and now Israelis are taking what we find offensive.
I almost pooped laughing when I read this in an article about anger in Israel over a photo of Obama with his feet propped up as he spoke with the Israeli Prime Minister:
It is considered an insult in the Arab world to show the sole of your shoe to someone. It is not a Jewish custom necessarily, but Israel feels enough a part of the Middle East after 60 years to be insulted too.
It is bad enough Israel is built on displaced Palestinian villages, that Israelis now live in old Palestinian homes and that the refugees who Israel banned from returning lost all the property they could not carry when Israel was founded in 1948. And since then, Israel has only further stripped away Palestinian land, taking more and more though various “projects,” from settlement-building to laying down train lines and its preposterous apartheid wall.
Then, they started to claim staples in local, native diet, falafel and hummous, as Israeli national snacks — even though the snacks predated the concept of modern day Israel. They even tried to Zionize the kuffiyah in 2007 (luckily it never caught on).
And now they have the nerve to be insulted at something Arabs are supposed to be repulsed by — being shown the bottom of one’s shoes.
There is no basis for this sensitivity in Jewish teaching or Ashkenazi Jewish cultures, but when your modern culture was created for the purposes of a hodgepodge colonial enterprise, it means borrowing, or should I say stealing, a lot (which is why they even stole our cuss words).
However, I have two optimistic insights.
First, it is nice the Israelis are starting to sound as crazy as many in the Arab world have. I think al-Zaidi was right to throw the shoes at Bush so I am not referring to him. I just mean those back home who throw fits over symbolic or irrelevant issues, such as something some middle America preacher says about Islam. Perhaps, their fear of Obama is driving them to that point. They really need to chill. He’s not going to stop them from enjoying the fruits of their historic, national theft.
Second, this example of cultural stealing actually is not so objectionable to me. I just bring it up to emphasize an atrocious theme in Zionist history. I really care about Israel’s material crimes: theft of land and property, denial of rights, and subversion of freedom from oppression and military occupations and assaults.
On a positive note, such convergences only further demonstrate my earlier point about the eventuality of integration. If the Israelis are becoming more and more like the Palestinians culturally and socially, separation may not be necessary. It may as artificial an imposition as the idea of the Jewish state on a religiously-diverse land.
Related posts:
- In Commemoration of Land Day
- Bad and Good Theft
- Lobbying Our Way to the Promised Land
- Land Day Commemoration Today
- God has now revealed Texas to be the promised land of Zion
Leave to them Jews to be thievin' everything they wish they had, but had to steal to get.
Typical . . .
Posted by PC's Ass Kicker Mick | June 10, 2009, 9:16 pmUm no. "Them Jews" are not the to be generalized like that. The zionists and the state of Israel is what this is about.
Posted by KABOBfestWill | June 10, 2009, 9:21 pmI apologize for my lack of specificity on the issue.
You are right, my friend. I apologize to any I might have offended.
Keep up the posts though, they are what keep us going sometimes . . . actually, many times
Posted by PC's Ass Kicker Mick | June 11, 2009, 4:55 pmAs much as I hate Israel and would like to see it implode, I have my own thoughts on the Zionization the kuffiyah back. It's luck y it didn't catch on . . . true! But I blame the Non-Israelis who turned it into a fashion statement instead of maintaining it as a political one, thus giving room for Israelis and the world to do the same.
Those who did so didn't give an "F" and neither did the Israelis. And I don't blame them for seeing a crack in the door and making a buck or two on the opportunity. I mean, if Israelis were to make a fashion statement out of clothing that has special meaning for them like the Tallit, the shawls worn during the prayers and during Torah reading and be out selling them in blue, red, yellow, orange and green, it wouldn't carry that meaning anymore. It was a bad move on our part.
I completely agree with you on everything else, though
Posted by PC's Ass Kicker Mick | June 10, 2009, 9:30 pma) appreciate the humor. b) thanks will for that clarification that the issue of Israel is not about the Jewish people but rather about the actions of the State of Israel. I strongly believe that they are two different entities.
Posted by brooke | June 10, 2009, 9:37 pmI almost pooped laughing…
Is talking like a 9 year old some kind of devious tactic to disguise your true nature? lol.
Posted by programmer craig | June 10, 2009, 9:44 pmTroll somewhere else already. Its quite annoying.
Posted by Super Sayyin | June 11, 2009, 1:28 amToo bad. As Fadi said when I complained about the person (Will) who is impersonating me here: Nobody cares.
Posted by programmer craig | June 11, 2009, 1:42 amThere are a number of things about this. Firstly, many Israelis are Mizrachi Jews whose family roots lie in the Middle East anyway, and they are as Arab as you or I, on some levels. Secondly, showing the sole of your feet would probably have been considered an offensive in Ashkenazi traditional communities, and this has probably lived on in Israel.
I don't think we need to take this kind of position in order to serve the Palestinian cause.
Posted by Abed | June 11, 2009, 7:59 amThere are a number of things about this. Firstly, many Israelis are Mizrachi Jews whose family roots lie in the Middle East anyway, and they are as Arab as you or I, on some levels. Secondly, showing the sole of your feet would probably have been considered an offensive in Ashkenazi traditional communities, and this has probably lived on in Israel.
