as suspects and gun them down in cold blood.
In one case, an Israeli victim yelled at his Israeli attacker, “I am Jewish.” But the knife-wielding assailant ignored his cries and continued stabbing him. An elderly Mizrahi tells the reporter that one day as she boarded a bus an IDF soldier ripped off her necklace and called her “dirty Arab.” In order to prove her Jewishness, she began to recite the first Hebrew verses of the Book of Genesis. A Mizrahi wrote on Facebook that after he after he got on the bus, the driver stopped and called police about a “suspect” on board. When police arrived it turned out that he was the suspect.
Mizrahi rabbis also note that their followers are taught to look down on themselves by such treatment. They are taught to blend in, to hide their identity. And this breeds a certain form of self-hatred.
This article from Mako recounts further similar incidents. It also reports that Israelis themselves are taught to observe principles of racial profiling by no less a source than the IDF itself. One Israeli reported walking through an industrial zone in Talpiot wearing flip-flops. Two policemen stopped him demanding to know who he was and why he was there. After he spoke a few sentences and they could tell he was Jewish, they left the scene with the suspect yelling at them: “At least you could apologize!” He’s lucky they didn’t shoot him instead.
One victim of such racism said:
I feel I must apologize for my appearance: for my beard, my face. The more you strengthen your Mizrahi identity in speech and appearance, the more you raise eyebrows. Because of my beard I change my behavior as a rule. I wear a kippah when I enter an Orthodox [Ashkenazi] neighborhood in Jerusalem, because I see the looks I get there. I actually feel more comfortable around Arabs than Jews in a time like this; as long as I don’t speak. My Arab appearance can provoke violence. Whenever I enter my son’s school, the security guard, who sees me every day there, repeats the same questions: who am I and why am I there. He would never ask such questions of another parent who didn’t look Mizrahi. You’re always thinking that your appearance is a problem. When I enter a mall, it’s the same thing.
Israeli security forces believe that they can look at a person and identify in a few moments whether he poses a security threat. But on what basis do they make such judgments? On the same false assumptions that govern the decisions of Israeli Jews who mistakenly identify fellow Jews as security threats. You can fall under suspicion for many reasons including your appearance, your name, or your country of origin.
At Ben Gurion, travelers are divided into three categories. The first is most preferred: Jews, both Israeli and non-Israeli; the second is considered “normal” and includes non-Jews; the third is “suspect” and is comprised of Arabs. A veteran security official tells the reporter that when he monitors travelers he’s not looking for someone who will try to hijack a plane. Rather, he’s seeking someone who looks like he’s trying to hide something; something that even he may not know he’s hiding because it’s been planted on him. The official continues that they’re taught to identify Arabs by certain unconventional measures including the shoes they wear. Because Arab villages have few paved roads their shoes tend to be dusty. The palms of a man’s hand can tell him that he’s a day laborer, meaning he’s more likely to be Arab. Wearing black stone-wash jeans, which are popular among Arab youth is another dead giveaway. He notes that one inspector was fired because she couldn’t successfully identify Arab Christians, who sometimes have Jewish-sounding names.
You can also identify travelers by what they pack in their suitcases. Arabs tend to pack foods like cheese and olive oil to share with the family they intend to visit. They also prefer soft luggage rather than rigid bags. He picks out Arabs by their clothing, the vehicle they drive, haircuts and the way they shave. Arabs apparently shave in a manner that is “more aesthetic and cleaner” and with shorter “neater hair” than Israeli Jews. A Mizrahi Jew tells the reporter that since he’s taken to wearing glasses, growing his hair longer and more curly and added a moustache, he’s not taken for “Arab.” On his many trips abroad he’s experimented with Israeli security and if he doesn’t wear glasses he’s invariably detained. When he was clean-shaven, he found that he was viewed as more of a threat. In New York, it’s sexy and in Israel it’s threatening. The solution is to make yourself appear European, but in a sophisticated way. Adidas sneakers don’t go well with eyeglasses, so don’t get mixed up. But the best manner to avoid being profiled is to have a woman accompany, preferably a white woman. Another is to be in a group of individuals darker than you, because they’ll stop them and let you go.
Arab travelers note that colored stickers affixed to their passport picture and airline tickets identify their ethnicity. Jews get a yellow sticker and Arabs a different color.
One Palestinian traveler told a story that when he was young and taking a flight with his family, his father when asked by the security guard where he was from, said “Kfar Saba” [a Jewish town]. When he asked his father why he answered that way, his father responded: “Well, we once drove through it, so it’s like we are from Kfar Saba.”
