Heritage Lesson

Salman Masalha

Heritage Lesson

Here is a civics lesson about the Zionist heritage, which has recently basked in the limelight of another government decision.

It has often been observed that poetry and lies have much in common, and this also applies to the state of Israel's founding document - the Declaration of Independence. It will "foster," it told me, "the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants... it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants." The document also calls upon "the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel" - not the "members of minorities," so beloved by the Zionist media - "to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions."
However, since its establishment the state has not kept its promise. It continues to conduct itself like a Zionist occupation regime on every inch of the land. True, the military government has been lifted and "the Arab inhabitants" are usually free to move around in their homeland and even send representatives to the Knesset - but this is the sum total of the equality that was formulated and promised.
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The alienation between Arabs and Jews can be seen everywhere. It has not arisen solely in the context of the national conflict, but is rather a result of an establishment policy which has expropriated Arabs' lands to build communities "for Jews only" and has pushed the Arab inhabitants into localities under an "ethno-Zionist siege" on all sides.

The Israel Police, which is responsible for maintaining public law and order, provides the most blatant evidence that the Israeli regime behaves as if it is a foreign regime. It abandons the Arab localities to the rule of criminal gangs, intervening only when concern arises that the crime might spill over into Jewish locales. The Arab alienation from the police - a symbol of the regime - is apparent, among other things, in the absence of Arabic writing on police vehicles. How does an Arab citizen feel about a police force that appears in his community, but does not include any writing in his language? Does this not symbolize, more than anything else, that the police represent an occupation regime, a foreign regime? How would the inhabitant of some Jewish locale feel if there were no writing in Hebrew on police vehicles, but only a foreign language?

The alienation is also evident with regard to the central government. This is the only democratic country in the world where one-fifth of the citizens - who are declared to have equal rights, at least on paper - have no representation in the government or in "provisional and permanent institutions." And this is the case even before we start talking about budgetary allocations, master plans, the building of cities and communities, education, culture, industrialization and more.

This national alienation is evident in the apartheid reflected throughout the media. Anyone watching talk shows on television will immediately notice a balance in terms of the guests in the studio: There is a religious person and a secular person, a settler and someone from Peace Now. Only the Arab citizen is absent from every discourse.

Were the Arab Knesset members blessed with any imagination, they would pull the words "on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions" out of the Declaration of Independence and formulate them into a bill. After all, what makes a malicious Jewish populist any better than a malicious Arab populist? There is no dearth of Arab populists who would feel right at home with the Jewish populists in the studios or on ministerial committees. If the proposal is accepted, we will advance the principle of equality. If it is rejected, we will have exposed the lies and deceit of those who take the name of the Declaration of Independence in vain.

***

Published in: Haaretz, March 3, 2010

For Hebrew, press here

The Arab Holy of Holies

Salman Masalha


The Arab Holy of Holies


Last Saturday (February 7, 2010) a demonstration against violence towards women in Arab society was held in Nazareth, at the initiative of the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee. It isn’t every day that Arab women win reinforcements in the shape of marchers from the entire spectrum of Arab politics in Israel. The ink on the placards carried in the procession had barely dried when reports were published of yet another woman who was killed.

Some say “family honor killings” in Arab society is another variation of violence towards women. However, it is impossible to ignore the fact that while in other societies the murderers are husbands or lovers, who commit the murder in a context foolishly called “romantic,” in Arab society these crimes are committed by brothers, fathers and male cousins as well. Arab intellectuals, who evade responsibility by equating the two phenomena, fall into trap that locates them in a dark corner: Stipulating an equivalency between the two phenomena obliges them to explain what is “romantic” about the murder of a woman by her brother, her father or some other male relative.

To get tot the root of the problem it suffices to read an article Sheikh Kamal Khatib, deputy head of the Islamic Movement in Israel, wrote in January of 2007. The article reflects the prevailing norm in many levels of Arab society, in all the communities – Muslims, Druze and to a lesser extent Christian. Khatib harshly attacked the demand to defend women’s rights and compared it to colonialist conspiracies.

Khattib’s remarks came in response to an article written by attorney Samar Khamis of the Adalah Legal Center for Minority Rights in Israel. She spoke about the oppression of the Arab woman and gave as an example forced marriages and the sanctification of virginity. “The call to revoke the sanctity of virginity,” wrote Khattib, “is tantamount to slashing with a dagger and crudely attacking our religious, moral and national holy of holies.” What angered Khattib more that anything else was the existence of the Aswat (Voices) organization of Arab gay women: “What service do such women give apart from corrupting, destroying and abandoning our people’s morality, image and identity?” thundered Khattib in his article.

The perception that loads the entire burden of “Arab honor” onto women’s shoulders draws its strength from the tribal structure, which is the main obstacle to the society’s development. The roots of the problem lie, on the one hand, in the total lack of understanding of the essence of masculinity, and on the other hand in the fact that the Arab male lives in a state of cultural, religious, social and political oppression. The battered Arab man has grown up in an oppressive tribal structure in which he seeks out the weakest link in order to beat it, oppress it and even murder it. In this way he relieves his frustration by loading his “lost personal honor” onto the woman’s shoulders.

The deep meaning of this outlook is that none other than the Arab man himself denies himself his personal honor. Since he is also denied his social, cultural and political honor he finds, in a circuitous and also cowardly way, a substitute for demonstrating his masculine honor. This is in the extremely low way of demonstrating superiority towards the Arab woman.

In order to bring about a change there is a need for a revolution of consciousness, the aim of which is to liberate the Arab male from the oppression in which he is sunk. Education, both in the home and at school, must transmit the perception that honor stems from the individual himself. The individual’s personal honor is connected solely to the individual himself and no other individual has any connection to this honor. The distorted perception of male honor is what is destroying Arab society and these issues necessitate profound and courageous discussion.

It has been my good fortune to number among my best friends some Arab lesbians. I can say that the contribution these women make to society is far greater that that of many Arab men, whose entire maleness boils down to puffing their chests and growing mustaches.

***

Published in Hebrew:
Special to Haaretz Online, February 11, 2010,
***For French, press hereFor Hebrew, press here
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