I don’t think we need to take this kind of position in order to serve the Palestinian cause.
Sorry… forgot to say great post – can’t wait to read your next one!
Posted by Abed | June 11, 2009, 2:02 amWhoever is impersonating Programmer Craig, please stop. It seems to be flattering him.
Abed, I know a lot about Mizrahi Jews. They are not as Arab as Arabs though. Why? Most deny they are Arab, have given Arab up, and strive for assimilation into European Jewry. Who populates the ranks of the looney-bin right in Israel?
There is no evidence that showing the bottom of feet is an insult to European Jews. The article I linked said it was not in Judaic culture. Did you even read the piece?
If you read the whole piece, you would see what my real position is. Your last comment proves you did not read it.
Will
Posted by KABOBfestWill | June 11, 2009, 10:54 amPretty sure will is a half-breed anyway, or maybe even less. So its not like he's got the whole "Arab" thing down… he has to work at it pretty hard.
Posted by programmer craig | June 11, 2009, 2:49 pmYou’re actually judging who’s a racial ‘sell out’?
I’m sorry, but that’s completely fucking racist.
Maybe the RIDICULOUS DEGREE OF PERSECUTION the Sephardic Jews faced at the hands of the rest of the Arab world, with virtually nothing said about it on this blog or others and almost no sympathy from anyone, has something to do with it?
Posted by Joe | June 12, 2009, 11:07 pmI almost pooped laughing when I read this in an article about anger in Israel over a photo of Obama with his feet propped up as he spoke with the Israeli Prime Minister
Of course they are offended. When speaking to an Israeli leader, the only proper position for the Satrap of West Israel is on his knees facing Tel Aviv, even if he is talking on the phone.
Posted by Sean2009 | June 11, 2009, 4:06 pmIt is bad enough Israel is built on displaced Palestinian villages, that Israelis now live in old Palestinian homes and that the refugees who Israel banned from returning lost all the property they could not carry when Israel was founded in 1948.
On Nov. 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly approved a plan to split Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. The as yet unnamed Jewish state — or, as they say in Arabic, “Zionist entity” — would be tiny and divided: nearly half its citizens would be Arabs.
But the Arabs refused to live with the non-Arabs – and civil war raged in Palestine. On paper and on the ground, the Palestinians had the edge: there were twice as many of them, they occupied the higher altitudes and they had friendly regimes next door. But isolated and outnumbered as they were, the Jews were far better organized, motivated, financed, equipped and trained than their adversaries, who were so fragmented — by geography and tradition and clan — that the term “Palestinian” was either unwarranted or at least premature. The war became a rout once the Jews took the offensive, and the Palestinian refugee crisis began (if “crisis” can be used to describe anything so chronic).
In May 1948, when the British left, Israel declared statehood and the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq marched in. Again, for all their numerical superiority, the Arabs were ill-equipped, inexperienced, unprepared.
Within five and a half months, they were crushed, militarily and psychologically. But for international intervention, their defeat would have been still worse; the Egyptian army would have been annihilated. Only King Abdullah of Jordan, with the best (British-trained) army and limited objectives (not to destroy the Jewish state, but to annex the West Bank), got what he wanted. Meanwhile, Israel grew beyond the partition lines, gained more defensible borders and — by destroying Arab villages — further reduced the Palestinian population.
Transfer — or expulsion or ethnic cleansing — was never an explicit part of the Zionist program, even among its more extreme elements. The Arabs had only themselves to blame for the upheaval: they’d started it. The Arabs had always envisioned a virtually Judenrein Palestine.
To understand the Palestinians who now fire rockets from Gaza or become suicide bombers from Nablus, it helps to know how their fathers and grandfathers wound up in Gaza or Nablus in the first place.
Posted by eagle007blogger | June 11, 2009, 9:59 pm"But the Arabs refused to live with the non-Arabs "
No, the Arabs refused to give up 1/2 of their land to people who were WAAAAAY less than half the majority. It was about, what,12% of the people living in the area were Jews? That meant they should have gotten 12% of the land? That would have been fair, right?
Again, propaganda fed to you by your parents and a retelling of the history of the events, as passed on by none other than Zionists. Face it: History is always written by the victors.
But let's be honest for a minute: Who was living there in 1948? Palestinian men and women, boys and girls. Why should we anyone, especially the UN decide what to do with our land? It's like someone coming to tell you and your family: "Okay! Tomorrow, we're going to come to your house, and we're going to give half of it to the Johnsons' because they used to own the house a long time ago and they need a place to live." I doubt you would agree to that.
It's how you perceive the history that is demonstrated in what you write. What you fail to mention is that Jewish soldiers came to our villages, came to our houses and by force, evicted the residents. Did you ever hear of Deir Yasin? Of Asqalaan? Of Nazarth? Of Haifa? They killed and murdered innocent people and took over their homes. Why do you think those early Jews found entire cities and houses empty and ready to be lived in, a "Land for a people for a people without a land." Just visit West Jerusalem and Acre and Haifa and the Galilee. I bet you've never even been to Palestine/Israel! And if you have, have you been to these places?
