Showing posts with label Arabs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arabs. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 17, 2024



Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

“Never trust an Arab—even when he is dead!” So said Abu Musa to my husband some 40-plus years ago. Abu Musa was a shyster contractor who knew how to overcharge his Jewish customers and get away with it. Dov was a student in the yeshiva under the tutelage of the man who was currently being ripped off by Abu Musa. Sometimes Dov, not long in Israel, would chat up Abu Musa to learn a bit of Arabic, and something about Arab culture, too.   

Well, Dov learned something, all right. He learned from an Arab, never to trust an Arab.

It’s a difficult lesson for people who grew up like me and my husband; that we dare not trust a certain, specific people. We were raised to believe that this is wrong. Our parents taught us to judge people on the content of their character and to be polite and respectful to people no matter what they look like or believe.

For example, there was a home for disabled children located not far from my childhood home. Sometimes, a caregiver would take two or three children for a walk in the neighborhood. My mother taught me that if we passed them on the street, not to stare, and to smile and be polite the same as with any other passersby. These children had obvious, moderately severe disabilities. So my mother was preparing me for a shock, at the same time telling me not to show the shock because it would be rude and hurtful to do so.

The first lesson happened in real time. My mother explained things to me quietly, as we were about to pass by some of the children with their caregiver. There was no need for a second lesson. The next time we saw a group of kids and their caregiver up ahead, my mother didn’t say a word. She gave my hand a subtle squeeze and that was a sufficient reminder and review of what—and what not—to do. Lesson learned.

There were other lessons I learned from my parents. My late father loved to quote Dale Carnegie, “Don’t criticize, condemn, or complain.”

But most of these lessons were taught without words. My parents treated the few black people they knew, the same as everybody else. No one had to brief me on the subject, or nod at me when we were about to encounter someone with skin a different color, or eyes a different shape from my own. I learned by example that someone’s appearance is not a reason to hate.

This is what I was taught it meant to be a nice person. To understand that people come in all shapes, sizes, and colors, and to refrain from judging them on these things. To treat everyone as you would want to be treated, with respect.

That is how I was raised as a Jewish American from a middle class home. I know that my peers, and certainly my husband, from a remarkably similar background, were raised the same way. And still, here I am, someone who doesn’t trust an entire people, specifically the Arab people. It’s not about their ethnicity, or their color, but the fact that the Arab people have earned our mistrust. Too many times, it was that nice Arab worker who came back to rape and murder their employer.


I don’t trust Arabs and it’s not only about October 7. I didn’t trust Arabs long before that black day. I know of too many examples of trusted Arabs who proved to be terrorist monsters and of too many horrendous examples of Arab terror.

I no longer have to explain this to friends who once said, “I can’t be friends with anyone who says they ‘hate’ Arabs.”


It is sad really, how many of us Israelis feel sad that when it comes to Arabs, we are not able to apply what we learned in our homes about being nice people. We distrust Arabs, even if we don’t know them as individuals and there are no outward signs of anything amiss. With good reason. October 7 being the turning point for many good people.


The Arabs give us no choice. It’s a matter of life or death, this lack of trust. At the same time, not every Arab is untrustworthy. The problem is, there’s no way to know. And if you want to stay alive, it’s better to be safe and mistrust, than trust and be dead.


I have exactly two Arab friends. Or “had.” One of the two is now dead, and still I trust him more than most living people, despite Abu Musa. He found a way to prove his loyalty to me and my people. The other Arab friend is thankfully alive, and has proven his loyalty to the Jewish State a thousand times over (as did his father before him).

The others? In some cases, “trust, but verify” works.

For example, the nice, normal Arab clerk at the desk in dermatology at Hadassah. She’s wearing a hijab, which could be a sign of extremism, but we’re only going to have limited interaction, so I can be “normal” with her. It’s a question, I guess, of good faith. She’s being polite and professional, and deserves to be treated like a normal human being. Sure, she could self-detonate and kill herself and every Jew in the waiting room at any given moment, but me being rude to her probably wouldn’t change her mind.

