http://www.alternativenews.org (Israel)
Uri Yacobi Keller for the Alternative Information Center (AIC)
Jewish Israelis who advocate for separation between Jews and Arabs feel threatened by mixed couples, like the one on the Israeli reality show "Race for the Million." How might romantic connections and chance encounters between Jews and Palestinians happen in Israel, which is increasingly becoming openly racist?
Participants in the Israeli reality TV show, "Race to a Million."
Walla! Culture recently ran a story pointing out that one of the couples competing in the popular Israeli reality TV show, “Race for the Million,” is “mixed”. Meaning: a male, Muslim Palestinian citizen of Israel and a Jewish Israeli woman who dare to openly flaunt their romantic relationship on prime time television.
But before this couple came to Walla!’s attention, they were under fire from an organization called LEHAVA (“flame” in Hebrew, it’s an acronym for “Preventing [Jewish] Assimilation [with non-Jews] in the Holy Land”), which has published a pamphlet calling for a boycott of the show.
In a short interview with Walla! Culture Benzi Goopstein, the chairman of LEHAVA, remarked, “[Jewish] assimilation is the continuation of the Holocaust.” He also claimed that mixed couples result in violence against women.
However, Mr Goopstein did concede that “allegedly” the mixed couple “looks nice” on TV.
Suffice it to say that Mr Goopstein’s comparing romantic relationships between Jews and Arabs to the systematic genocide of millions of people is, at the very least, a slight exaggeration. And never mind that banning “mixed” romantic relationships between Jews and Germans was a fundamental of the Nazi regime’s discriminatory, anti-Semitic policies.
What I would like to expand on here is this: the very day I heard about the whole thing I went, as I often do, to a certain bar in downtown West Jerusalem. This bar is owned by Jews and Palestinians and its customers are Jews and Palestinians. And it is not uncommon to hear English, Spanish, German, French and other languages there. On the evening that I went, I noted two Palestinian girls chatting in Arabic over beers, some Arab guys, a few Germans, and many Jewish Israelis in various stages of drunkeness.
The place opened about a year ago during the football world cup. Without anyone forcing them, Jews, Palestinians, and “others,” sat down together to watch men chasing balls across a field. The bar has been running ever since.
But it’s just a bar. The fact that Jews and Palestinians drink beer there together, have some sort of fun, flirt with each other and, perhaps, do even more than that, is not artificial or encouraged by anyone. Nor is it very interesting or important to anyone. It happens because they’re young people doing what young people do.
That, more than any demonstration, is threatening to the likes of Mr Goopstein.
This bar is still far from representing the vast majority of the Jerusalem or Israeli nightlife. The Israeli public is, most definitely not on “our” side--it remains a base for the mainstream Israeli politicians who seek to continue occupation. But that same public also watches television where, in reality shows, there happen to be Jews and Palestinians who share their lives in peace. And that same public includes young people who go to bars to have fun where they might end up meeting Palestinian youth who are there for the same reason.
The road from randomly drinking beer together to a meaningful, substantial reduction in racism in Israeli society is still extremely long. And as long as these social meetings between Jews and Palestinians remain as nothing more than “fun” (or reality television) and are not accompanied by loud political contemplation, they hold little importance or political interest.
But if it annoys the likes of Mr Goopstein, it could be some sort of start.
Translated by the Alternative Information Center (AIC)
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário