The Best Israeli Discussion I've read so far
I came across ” Israel Carried Out Deliberate Radiation Poisoning of 100,000 Sephardic Jews” on Drima’s blog. It wasn’t the content of the topic that intrigued me but the subsequent discussion between the Israeli commentors.To many of us, the Israelis, each & every single one of them, have been portrayed as cold-blooded monsters, who are not human & who solely live on destroying the others & conquering the world(No offense to the Israeli readers).
I never saw them as more than that & never imagined that they lead normal lives like the rest of us, let alone fall in love & get married.However, this insightful post & the fact that they have cultural differences & internal racism just like the rest of us is fascinating.
We don’t recieve much news about their social lives or the difficulties some of them face within the country. Hence,I’m grateful that Drima started such a post & yes, the Zionist govt is insane but just like there are good Muslims & bad ones, the same applies to the Israelis.
I truly & genuinely enjoyed reading their comments & personal stories.I’m astounded by how blinding my misconceptions were & feel ashamed at the unnecessary hate I harboured for all of them.
Some of the IDF’s actions make it no less of a criminal than that of the NCP & whoever murders, be it a Muslim, Afghani, Israeli, Chinese, Christian, is immoral.From now on, I won’t blame one party & ignore the other.My anger shall be distributed equally:)
Update: You know what the best part is: Something my 15 year old sis said to me.Mind you, she is the queen of our family * mashallah* but being a teen, her priorities revolve around malls & cute guys,lool.Anyway, when I told her about this post, I was surprised at her reaction.She asked me to print it out because she wants to know more about the Jews & feels really bad when she hears prayers targeted against them.I was ecstatic since my sis rarely showed an explicit interest in such issues & given how our schools & the media distort news,I’d happily say that this is one step forward:)
Posted by hipster at 11:16
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Hipster-
Why kind, honest and self-evaluative words. Words of healing. Gee I would like to take you out for a ham sandwich and a beer…whooops!
…just kidding. Something hallal…I promise.
Actually, these blogs have worked both ways. Many of my experiences with Muslims had not always been the best, however I have long gone out of my way to force myself not to accept sterotypes and I am happy to say I Muslim friends who have taught he a great deal. And as I was saying…I learned much more from these blogs.
Look…some folks get insulted when I say this, but I am going to say it. Most, not all, but most Muslim countries do not allow freedom of access to information nor freedom of sharing ideas and freedom of speech, freedom of press. I believe that until the Internet, you mostly got a whole mess of propaganda.
So Jews and Israelis? We eat and sleep and go to malls and fight with our siblings and spouses and parents. We don’t want to be in the army and we don’t want to be at war and we don’t want to take over anybody’s country.
Yes…we have a problem with our neighbors the Palestinians…but Iran has problems with Iraq, Syria with Lebanon, Kurds with Turks, Sudan with Darfur and Chad, Ethopia with Somalia, Russia with Checneya, Chiapas with Mexico, and should I go on?
But average Joe Israeli? They go to work, love and hate, get married, get divorced, become religious, leave religion, get cancer, have strokes, cry over their parents dying.
As a culture…we are curious. We want to meet you, talk to you, get you to understand us. Did you know there are about 30,000 black African Jewish Israelis? That there are about 2 million of Arab descent including my wife whose first language was a form of Arabic “sabach al chir ya set”.
Did you know I have a Masalet/Darfurian nickname “chawaga markuti gerutendi”. That’s me…do you know what it means? If not…you are in for a laugh. It got it from my Darfurian friend Mohamed Yahyah. Yes…we are friends.
There are bad Israelis, good Israelis bad jews, good Jews and a WHOLE bunch of just mediocre folk. And even the government is not nearly what you have been told. Did you know the government is represented by about 12 different political parties that can’t agree on a damn thing most of the time?
Keep reading and exploring. I think the world is FAR more complex than you may have been led to believe.
But once again, thank you for your honesty and openess. What a lovely person you must be.
(For kicks..go look at the archieves of “The Religious Policeman” blog). He doesn’t blog anymore…but insightful and you will probably not stop crying or laughing.
Yes, good posting. I would add that I grew up in a town with 1 Jewish family, who oned a really good Men’s clothing shop, and I almost never heard of Muslims until college. I still don’t know any Muslims, even though, as I have said before, “I believe in Muhammad, the Seal of the Prophets. and I believe in Moses.” So it is very strange for me to know two brothers from the same family tree duking it out with one another over the dust that becomes our tomb.
Since I never knew any Jews, or Muslims, my impressions of both were wide open. The media didn’t particularly affect me towards either relation…I was more worried about the “dirty rotten communists”
Howie, thankx for giving me an insight in to the life of the average Israeli:)
looool, I’ll pass the ham but can go for non-alcholic malt.
Yes, I believe I have grown in the 2 months that I began blogging & interacting with the ” other ” side. It’s true & it’s not an insult that our govts control the media & that freedom of speech is oppressed.The internet & blogging have done us all a great favour.
Mark my words for it, if our govts get a whiff that blogging is effecting a positive change, we will all be hunted.
It’s interesting to know that you come from diverse cultures & loool@ the Darfurian name.I don’t know what it means but would love to know.I learned my first hebrew sentence(mentioned by Raccoon), “Im tertzu, ein zo agada” Do I pronounce it the same way its written?
Thankx again & will keep exploring.
Will def chk The Religious Policeman.
Edo River, thankx for your comment.I’m glad to know that the media didn’t impact your perception.It’s kind of hard to turn a deaf ear to such misconceptions when you are being fed lies all the time & at a young age.
aaaah, the topic of communists-touchy.My aunt is a parlimentarian & is a member of the communist party in Sudan,loool.Speaking of which, I think the communist party in Sudan is relatively different because my aunt is still a Muslim but has embraced the political idealogies of the school at her time. *shrugs*
It seems that politicians finally believe that if they have “an enemy” it is much better and easier to unite people together in a country. President Bush is doing the same thing as all the other leaders, making the war on Terror, a never-ending story, for what purpose? So that there is a reason to spend more on military hardware, and cut back on social issues within the country and helping others.
The communist Party in Japan is also a rather benign tiny 4-5%party. I really like the man I meet at the train station who gives out flyers about once a season, He is a communist. Their socialist agenda is a little unbalanced in my opinion, but they deserve to be heard in the discussion of solutions for problems. And they can contribute to the solutions as a result of their point of view.
“It seems that politicians finally believe that if they have “an enemy†it is much better and easier to unite people together in a country. President Bush is doing the same thing as all the other leaders, making the war on Terror, a never-ending story, for what purpose? So that there is a reason to spend more on military hardware, and cut back on social issues within the country and helping others”
True!!
The communists do have interesting views.
Hiba-
Chawaja markuti gerutendi….it is Maasalet (Darfur)…for “crazy white man”. this is the guy I learned it from;
http://www.damanga.org/
There is a whole lot we need to learn and dispell about each other. There are also painful historical facts and we probably will end up squabbling from time to time.
But that is the learning curve.
Be well
Howie
loooooool, thankx for the explanation.
Squabbles & disagreements are inevitable but even if our POVs differ, that doesn’t mean we can’t have mutual respect & be friends.Tolerance is a virtue &as you said, it’s all a learning experience.
Thankx & bless you:)
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