The issue of racial profiling afflicts not only Israel, but the U.S. as well. The NY Times analyzed virtually all the traffic stops in Greensboro, NC and found the disproportionate amount targeted Blacks. It found that there is both intentional and unconscious racism on the part of the police towards people of color in virtually all major decisions officers made. It goes without saying that Blacks also comprise a vastly disproportionate number of arrests, convictions and incarcerations.
But lest any Israel advocates argue that Israel is no different from America in this regard, the 56 Palestinians murdered over the past few weeks equates to 2,300 deaths in terms of overall U.S. population. Can we imagine a situation in which U.S. police would go on a killing spree and murder that many Blacks over such a short period? In reality, the Guardian reports that statistics it’s compiling, put the police on track to kill 1,000 individuals of all races in 2015. That’s over an entire year. It’s certainly a disturbing statistic, but nowhere near as disturbing as the situation in Israel.
I remember a photo of a guy in Ranana wearing a t-shirt that read (in Hebrew) “Please take it easy. I’m Yemenite.” That and less funny incidents of Mizrachi Jews being stopped and / or attacked for looking Arab are troubling, no doubt. However, the high rate of police-related fatalities you describe, well, aren’t they the result of this grass roots stabbing campaign? You make no mention of that in the post and make it seem like police are just shooting Arabs willy nilly.
I did not see, or maybe misunderstand what you mean, with ‘police-related fatalities’?
@ pea:
Indeed, they are. WHen IDF soldiers can shoot a 30 yr old Yeshiva bocher & claim he was reaching for their gun as justification for attempted murder, then they are shooting people willy nilly. Not to mention that we have no idea whether half the Palestinians killed were actually stabbing or attempting to stab Israelis when killed. We only have the killers’ word for it. And that is simply not enough based on past history of lying.
For example, the case of Dania Arsheed, age 16, murdered in Hebron yesterday:
Ynet reports she took out a knife and attempted to stab a soldier. Do I believe this? Nah, not at all. Will the IDF offer any proof of its claims? Nah, why should it. It doesn’t need to. Israeli Jews believe it, so why produce any real proof of its claims? The world doesn’t believe it? Who gives a crap about the world? So yes, they’re pretty much shooting “Arabs” [sic] willy nilly.
Seems like they’re just repeating the same BS as when they killed Hadeel al-Hashlamoun, it’s pretty much the same scenario.
Concerning the world, they rely on the International Hasbara Brigade. Bernard-Henri Levy had a hasbara article published in Le Point: Palestinians – part of the global Jihad – are killing Jews for no other reason than pure anti-blahblah…..
Dubious statistics.
Why not take each death on a case by case basis? Generalizing is no better than racial profiling.
BTW. Was the Arab security guard who shot the Eritrean also guilty of racial profiling? He saw a black guy at the crime scene and opened fire.
@ Hopper: Statistics are facts, which ipso facto means they cannot be “dubious.” You may not like them. But facts they are, nonetheless.
Regarding the lynching, yes the security guard engaged in racial profiling. Clearly. He lied when he tried to explain (falsely) that he shot the man because he didn’t seem to be acting like the other victims who, he claims, were running away, while the victim was moving toward him (the victim was on the floor when he was shot by the guard, as shown by videos of the incident). In truth, the Eritrean was unlike the other victims, he was dark-skinned and “alien.”
@Richard
“Can we imagine a situation in which U.S. police would go on a killing spree and murder that many Blacks over such a short period?”
Yeah. Of course.
Twenty six blacks killed by police in Newark, N.J. during the 1967 riots.
http://www.thirteen.org/newark/history3.html
Victims of the 1967 Detroit Riot at the conclusion of five days of rioting, 43 people were dead and 1189 injured
http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/shoulders-our-freedom-fighters/31141-newark-detroit-rebellions-1967-a.html
Sprees. Right?
@ Hopper: You have to go back 50 years to find a single U.S. incident of mass national protest which has never been repeated (at least in part because we learned some important lessons from it)? When Israel has mass killings, wars in which thousands of civilians are killed, and intifadas on a regular basis over the decades?
Again. The devil is in the details.
The American military and State and local law enforcement have suppressed hundreds of riots throughout American history. Some of the riots were quite bloody indeed.
But how many violent ‘mass national protests’ has America had to cope with? Two, post-Civil War.
So, in terms of quelling riots, it is quite apt to compare the summer riots of 1967 with an Intifada.
@Hopper: You’re full of it. Stop wasting my time with inanity. You’re done in this thread. If hasbarist central doesn’t have any higher quality than you to assign to us then you’re in desperate straits indeed.
