Below is a skit from "A Wonderful Country," the Israeli TV comedy show that's been applauded in the US, mocking Israel's effort to resuscitate its image post-Gaza by helping Haiti. It's funny and dark (and shows that our posts on this issue have been legit). The best line is when a comic playing Israeli military correspondent Roni Daniel says that many Haitians have told him it was worth going through the earthquake just to meet the wonderful soldiers from the IDF. Still it weirds me out. The skit ends with a (too-long) bit involving a Haitian in the rubble. The Haitian is played by an Israeli in black-face (you can tell cause his arm is visible). I dont know. It's a little cringe-making.
It underlines a horrifying fact, and yes I know this is an anti-semitic canard, but: Israel and the U.S. are different societies, with different understandings of minority rights. A couple months back, a friend told me, "Obama is routinely referred to as a Cushi by Israelis...it's non stop. We should make a big deal about this word. In the US it would never be used as routinely or casually." Cushi seems to be in between schwartzer and the n-word, not very nice.
Why do you call it an “anti-Semitic canard” to state the plain and undeniable fact that Israel is a racist society?
It’s a culturally ingrained reflex, potsherd. It’s like how Americans more often than not reflexively say we have the best medical care system in the world, generally, as a gut reaction, in spite of the mountain of evidence to the contrary (and for many of those people, including personal experience). I don’t blame Mr. Weiss for expressing it, per se, because he demonstrates plenty of self reflection and empathy to overcome it as a practical consideration.
Of course, in the same token, I dare say you are doing the right thing, by asking that question and prompting self reflection, potsherd.
:” Israel and the U.S. are different societies, with different understandings of minority rights.”
Gosh, if only the North could have dealt with the Confederacy on that basis! Think of all the tragedy which could have been avoided.
These days “Cushi” is clearly a synonym for nigger or schwartza–the latter was clearly a pejorative term for blacks while I lived in various Jewish American communities in and around Chicago for 30 years up to 2002; this video brings the negative meaning up to date:
link to maxblumenthal.com
The Israeli comedy show ventures where American comedians and their agencies fear to tread. The show could never air in the USA. What does this mean? How sad the
USA notion of freedom of speech has become. While there is a clear and vigorous
debate in Israel about its own policies affecting other peoples and nations, and this satire performed in Israel proves it, the contrary is true in the USA. My own country is way sicker than Israel. Americans have become total intellectual sheeple. Our country’s forefathers in heaven must spit on us.
“The Israeli comedy show ventures where American comedians and their agencies fear to tread”
The comedy is used to trivialise the problem. There’s nothing brave about it at all, really.
You guys are projecting again. Yes, Israeli society is MUCH less PC than American society. Yes, Israelis tend to act out (many Americans, especially West Coast, tend to do the opposite – repress) a lot of the dirty stuff that swirls around in our minds. Americans say it all in the safety of their homes or their neighborhood bars, Israelis say the same exact stuff in public – on the street, and – oh my god – on network TV.
It’s also probably helpful to remember that Israel is a very young, still very unsettled country. Like the U.S. of lynching times and through the ’50′s, blood, hate crimes, and racist venting are fresher here. I suggest trying to be a clear eyed anthropologist, evaluating things with local context and conditions in mind, rather than a weissologist. Love from Jerusalem….
(PS – try this one out at your next Chanukah party – why did Hitler kill himself?
…he got the gas bill)
Thank you for sharing, harveystein. Evaluating things with local (American) context and conditions in mind, I see that the USA is not “surrounded by enemies on its borders” and yet the Israeli comedy skit could never be aped on, say, SNL, or by
any stand-up comedian on the CableTV Comedy channel. All born and bred USA stand-up comedians know enough about things here to know that “you don’t fuck
with the Jews.” Some (female comedians) have actually said so, all the while grinning of course. The question is, which Jews? In the USA the only kind that seem to matter
are Israel uber alles American Jews, no matter if they ever even visited Israel on vacation. Israel permits such political satire; over here, it’s a taboo.
The problem is, the USA as a whole is totally invested in, and spending lots of treasure and lives on the Israel First Agenda & this constant, unquestioning investment is making us fools and depriving us of activity in our own best interest and in the interest of of a world ethical/moral order post-Nuremberg –if this situation cannot even be questioned satirically by a comedian or comedic skit here in the USA,
then the USA, and the whole world, are considerably poorer in every way; and, in the long run, this situation will not benefit Jews living anywhere–if that’s somebody’s main concern (Dick Witty types). Jeez, does not anyone who attains power learn from history? I guess it’s too much too expect political leaders and
influencers to ever look beyond their own personal situation. Remember when Dean (with a Jewish wife) was castigated for saying in public that we (USA) need a more balanced foreign policy in the Middle East? I guess Obama learned well; why he kicked the Palestinians to the curb.
…Americans say it all in the safety of their homes or their neighborhood bars
That’s probably because that’s what YOUR family did in the safety of their home while they lived in the US. So you assume that everyone in the US (or the majority) behave and feel this way.
Have you any data to support that claim, or are you going to whitewash the racism that’s prevalent in Israel today with “it was worse in the US in the 60s and now they do it in private…PC……PC”?
By the way, do you speak Hebrew that you can claim that you do in fact understand what’s going on around you in Jerusalem?
As an aside, I’m curious (you don’t have to divulge), were you born in Israel, or did you get naturalized based on a work visa or through marriage to an Israeli?
I thought it was a good sketch, insightful political commentary.
But I mostly(and automatically) interpreted racist cues as being used ‘referential style’, you know,
as in this Obama cover: link to wired.com
. As Avi points out, Harvey puts it all in a different light…
Screw you harveystein, that sure as hell wasn’t what happened in my home, asshole!
My parents may have had some faults, but bigotry was one thing they made sure to teach us was wrong.
So you are basically saying that Israel will be much better when they kill off everyone who is in the way?
“I suggest trying to be a clear eyed anthropologist”
You don’t know very much about anthropology, do you? And by the way, we are not being asked to look dispassionately on these little racial foibles of the Israelis, we are asked here in America to pay for it all to give them the money, the remittances which make it possible.
“clear-eyed anthropologist’, my foot! It’s apologetics you want, not anthropology.
The Israeli media is much more open about describing her racist attitudes and the truth about the oppression of her Palestinian citizens than is the US media for one simple reason. The Israeli people — left, right and center — know perfectly well what is going on. Why hide what everyone knows. In the US, on the other hand, many Israeli supporters would be absolutely appalled if they knew of the racism. It would make it very difficult to sustain American support for Israeli policies. This is the audience that must be protected from the truth.
The countries are not the same. They have different creation myths. Different strengths and different weaknesses. And they have different histories. If I understand correctly, Israel is theoretically a democracy with extreme emphasis on party politics. It has a very strong socialist history to it to the point we could use the phrase “socialist utopia”. The US has a lot of democratic trappings, but is not a true democracy. It is a duopoly? based on individual politics. If a word could be applied to its history it would be individualistic. That the media in Israel appears to be more open does not provide enough to compare the two countries. They are not the same, and they will fall apart in different ways.
One of the things party politics does, I think, is provide better news. As with the first gulf war, Canada had limited coverage critical to the war where the US has no coverage critical. The difference I think was that in side the halls of power Canada had a political party that was critical of the war. This “created” news. This was the difference between a two party and a multi party system that Canada sort of has.
It is the problem of equating Israel with Nazi Germany. Sometimes the comparisons write themselves, but the countries are not the same and we fail to realize that at our own risk.
Edwin your analysis seems valid but it really does not answer the primary question I raised: Why is coverage of the IP conflict more thoroughly covered in Israel than in the US? The answer, to a large part is based on American Jews having to a large extent repressed from their conscience the truth of Israeli racism. The mechanism for suppressing these stories in the American press is through threatened consumer boycotts — boycotts that are lead by the same people who are actively protecting themselves from the truth of the situation.
I think that guilt plays a big part of the success of censorship.
