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Bio: Chris Spannos has had over a decade of experience in self-managed media collectives and also as an activist, organizer, and anti-capitalist. From 1998-2006 he participated in the Redeye collective,... (More)

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An Experiment in Anti-Semitism vs. Anti-Arab Racism

By Chris Spannos at Jan 24, 2006

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Imagine if an Arab spiritual leader referred to Jews as "foul", a "disease" or as a "devil". What if he called them "asses" and asked "why did God not create them walking on their fours?" In reply to his own rhetorical question, the imaginary Arab spiritual leader then coolly replies, "The answer is that they need to build and wash." You would be right to be angry and disgusted by such vile racism. And you would be right to wonder what institutional and cultural influences help create, perpetuate and sustain such antisemitic garbage. But would you feel and think the same way if it was a Jewish spiritual leader targeting Arabs with this hateful, racist nonsense? We certainly hear, see and read about claims of antisemitism almost daily in radio, T.V. and newspaper reports. Why don't we ever hear about anti-Arab racism?
I opened this blog entry with "Imagine if an Arab spiritual leader...". There is in fact no real person as such. However, all the insults and vitriol spewed in this hypothetical antisemitism are the real words of a Jewish spiritual leader, Rabbi David Bazri, directed at Palestinians. His racist attack comes in the wake of a very sane, honorable and necessary proposal for the establishment of a mixed Arab-Jewish school in Pat, Jerusalem. More, if the particular hypothetical antisemitism used here were a real incident, you can be sure it would receive wide spread attention and be used to justify Israel's illegal occupation, being used as more rational to reign collective punishment down upon the Palestinians.
But the opposite is true, a particularly nasty anti-Arab racism was expressed. Will we see newspaper, T.V. or radio reports covering these extremely hysteric remarks? Why not? Do we even care? Can we even begin to ask what institutional and cultural influences help create, perpetuate and sustain such anti-Arab garbage?
Walla!News (Haaretz) reported on Jan. 10, in a news item appearing only in Hebrew (see here for an unofficial English translation), that "Today the school is running in a temporary building and is looking for a permanent residence in the Pat neighborhood of Jerusalem. The municipality assigned a territory for the school but because of repeating appeals to court the process is delayed. Today [Jan 10.] the matter is scheduled for a debate in the High Court."
A Rabbi named Yehuda Der'i also participated in the conference against the school and said that "this is a thing that the Jewish mind, logic and soul cannot tolerate. We have to go from house to house and raise supporters in the neighborhood to prevent this horrid punishment." More vacuous comments...
Here is Rabbi David Bazri's words, in full, which I quoted above for the hypothetical antisemitism, "The establishment of such a school is a foul, disgraceful deed. You can't mix pure and foul. They are a disease, a disaster, a devil. The Arabs are asses, and the question must be asked, why did God did not create them walking on their fours? The answer is that they need to build and wash. They have no place in our school".
This is the core of a gross kind of ignorance that enables the existance of second class citizenship for Palestinians in Israel, identification cards for Palestinians, checkpoints for Palestinians, systematic house demolitions for Palestinians, extra judicial executions and assassinations for Palestinians, an Apartheid Wall for Palestinians, a brutal military occupation which has practiced ethnic cleansing and denied Palestinians their Right of Return. It is a racism built on the belief that there are "pure" and "foul" races, ethnic groups and cultures; and in the particular case of Israel, that there can be a "Jewish State". It is a backward and insipid thinking that belongs to the stone age.
--- Here is the whole news article, which is actually worse than I've let on, in it's unofficial English translation:
Walla.co.il ("Haaretz"), 10/01/2006 http://news.walla.co.il/?w=//839989
A conference which took place yesterday against the establishment of a mixed Arab-Jewish school in Pat, Jerusalem saw harsh attacks made by well-known rabbis. The (ha-mekubal) Rabbi David Bazri said: "The establishment of such a school is a foul, disgraceful deed. You can't mix pure and foul. They are a disease, a disaster, a devil. The Arabs are asses, and the question must be asked, why did God did not create them walking on their fours? The answer is that they need to build and wash. They have no place in our school". His son, Rabbi Itzhak Bazri, also referred to the interpretation of Ishmaelites – people similar to donkeys, and said "the Arabs are inferior. What do they want? To take our daughters. They say we are racists. Well, they are the evil, they are the cruel, they have the foulness of snakes. There's foul and there's pure, and they are foul". In response to questions by "Walla!", Rabbi Bazri said that he meant to "emphasize the difference between Arab and Jewish culture, and that there is no common denominator that can bring us together. Bazri went on to say that "our experience is to prevent situations in which our Jewish girls be hurt by Arabs and to prevent danger to Jewish lives. We intend to demonstrate in front of the City Hall and to do everything we can to prevent this initiative". Rabbi Yehuda Der'i, brother to Arie Deri and Chief Rabbi of Ber Sheva, also participated in the conference and said that "this is a thing that the Jewish mind, logic and soul cannot tolerate. We have to go from house to house and raise supporters in the neighborhood to prevent this horrid punishment." Today the school is running in a temporary building and is looking for a permanent residence in the Pat neighborhood of Jerusalem. The municipality assigned a territory for the school but because of repeating appeals to court the process is delayed. Today the matter is scheduled for a debate in the High Court. Source: Walla!News (Haaretz), 10/01/2006 Translated by Dimi Reider