@Richard
Dubious, as in, were your calculations based on the current population of Israel, or did you include the populations of the West Bank and Gaza with that of Israel?
A sizable difference, no?
@ Hopper: One of my major comment rules is to do your homework and not waste time here asking questions you can answer yourself easily. If you can’t answer your own question easily based on my calculations you failed elementary school math. Believe me, if I could do the research in less than ten minutes you can spare the 3 minutes it’ll take you to rework my figures to answer your own question.
If you want to participate here you have to do some of the work yourself.
Israelis have got to be about the most racial pedigree crazy people on earth. “What’s your background” is a question often asked of my daughter and myself. This question is actually two parts:
1) Are you Jewish?
2) What are you? (Race).
I’ve never seen people so at ease with intrusive questions, the answers to which are nobody’s damn business. But, I’ve also never been to any state below the Mason-Dixon line either. The racism towards Mizrakhim and Sephardim has always been and without apology, but now, thanks to the absolute fanaticism of the Netanyahu government (although this has been years in the making), being Mizrakhim or Sephardim could be life-threatening. My hope is that they start to see Palestinian brothers and sisters as real brothers and sisters and unite. The Ashkenazi are rabid dogs.
“The Ashkenazi are rabid dogs.”
This is a blatant racist statement seemingly against your rules and it also refers to you.
Should it not be taken down?
@ murray: In the context of her comment, I don’t find it out of line. It’s certainly not my style & I would prefer not using such demeaning stereotypes. But if that’s how she experiences it (& I know Mizrahim themselves experience such demeaning treatment firsthand) I find it acceptable.
Assuming racial profiling actually allows security to focus on dangerous elements, what’s the problem?
What’s the point of wasting time and money just to bother people with a lower likelihood of being terrorists?
@ eli: It’s a false assumption. Racial profiling identifies Arabs, not criminals and not terrorists. That is racist and unacceptable (except to Israelis). You cannot single out an entire ethnic group when a very, very small subset of that group are likely to attempt to commit an act of terror.
Obviously racial profiling focuses on Arabs, because in Israel most acts of terror are committed by Arabs. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?
Of course you can focus on a particular ethnic group if the statistical chance they will be involved in terror is higher than other groups. Why is that unacceptable?
@ eli:
This is absolutely false. And either you know its false or you’re racism is showing. Jews commit acts of terrorism on almost a daily basis. Jews burn, maim & slaughter Palestinians and Palestinian institutions frequently. So there’s no Jewish terrorism, is there?
Uh, no you can’t and still be a democracy. Now, if you wish to renounce that claim, I’m happy to hear your admission. Are you?
You are being obtuse. I didn’t say there in NO jewish terrorism. I said that MOST terror acts leading to lose of life are committed by Arabs. That is a fact that can be easily ascertained.
Avoiding racial profiling is not rational and not moral.
@eli: It depends how you define “terrorism.” I define it to include all murders by Israelis of Palestinian civilians. In that case there is far more Israeli terror than Palestinian, & 6 times more Palestinian deaths than Israeli.
The problem, Eli, is that Israel has manoeuvred itself into a situation where people like you seem to find it normal that there are “dangerous elements” about – and that the danger has to do with belonging to certain ethnic groups. Arabs fear Jews, Jews fear Arabs, Mizrahi Jews fear Arabs and Ashkenazi Jews, Ashkenazi Jews fear everybody except those who can “pass” as their tribal mates.
I am living in one of the most mixed societies on earth but there is no mutual suspicion and fear.
Don’t you ever wonder how the present situation in Israel came about?
Racial profiling isn’t about fear. It’s about simple logic.
@eli: That’s true: the simple ineluctable logic of racism, injustice & oppression.
[satire] Why doesn’t Netanyahu force Jews in Israel to have numbers tattooed on their arms? That way they can be more easily identified. It’s the next logical step for Netanyahu’s fascist government. [/satire]
It seems a brilliant idea, but the arm maybe isn’t visible enough. Why not on both chins ….
And after Bibi’s Hitler-wasn’t-really-the-bad-guy, we should never say never.
@ Jester: Or they could wear yellow stars of David stitched to their clothing. Perfect! And Palestinians could wear green crescents so Israeli Jews will have a clearer idea who to kill!
Don’t forget the Cross for the Christians ! At least one young Christian woman was seriously wounded (she’s got a bullet close to the heart): Dalia Nassar. Her mother is a well-known member of the Popular Front, and her uncle is Jamal Nassar, the Dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at California State University.
Here’s a picture of Dalia when she was still fit:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CQ5YcCQWsAABLVi.jpg
Yes, that is the atmosphere, that’s the soil for those things to grow …
Insane!