A Look at Anti-Arab Racism in Israel

This is a very revealing video. A reality show had a female Arab actor play a customer going in to a gas station/convenience store to purchase a coffee. The man behind the counter, also an actor, tells her, in front of several average Israelis, who are not actors, that he will not serve Arabs. The video shows several groups of Israelis (not actors) reacting to this scenario. Their responses are, I think, more overt and I would say impressive, than most would have expected. While those in other areas of Israel might perhaps react somewhat differently (this is only one location in a secular neighborhood), it is clearly the case that, at least for these Israelis, anti-Arab racism has no place in their society at all. From the responses of these Israelis in the video, I do not think there is a more tolerant society anywhere.

One must wonder how such a scenario might play out in the streets of Cairo, Tehran, or Damascus. How about Gaza City? Ramallah? We need not ask how it might happen in Riyadh, because Israeli Jews are not allowed into Saudi Arabia, much less be served there. Would discrimination against Jews in general be tolerated? Of course in all of these places such discrimination would be tolerated. In most, if not all of them, people might even applaud and join in.

Take a look at the video. Learn about Israelis. Share it with others.

*******************************************************************************

If you are interested in what we post in this blog, please sign on to our Mission Statement or if you just want to receive our emails sign on to our email list or subscribe to the blog! Refer your friends! There is a lot of advocacy work to do!

This entry was posted in We Are For Israel and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

14 Responses to A Look at Anti-Arab Racism in Israel

  1. Shared this on our synagogue Facebook page … I think this is wonderful.

  2. Lynng says:

    This is due to the fact that Israelis do not raise their children to hate and kill. Peace is the main goal of Israeli citizens and they deserve it.

  3. I actually had someone offer a comment that the reality TV show was presenting propaganda, that Jews are really evil human beings who are only interested in money, and that everyone knows that Jews are racists. Somehow, in his clear thinking, he missed the point that this video demonstrates that the anti-Jewish and anti-Israel propaganda that he is obviously reading is in fact false.

  4. Dana says:

    I was disappointed that the video didn’t last long enough to show the percentage of people who spoke up or took action as they previewed they would do.

  5. Yaakov Kayman says:

    So where is the tally??

  6. Justin says:

    Unfortunately, this version of the video leaves out customers who agreed with the anti-Arab sentiments of the guy behind the counter. A fuller version can easily be found on YouTube, showing more of the range of prejudice and tolerance which exists in Israel as, no doubt, elsewhere. This fuller version is actually more useful — it shows more of the context in which prejudice might be expected, and yet shows that more of the random customers showed tolerance and human solidarity.

  7. Geela Naiman says:

    I agree, I also want to know the tally, the percent of who stuck up for the Arab woman, who took the side of the store clerk, and who stood idly by. Anyone know where we can find this information?

    • Looks like it is at the end of the second video, though the exact numbers are not. Remember also that this is simply one location and it would be unreasonable to use data from one location to make an argument. All we can do is look at the reactions of these people and say that at least for them, anti-Arab racism was not only unacceptable, but grossly so. That implies something about the broader Israeli culture. It does not apply uniformly however, I am sure. In specific areas, I could see the reactions being much different, such as in a settlement in the West Bank or in a dati neighborhood. What the show demonstrates is that for random secular Israelis, there is little tolerance for intolerance.

      • Aaron Shohet says:

        Israelis are always in a hurry, those drinking coffee at a convenience store in a petrol station are probably even more so.
        The tally clearly shows 5% supporting the convenience store owner, 42% ignoring the situation, and 53% intervening on the Arab woman’s behalf.

        The numbers speak for themselves here

  8. freedemocracy says:

    What about the larger picture, the real RACISM in the area, ARAB RACISM against ALL Jews.

    Look at the 2009 PEW poll 90% of the Middle East is anti Jewish.

    The Arab racism that attacks innocent Jews in Europe.

    The same Arab racism is also practiced by Israeli Arabs or (by the children of Arab immigrants, conveniently called lately as) “Palestinians” that target (any) Jews for being Jews.