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Z

Look outside the U.S. and

By Anonymous, Anonymous at Mar 01, 2007 03:26 AM
Look outside the U.S. and you will see that there is much more about "anti arab",  "racist" things that the Jews and Israelis do then there is about anti semitism. 

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Z

You just cite a very small

By Anonymous, Anonymous at Mar 01, 2007 03:23 AM
You just cite a very small example of anti arab racism by a rabbi which is certainly not the main view in Israel, I think everyone knows there are radicals on both sides and this does not prove very much. People do hear plenty of anti-arab things that Israel does and that Israel is racist. Take a look at Jimmy Carters book which is a best seller, Al Jazeera as well as a plethora of papers, tv programs etc outside the U.S. show this. For the most part you will get a more balanced view if anything in the U.S. with the exception of Fox News which is slanted towards Israel. If you want to learn more about this media manipulation which occurs google pallywood and you will see. I have been to Israel before I have Israeli friends who I consider my family and I have Palestinian friends who knew Arafat well and don't think Israel should exist however even my Palestinian friends would agree that to judge Israel by comments by a racist rabbi who is extremely radical is simply ridiculous

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Person

I agree with most of your

By Kissenger, Clark at Jun 20, 2006 08:42 AM
I agree with most of your article, but your assumption that no Muslim figures do say that kind of thing about Jews is, unfortunately, wrong. Someone says: "I think it's almost a miracle that Palestinians have such moderate views of Israelis. They've been occupied for almost 40 years, and dominated for almost 60. Their general message is "please leave us alone, we just want to live in peace." I've heard many a racist Israeli comment. Not as bad as the one you quoted, but fairly racist. "They're animals, they should be locked up." And something about the West Bank being a prison - or zoo. Unfortunetely that may well turn out to be true." Couldn't you say I think it's almost a miracle that Israelis have such moderate views of Arabs. They've been surrounded by enemy states and attacked by terrorists for almost 60 years. Their general message is "please leave us alone, we just want to live in peace." I've heard many a racist Hamas comment. Not as bad as the one you quoted, but fairly racist. So since both sides have such moderate views, when can we expect a little peace in the region...?

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Person

racism

By Kissenger, Clark at Jun 08, 2006 01:33 AM

 

The book "White Male Privilege" might be of help in fighting racism.  Amazon.co.uk has a synopsis of the book.

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Person

Who is this Rabbi and how

By Kissenger, Clark at Mar 03, 2006 12:00 PM
Who is this Rabbi and how significant is he?  The only English language references I find to him on a Yahoo! search are one story about how he is a Kabbalist nut performing an exorcism, one reference to him on a pro-Palestinian rights website as a speaker and lots and lots of articles about the vile statement you quoted.  It looks like he is some lone nut and that, relative to that status, his statement was heavily covered.  It's not like he is the head of a country like Iran.

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Person

le Pen

By Kissenger, Clark at Feb 06, 2006 22:31 PM
Zubub, How many votes did LePen get ? Zubub whys isnt there UN forces between the two parties in Israel and the Occupied territories.. ? hmm anyone having clues ?

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Person

Spannos in Wonderland

By Kissenger, Clark at Feb 03, 2006 23:40 PM
There is nothing wrong with exposing racism, whether by Jews, Arabs, or anyone else. But that doesn't suffice for Spannos and Leila. For them, the exposure of racism by some extreme right-wing rabbis (which is absolutely nothing new and has been reported on in the N.Y.Times thousands of times, not to mention having filled up books of Chomsky, Pappas, Sa'id, etc.) has to be accompanied by an Alice in Wonderland speech about how this racism is somehow never reported on, whereas - and here Spannos is mischievously ambiguous - either parallel anti-semitism is rarely voiced by Palestinians or else trumpeted all over the allegedly pro-Zionist American press. This is pure rubbish, and unfortunately detracts from what would otherwise be a perfectly legitimate and welcome protest against the rabbis in question. For instance, leaders of Hamas almost daily utter parallel remarks. The current Hamas leader compared Jews to pigs and monkeys, borrowing from the Kuran, which itself has anti-semitic content. This is quite regular. Several Hamas spokesmen have denied the Holocaust and praised Iranian President Ahmadinejad for doing the same. So has the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Arab anti-semitism is standard fare in Saudi and Egyptian media and even in Saudi schoolbooks. There have been occasional reports about this in the West, but Spannos' meta-text just betrays his own deep bias (as does the anti-Jewish selectivity of all his blogs). Not surprising that the anti-Israeli Palestinian chauvinist who calls for the destruction of Israel, "Leila", applauds his blog. The big difference between Israeli anti-Arab racism and Palestinian anti-semitism is that racist Israeli parties garner a small minority of the vote, less than Le Pen gets in France, while Hamas won an election with a 70% landslide. But Spannos and Leila have nothing to say about that, while they hide behind the patently phoney claim that they are merely trying to redress some alleged imbalance.

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Person

double post

By Kissenger, Clark at Feb 02, 2006 21:35 PM
someone posted this link about an racism Dues to some difficulty upograding, the bloggers post were not repreoduced yet;; State of racism

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Person

Israeli racism

By Kissenger, Clark at Jan 30, 2006 10:16 AM

This is a welcome blog - not the sort of material you'll find quoted in the Jerusalem Post. It would also be interesting to get what are considered more 'mainstream' comments translated from the Hebrew concerning the neo-colonial attitudes of israelis toward Palestinians and Arabs in general.

Like any sane person I abhor anti-semiticism, but the site below leads us to an interesting predicament:

 http://www.rense.com/general18/bible.htm

Some of the latest archeological evidence from this independent source would suggest that Jews and Palestinians both descended from Canaanites, possibly different sects of Canaanites. Further, I believe that Palestinians are generally regarded as a Semitic people today anyway. The charge of 'anti-Semiticism' can then be seen in a whole new light of American-backed Israeli terror against Palestinian people.

 Finally, the racist rhetoric that underpins this violent neo-colonialisation and dehumanisation of Palestinians, backfires in the most appalling way upon the perpetrators among Israeli Jews.

 

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Person

Re: An Experiment in Anti-Semitism vs. Anti-Arab Racism

By Honningsvåg, Per-Stian at Jan 27, 2006 03:08 AM
A very good article Chris. Very shocking comments from the rabbis. I'm sure the media would be all over it if some high-ranking Palestinians uttered such remarks. But as it was "the good guys" the media hold their tongue in fear of being stamped "liberal" or "anti-semitic". It's a fairly universal phenomenon, unfortunetely. Such a school sounds like a good idea to me. Getting people together and breaking down their notions of the other side being "devils" can only be a good thing. Kinda reminds me of Edward Said's concert between many peoples towards the end of his life. I actually think he died before the concert was held. Too bad, he would've loved it. I think it's almost a miracle that Palestinians have such moderate views of Israelis. They've been occupied for almost 40 years, and dominated for almost 60. Their general message is "please leave us alone, we just want to live in peace." I've heard many a racist Israeli comment. Not as bad as the one you quoted, but fairly racist. "They're animals, they should be locked up." And something about the West Bank being a prison - or zoo. Unfortunetely that may well turn out to be true. It's outrages that the international community doesn't undertake serious measures to bring peace to the region. It's lasted 40 years now, and no end in sight. Yet another terrible atrocity in the West's resumé.

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Person

Re: An Experiment in Anti-Semitism vs. Anti-Arab Racism

By Legalmedia, Cyranoo at Jan 25, 2006 08:04 AM
Excuse me, rudy, let me be more specific, He didnt not deny that racists views exists in the arab community, ( IT DOES EXIST) thus mr. spannos seemed very objective with his post; Like i said, I was surprised by Rabbi vitriolic statements.

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Person

Re: An Experiment in Anti-Semitism vs. Anti-Arab Racism

By Legalmedia, Cyranoo at Jan 25, 2006 07:34 AM
[quote] the tone of your post insinuates that the larger Jewish community holds the racist views so readily found in the Arab world which simply is not true[/quote] I didnt see any insinuation that the larger population hold racist views, but i see that clearly some form of religious elite are holding racists views. [quote]On the otherhand, the mainstream Arab community does not try to muzzle anti-Jewish sentiment.[/quote] That is not true, I think palestinians are generally moderated in their opinions even after so many years under occupation. Also, I would like "some" proof that Israelis are muzzling anti-palestinians views. Rudy, its not like mr Spannos is nourishing racist bias that could BULLDOZES Israelis houses, people and journalists altogether or cause people to die, Mr Spannos is just trying to UN-MUZZLE the silence surrounding palestinian abuse and anti-palestinian sentiment. I didnt see him denying anti-semite views. Personally, its the first time I heard that a Rabbi said something hateful, hearing such a statement could had blew me off my wheelchair if i had been in one...

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Person

Re: An Experiment in Anti-Semitism vs. Anti-Arab Racism

By Brothernumbertwo, Rudy at Jan 25, 2006 01:46 AM
Chris, your hypo is much more real world then "made up." It's foolish to think otherwise. Arab and muslim leaders (don't forget about Indonesia) spew hatred towards Jews daily and the world generally doesn't bat an eye. Hell, the UN Division for Palestinian Rights just held an event that called for the destruction of Israel. While some Jews do have racist beliefs, the overlooked fact of your post is that those beliefs are held to be extreme by the larger Jewish population. On the otherhand, the mainstream Arab community does not try to muzzle anti-Jewish sentiment. The tone of your post insinuates that the larger Jewish community holds the racist views so readily found in the Arab world which simply is not true. Thus, I question your motives for this post.

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Person

Re: An Experiment in Anti-Semitism vs. Anti-Arab Racism

By Legalmedia, Cyranoo at Jan 24, 2006 21:32 PM
I am shocked that Rabbis could have opinions of this sort..! I know some ayatollahs made racists statements as such.. I guess that since oil was discovered in the ME, it is strategical to recognize that there is only anti-semitism..

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Person

Re: An Experiment in Anti-Semitism vs. Anti-Arab Racism

By John_willi21, Itselect at Jan 24, 2006 17:00 PM
I think you've done a brilliant job in sharing such thing with all.

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