To understand how Israelis how think is easy. It helps to hear how their fathers and grandfathers set the example of terror and bloodshed for their children and grandchildren to follow in their footsteps.
Posted by Walid Mansour | June 11, 2009, 11:19 pmBut the Arabs refused to live with the non-Arabs
If the nation of Israel had been an Arab nation, then no one would have had a problem with it. But because it was not Arab, racism and hatred caused the Arabs to want to destroy Israel. This problem has afflicted them ever since – they cannot find it within themselves to accept non-arab neighbors.
No one complained about the borders or inhabitants of any of the other nations the civilized world had to carve out of the Middle East, such as Iran, Iraq Lebanon, Syria, Transjordan which is today Jordan, ect. No complaints there, right?
Posted by eagle007blogger | June 13, 2009, 4:03 pmI hope to goodness you have comment notification enabled on this. As a white man, I feel that I have the leeway to say that it's unacceptable for you to comment, at an Arab-centered blog, to the effect that the Middle East was uncivilized and needed to be colonized, exploited, and "carved" into artificial entities that mirrored the rather problematic European fetish of the nation-state. You owe the people reading this an apology. Also, plenty of people had and have problems with the way these entities were created, and national minorities remain hugely problematic throughout the Middle East, where uti posidetis rules created haphazard patchwork states at decolonization; the whole process is subject to ongoing critique.
Posted by Suddha | June 15, 2009, 7:14 pmAlso, Iran was not colonized or carved as you allege. Its modern boundaries correspond roughly to the historic boundaries of Persian dynasties, which did not formally lose power to the West at any point.
You may know something about Israel/Palestine, but please read something about the rest of the region if you're going to discuss its history or historiography.
Posted by Suddha | June 15, 2009, 7:19 pmYou need to read some history about how the countries of the Middle East were arranged following the end of WWI and the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
Posted by eagle007blogger | June 17, 2009, 6:29 pmEagle, I'm not disputing that the Middle East was reorganized, principally by France and Great Britain, out of the remnants of the Ottoman Empire etc. In fact, I make that observation in the above post. (Uti posidetis ("according to possession" in international law parlance) was a reference to the French and British "mandates" which determined the configuration of states.) My sole factual dispute here was with the contention that Iran was subject to the same sort of manipulation; as a pre-existing national entity, it was simply not.
Posted by Suddha | June 18, 2009, 6:46 amYou do not have the leeway to come here and demand apologies from people.
Your self-righteousness is no substitute for the facts: The Arabs tried to destroy Israel in 1948 and have been to in one way or another ever since.
Posted by eagle007blogger | June 17, 2009, 6:33 pmYou do not have the leeway to come here and demand apologies from people.
Your self-righteousness is no substitute for the facts: The Arabs tried to destroy Israel in 1948 and have been trying to in one way or another ever since.
Posted by eagle007blogger | June 17, 2009, 6:34 pmHow can you believe that you don't owe people here some expression of regret for calling the Middle East uncivilized. That is, at best, a highly insulting piece of Eurocentrism, and the facts of the ongoing Israeli-Arab conflict (none of which I challenged, you'll note) do not change that. It is essentially a matter of tone. How can you expect to change anyone's mind about an issue if you condescend to them?
Posted by Suddha | June 18, 2009, 6:50 am“”No, the Arabs refused to give up 1/2 of their land to people who were WAAAAAY less than half the majority. It was about, what,12% of the people living in the area were Jews? That meant they should have gotten 12% of the land? That would have been fair, right?”"
Except that it doesn’t simply work that way — % of people, % of land. The Jews who’d come from Western Europe were predominately better skilled and better able to afford land, with the vast bulk of their land coming through legal purchases.
They weren’t angels, but the Arabs failed miserably at integrating the Jews who’d come into a shared vision of a pluralistic society. There was almost no Arab impulse toward intermarrying with the Jews who came, for instance.
Posted by Joe | June 12, 2009, 11:10 pmWhy should jews make it easy for Arabs to steal their land.
They are not going to drop it for anyone.
There doesn't have to be talk about who is better than who.
History lessons are not important unless it makes people see the light.
If I see something and I know it's mine then it's mine.
If I give this up or I start trying to justify why it's mine I lose it.
Israel is mine because it is and I don't have to live in it or be jewish.
I am only for Israel and there is no other and if another comes to sit on my land I will fight him if I can.
Jews are not better skilled than anyone. I don't stop to have discussions about it. No Hamas no Palestine. Kill the Hamas and the suicide bomber race and leave only the people I can stand to live with.
let the suicide martyrs kill themselves if he wants to die – let him die. People need to wake up and see the music. Any man that through death he lives is on the wrong side. Only those who are on the side of the living already have rights. Kill the Hamas and the Hezbollah politicians. They are millitant sects and they are not of the people.
Posted by Annabel | June 20, 2009, 2:43 am