At this point I am not completely comfortable with your conclusions, but do not know where to go. I suspect that the medium of the blog is not suitable for discovery, and I probably need to read a few books.
Besides it isn’t that important I think so I will shut up.
The mechanism is something that is easily observable and I agree with you. It is not just conformity of the US media. It is conformity that is social and internal as well. I recently discovered I had a distant cousin whom everyone thought was dead for decades. There was a funeral and everything. Seems that she converted to Catholicism. Informally (the rabbi refused to hold the funeral) happed to my parents with the result that I do not know most of my father’s side of the family.
Blackface is a specifically American sensibility, for obvious historical reasons. From an Israeli perspective, I see nothing particularly objectionable about the last part of the sketch.
Having said that, “kushi” is indeed not a nice word even in an Israeli context, and when used in reference to Obama, it is knowingly intended to belittle him as a black man, and as such is clearly racist. Kofi Anan underwent similar treatment when he pissed some Israelis off as SG (“kof”, in Hebrew, means monkey – figure it out).
Hell, I didn’t see anything ‘particularly objectionable about the last part of the sketch’ being played in blackface, either. How was a Haitian supposed to be represented? And the best barbs were in that section.
The United States started to move toward becoming a true democracy in the years following the civil rights movement, when African Americans were granted de jure equality before the law. Remember, that until the 1920s, women did not have the right to vote.
These days, gay marriage is testing the American political system. Will this system move forward to becoming a democracy in the true sense of the word, or will the gay minority continue to face discrimination?
The preceding part addresses equality before the law. It’s brief, I know.
Now, given the government’s invasive wiretapping laws, the passage of the Patriot Act and other post 9/11 legislation, it could be said that the US has moved closer to fascism (See Naomi Wolf’s 10 Steps: link to guardian.co.uk
Moving on to Israel.
Israel has no constitution. Instead, Israel relies on a collection of legislation known as Basic Law. Basic Law covers issues pertaining to immigration, land ownership and privacy among other things. Now, when one examines these laws, since the founding of the state in 1948 until today, we find that in terms of immigration and land/property ownership the Palestinian citizens of the state have been not only discriminated against, but in most cases completely excluded from the protections afforded to Jewish citizens and non-citizens.
Finally, judging any political system based solely on the legislative body’s is rather incongruous.
On a social level, those who care to know, will find that there are currently vast differences between the two societies, both in the public sphere and the private sphere.
If election results are any indication, and they usually are, then looking at the recent elections in the US and then in Israel should shed some light as to the general attitude of the nation.
As you know, in 2008, Obama, an African American (he’s half Caucasian too, I know) won the presidential elections. This was a momentous occasion where for the first time in the history of the US, a non-White man is elected to the highest office.
Similarly, if we looked at statistics from topics dealing with torture and/or rendition, we find that the numbers ranged from 60% in the period after 9/11 to the 40% mark in recent years.
Of course, neither torture nor rendition are clear indicators of the prevalence of racism, but nonetheless, when the individuals being subjected to torture or rendition are thought of as foreign and threatening, as non-white and non-Christian, then it is safe to say that those numbers can be useful for the purposes of this discussion.
In contrast, when one looks at the 2009 election results in Israel and the results of the Israeli polls in which people were asked “Would you rent an apartment or live in the same building to an Arab”? The results show an overwhelming trend of bigotry, with some polls exceeding the 70% mark.
Even if one looks at election results in places like Tel-Aviv where the “supposedly” liberal Kadima won a majority, it doesn’t change the fact that Kadima was the same party in power that unleashed the hell on Gaza in the weeks before the Israeli elections. And, as to add insult to injury, during that 22 day attack on Gaza, Israeli newspapers showed a 94% margin of support among Israelis for the actions of their own government in Gaza.
I would like to have written a longer and more thorough post, but keeping it short will probably make it more palpable.
One of the requirements of democracy is that there must be a mechanism for opposition to the existing political powers. One must have the right to question and challenge the government with the realistic possibility to gain access to the halls of power, and to potentially become the government in the future.