Two months after October 7, with all of us more suspicious of Arabs, an Arab woman knocked into my husband and made him spill hot coffee on himself. He brushed off his clothes and muttered something under his breath and that would probably have been that. Except that the woman ran after us to apologize profusely, rummaging through her handbag and offering up a package of wet wipes. (I can still see the package in my mind’s eyes, it was an Arab brand of wet wipes we don’t see in our stores. They were lemon-scented.) She was really sorry and she was kind. And she, too, was wearing a hijab.

We would never have seen her again. She didn’t have to run up to us and apologize a gazillion times and try to give Dov her wet wipes. The possibility occurs that in the wake of October 7, she was trying to tell us, “Not all of us support terror. Not all of us are filled with hate and trying to kill you/rape you/torture you/kidnap you/shoot missiles at you/,” and etc.

Or maybe she just wanted everyone in the vicinity to see that, “Oh, look. Here’s a good Arab. They still exist.”

How can I know? How can I possibly know? The answer is I can’t, and that answer comes straight from the lips of a shyster Arab contractor, “Never trust an Arab. Even when he is dead.”  

For all I know Abu Musa himself, is dead. But take his advice to heart. Be he live or be he dead, he’s not to be trusted if you value your life.



Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

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Monday, May 01, 2023

On January 16, 1920, prominent leaders of Nablus - both Muslim and Christian - met in a conference where they pledged, under oath::

(1) To boycott the Jews completely as n counter-measure against their covetous spirit toward this country. 

(2) To refuse them dwelling space in our district, and to binder their admittance thereto in every way. 

(3) To persevere In this boycott and opposition until there remains no trace of the Zionist Idea, or until we perish to the last man. 

(4) To submit this decision to His Excellency the Chief Administrator of the Occupied Territory, and, through the medium of the Allied representatives In Jerusalem, to the delegates of their respective governments at the Peace Conference; and to publish the same in the newspapers for the information of the civilized world, so that It may be understood why the inhabitants of this country are forced to sacrifice their lives for its freedom.

(Seat of the Islamo-Christian Conference at Nablus.] (Signed) Youssuf. 

It was essentially a declaration of unending war against the Jews of Palestine until they returned to being the second class citizens they should be.

This wasn't the only boycott that Palestinian Arabs declared against Jews. 

The fifth "Palestine Arab Congress" in 1922 pledged a boycott of Jewish products and services including the nascent electricity lines being set up by Pinchas Rutenberg, and this was reiterated in at least one successive Congress.

There is not exactly room for compromise here. The Arab leaders said, either Jews remain subjugated under our control, or we keep fighting them forever.

Terrorism and Arab Jew-hatred is not a reaction to Jewish "occupation" or supposed crimes. It pre-dates all of that. And whether it is official or not, the pledge to keep opposing Jewish rights in the Holy Land has never been rescinded.




Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Thursday, August 04, 2022

Yisrael Medad found this ad in Haaretz from 1935:


It says that Ramallah is the nicest place in Eretz Yisrael, and invites people who want to escape the heat and enjoy the clean air to visit the Grand Hotel Ramallah. The hotel featured dances and tennis as well as running water.

I found the equivalent ad in English in the Palestine Post:



It turns out that hotels in Ramallah before 1948 enjoyed holding dance contests on weekends. Here's an ad for the Harb Hotel Kit-Kat Casino from 1933:



The interesting thing is that while these ads attempted to attract Jews to the hotels, the main clientele for the dances was Arab.


Just as in Egypt, the social scene for Arabs in Palestine in the 1930s and 1940s was far more liberal than today. 

The Grand Park Hotel in Ramallah today has a pool, but there are restrictions on who can go, as this 2019 poster (the most recent one I could find) states in the small print:



A woman visiting the hotel alone who wants to swim is out of luck. And you simply cannot find photos of people swimming in that pool because photos of women swimming would cause an uproar. 

A mixed-couples dance is severely restricted under Palestinian rule today - in fact, the rare times it happens, trouble follows, and the dance scene there is mostly under the radar. 

It is ironic that the more conservative Palestinian society becomes, the more "progressive" its supporters are. 




Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

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