An unusual conversation
I was waiting to meet up with some friends at the cafe on the mountain yesterday and suddenly found myself having a very unusual conversation. It started because I was wearing a shemagh (an arab style scarf) and a guy sitting across from me asked if I was wearing it because I was palestinian. ‘No’, I said, ‘just because it’s cold up here’.
It turns out he was from the Lebanon. In the conversation which followed I learned a lot about Israel, Gaza and the problems in the region. Obviously the whole issue has been a part news all my life, but aside from what I hear on the radio I know very little about it.
I’ve been listening more closely lately because my current cilents are Israelis. I’ve been working with these guys for a few months, we do business in English but I can tell there’s a cultural gulf between us. I assumed that although their second language was English, that their first must be Jewish (or Hebrew or Israeli or whatever it’s called). But it didn’t sound like that. When I hear them speaking on the phone to other people, it sounds like arabic and the screenshots they send me to illustrate bugs in my games look like windows is right to left, with arabic looking script. Not wanting to risk saying anything inappropriate to my clients I’ve been wondering about this. My new friend informs me that 30% of the population of Israel are arabs. People who were caught inside the territory when it was partitioned and never became refugees. Second class citizens in his opinion whose human rights are limited compared to Jewish Israelis. Whose passports carry less weight and who are represented by only 2 members of parliament in Israel. I think it’s Israeli arabs I’m working with.
Not the usual kind of conversation one has on the mountain, and all the more interesting for that. I’d like to find out more. I’d like to go and visit Israel. And Gaza. And Lebanon I think.
March 16th, 2008 at 8:44 am
Hi from Jerusalem! I’d like to clarify a bit about Israel and what your new friend told you.
A large percentage of the Israeli population is made up of non-Jews, including Arabs, Druze and Christians. I’m not sure if it’s 30%, but it’s a lot. The Arab citizens of Israel enjoy the same democratic rights as everyone else in this country, such as free education, health care, voting rights, freedom of speech, etc. The difference between them and the Jews is that they do not have to serve in the army, so they get the benefits without paying that price.
I’m not saying their situation is perfect - they do suffer from certain levels of discrimination. But so do many minorities in Israel, including the ultra-Orthodox, Russian and Ethiopian immigrants, and the Sefardic residents of the development towns. I don’t know if you are aware, but the residents of an Israeli development town called Sderot are bombed daily by Kassams from Gaza. The fact that the State of Israel lets this continue is a form of discrimination because I can tell you that if Tel Aviv were being bombed, the government would act immediately.
With all the complaints that Israeli Arabs have about their situation, if you ask them if they would move to Gaza to be part of the new independent Palestinian entity, they would ask you if you are crazy. So it can’t be too bad here. I met one Arab who told me that he moved heaven and earth to move into Israeli Jerusalem so that his sick father could get good health care. When the security wall was built through Jerusalem, tens of thousands of Arabs flocked to the Israeli side in order to retain their access to jobs and health care. If it were so bad, would they try so hard to be part of Israel?
As for their parliamentary representation - that’s simply a result of their representation in the population. Their are many other two-member parties in the Knesset. If there were more Arabs voting for the Arab parties, they’d have more representation. It doesn’t help them that one of their major leaders, Azmi Bishara, had to defect from Israel recently under suspicions of treason (http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Briefs/11236.htm), and another prior to the Lebanon war suggested that terrorists kidnap Israeli soldiers, which indeed happened (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/106857).
With regards to your clients - they could be Jewish Israeli speaking Hebrew. Sometimes Hebrew can sound like Arabic, plus Hebrew is also written right-to-left.
Anyways, if you have any questions about Israel, Israelis, and other Middle Eastern things, feel free to contact me.
Miriam
March 17th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
[…] really love blogging sometimes. Today I received this response from my previous post about Israel, which is by far the best and most informative comment […]