In simpler language, the ability to form new political parties with meaningful chance to be elected for there to be a democracy. This is not present in the US system. Political power is contained between two spheres – the republican party and the democratic party. People on the outside are relegated to the left wing of the democratic party or the right wing of the republian party. Left wing democrats know the extreme problems of getting the democratic party to listen to their views. They have been mostly frozen out of the halls of power. There voices will never be heard, not because they are so marginal that it would not make sense to hear them, but because the US system tends to limit expression to “mainstream” views – or more precisely, the status quo. Democracy is not for them.
This, if I am not mistaken is not a case of where the system is at right now, but rather this is how the system works and is designed to work. It is not an abuse of the system.
From a theoretical standpoint – the US is not a democracy though it has democratic components to its makeup. We can say that the US is “more democratic” when it treats gays as equals, but fundamentally, the US system is not democratic.
The US will never move towards becoming a true democracy as long as it is a two party system.
All valid points with the exception of the first paragraph; one could have a direct democratic structure and still not truly be democratic, if certain groups are excluded entirely from the debate.
In other words, you’re comparing apples and oranges. In the US, various groups – you mentioned the far left as an example – have very little to no access to positions of power or the ability to effect change from their end.
But, at the very least, the constitution, at least on paper, grants everyone in the 50 states equal rights and protection under the law.
The same, cannot be said of Israel, despite its parliamentary system, which you have yet to address given – may I remind you – that this thread follows a comparison between the two countries, both politically and socially.
Direct democracy, as the US experience has shown can be done in a way that prevents the ability of minority positions to be stated. I wouldn’t go so far as to describe the disenfranchised of the US as “far left”. Left will do. Hell. Liberal will also do. The size of this group has varied quite a bit, but is partly small by the nature of being marginalized. It is probably why the US is still struggling so hard with universal medicare for example. The existence of even a small left wing in power in Canada was enough to make universal medicare a reality.
I was somewhat confused by your original post. I would not wish Israel to be seen as a democratic state. How could it be by the simple fact of approaching a majority of Israeli citizens have been stripped of their citizenship and driven out of the country or in other ways disenfranchised in order to prevent them from participating in their country? I don’t disagree what what you have written at all about Israel. You are quite right about the need to include more than just the process of elections to judge whether a country is a democracy, and to do a full comparison.
What I was trying to compare was a very narrow process of elections. The US, as an early experiment in democracy is fundamentally not a democracy – ignoring its current status as borderline fascist state. (thanks for the Naomi Wolf ref. Found link to afterdowningstreet.org
and listened to it.) Perhaps with the latest where Obama has set up a hit list for assassinations that includes Americans the borderline part may need revision.)
It doesn’t matter what the US does with regards to human rights. The process of producing checks and balances on the power citizens themselves to engage in democracy limits the US from ever being truly democratic unless the electoral process itself is fundamentally changed.
There is very little in Israel that is democratic. I would agree. My understanding of fascism would place Israel clearly under the category of fascist state. The one vestige of democracy from the failed democracy (my understanding of what fascism is) is the very narrow theoretical process that Israel uses. I used the word theoretical because it is not something that actually exists at the current time – but it does underpin the electoral system in such a way as to be an obstacle to be gotten around – by banning political parties for example.
Hopefully this clarifies things – at least enough to provide a better understanding of where to criticize what I wrote.
==========================
The point is well taken.
The USA today is a plutocracy by virtue of its electoral campaign finance system; the US Supreme Ct case recently affirming corporations as legal
persons for First Amendment purposes fully supports this USA character state.
If fascism is the the full partnership of the state, corporations, and the MSM,
then the US is also a classical fascist state. More the original Italian version (where Italian Jews were welcome; jumped on the Mussolini bandwagon)
than the Nazi version; the latter being also a legally racist/ethnocentric state.
So what is Israel? The nearest model seems to be Nazi Germany–but minus
the one-party system. And minus the USA’s de facto two-party system.
That was great, Avi!