  9. Bob Smith says:

    I believe that people need to come to change the way they behave with Middle Eastern people.
    I strongly disagree with the way that man was treating the lady that was dressed in her cultural clothing. She could have come in jeans and a t-shirt and he would have sold her the cappuchino. The teacher that walked in and said that his behavior was unacceptable because she wants to teach kids how to be tolerant. If adults aren’t being tolerant, then how can kids be? Kids usually learn from what their parents have to teach them. So, if there are a lot of people that are racist against people that dress differently, people will probably stop dressing in their cultural garb and then part of there culture will be lost. If cultural traditions are forgotten because of racism, there probably won’t be passed onto the children and then the children won’t learn their traditions.

    If children don’t learn to be tolerant, there will be a lot more problems in schools which teachers won’t be able to control because the kids are going to make comments that they most likely heard from their parents about racism against Arabs. This could lead to parents pulling their kids out of school and leaving them uneducated if the problems worsen.

  10. martha says:

    1922-2012 90 Years to first Arab racist anti-Jewish boycott

    The current {1}bigoted anti-Israel boycotts, are NOT related to any “policies.” It began many years before Israel was re-established, in 1922. It was pushed mainly by the infamous Mufti Haj amin al-Husseini, who allied himself with Hitler{2} later on.

    From Terence Prittie, Walter Henry Nelson, Terence Prittie, The economic war against the Jews (Secker & Warburg, 1978, 269 pp.) p. 9:
    ‘A call went out in 1922 from the Fifth Arab Congress, meeting in Nablus, for all Arabs to boycott Jewish businesses; seven years later, the First Palestine Arab Women’s Congress asked “every Arab to buy nothing from the Jews but land, and to sell them everything but land.”

    Other, similar calls went out in 1931 and 1933, and in 1936 a boycott of all Jewish products was proclaimed by Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti and spiritual leader of all Moslems. This was the forerunner of today’s Arab Trade Boycott.'{3}

    In {4} March and April 1933, The Mufti, praised Nazi Germany’s anti-Jewish treatment, especially the boycotts.{5}

    Current organizers of anti-Israel boycotts (like “BDS, Anti-Semitism’s New Face,” movement’s action to “isolate Israel as part of their program to destroy Israel.”{6} and as US official stated, ‘Yes, the boycott is anti-Semitic'{7} and as celebrated Italian writer says the boycott is “a form of racism.”‘{8} Demonizing unfairly, blatantly maliciously lying{9} obessively about the victim-Israel fighting off a constant existential threat{10} since the 1920s{11} and beyond{12}, is bigotry, not “legitimate criticism.”) ‘market’ their racism with the false cover of “anti-racism,” and using the outrageous “apartheid slur,”{13} which was invented{14} in 1961 by the Mufti’s henchman{15} Ahmad Ahukairy, who allied hismelf with Nazi groups{16} in 1962 and is known for coining the genocide phrase{17} ‘throw the Jews into the sea,’ in 1967, called Shukairy’s slogan.{18}

    {1}
    http://www.jfedsrq.org/blog_archive.aspx?id=244&year=2010&month=5

    {2}
    http://books.google.com/books?id=FDviDrXzkjsC&pg=PT58

    {3}
    http://books.google.com/books?id=PRNZAAAAYAAJ&q=%22but+land%22

    {4}
    http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2501/is_n2_v19/ai_20046831/pg_2/

    {5}

    Click to access mideast.pdf

    {6}
    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/9913

    {7}
    http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/04/07/boycott-of-israel-is-antisemitic

    {8}
    http://www.buffalonews.com/entertainment/24-hour-entertainment-news/article349337.ece

    {9}
    http://www.wiesenthal.com/toptenlies

    {10}
    http://books.google.com/books?id=QMts5Z36kjAC&pg=PA107

    {11}
    http://www.hirhome.com/israel/pal_mov4.htm

    {12}
    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/article.php3?id=1248

    {13}
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/opinion/israel-and-the-apartheid-slander.html?_r=2&hp

    {14}
    http://books.google.com/books?id=vzZ71Eh5QvMC&pg=PA188

    {15}
    http://books.google.com/books?id=8HEuAAAAIAAJ&dq=henchman

    {16}
    http://books.google.com/books?id=vLZHUlI6GmoC&pg=PA158

    {17}
    http://books.google.com/books?id=VK0llzUqQ2YC&pg=PA157

    {18}
    http://books.google.com/books?id=DSe7AAAAIAAJ&dq=%22Shukairy%27s+slogan%22

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s