How was a Haitian supposed to be represented?
lots of (black) ethiopian jews in israel.
great skit. here’s a video:Doctors Without Borders: Haiti Aid Planes refused landings interviewing someone from doctors without borders describing how the american military would not let them land at the beginning of the crisis.
more
The inflatable hospital included two operating theaters, an intensive care unit, 100 beds, an emergency room and equipment for sterilizing material. The supplies had to be sent by truck, so the hospital didn’t arrive in Haiti until a day later.
To be fair, a plane carrying supplies for the other half of the field hospital did arrive in Port-au-Prince on Sunday. But for a while even that looked sketchy. And as Isabelle Jeanson, an MSF Emergency Communications Officer wrote in an email from Haiti on Sunday: “MSF is still concerned that delivery of vital supplies is being delayed.”
i think there was some coordination going on to make sure israel was the first to set up. france formally complianed and then walked it back 2 days later.
according to the video doctors without borders had nine planes.
annie: lots of (black) ethiopian jews in israel.
Blackface really is a non-issue in Israel (and in Europe for that matter). On the other hand, casting an Ethiopian actor/comedian when they needed to portray a “Haitian”, might have raised some eyebrows and ruffled some feathers. I’m sure you’ve heard black actors complaining that they’d really like to do something besides Othello, perps and miserable third-worlders. The smaller and more marginalised a black minority in a given society, the worse it is.
On the other hand, casting an Ethiopian actor/comedian when they needed to portray a “Haitian”, might have raised some eyebrows and ruffled some feathers.
Many Ethiopian Israeli lawyers, for example, complain of severe discrimination citing statistic after statistic of disparities between their racial group and non-Ethiopian Jews.
So, in a way, it would have been nice to have seen an Ethiopian man, not necessarily for this skit, but on the show in general, as a regular member of the cast. Put a personal face to these minority groups that have no voice.
Israelis as a whole do not appear to be ashamed of being called kosher crackers.
Avi’s link to:
(See Naomi Wolf’s 10 Steps: link to guardian.co.uk
is very worth watching. America is truly becoming more Fascist by the day. (see SCOTUS relaxation of campaign funding by corporations).
So is Britain. I will be travelling to Spain in February via a British airport, Gatwick, which involves, technically, entry into Britain. (The ongoing flight leaves from the same airport, but from a different section). I am really quite concerned about how I may be treated. This will be my first visit back to Britain (or Spain) since 2006.
Britain is also introducing full body scanners, and I am also worried that recordings of my miserable dick will be widely available.
Yep, Richard Parker, from what I see I agree with you–and I have not even read
Naomi’s 10-Steps yet.
Israel has free newspapers, and free television, neither of which are available in the US now.
The link that Phil gave to the comedy show critique in the NYTimes (dated 2006) says it all:
link to nytimes.com
No such satire would be allowed in the US, although ‘The Simpsons’ does sometimes get near the line.
As for PC, I have been castigated for using the word ‘nigger’ in this forum, even though I have clearly used it in a context where it should have been obvious that the original use was by other people. I will continue to do so.
I spend a lot of time here arguing with foreign resident racists who categorise the local people as ‘Flips’ or ‘Fillos’, who they generally assume to be feckless, lazy, and thieves. Just like niggers, really.
The black American Vietnam veteran who runs the nearby music bar (with available whores) is known (by both local Filipinos and foreigners) as the Nigra.
Richard,
From the link you posted (emphasis mine):
The show drew inspiration in part from “Saturday Night Live” and “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” Mr. Segev said. The writers are in their late 20′s and early 30′s, a generation that came of age in the 1990′s, when an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict appeared possible. They cut their teeth on Israeli late-night television, with apolitical humor.
Previous satirical shows, like “Hartzufim” of the 1990′s, an Israeli version of the groundbreaking British satirical puppet show “Spitting Image,” helped pave the way.
I think you also have to include “South Park” as an inspiration as well. The Israeli skit above reminded me of many of the skits on the Daily Show covering the Iraq War. Again, the only taboo, that only the Daily Show has very meekly skirted is anything to do with Israel/Palestine, the “mobius-strip”(only one side) of conflicts in US perception, as Jon Stewart referred to it.
There are a few cartoon shows that are very satirical here in the USA–but one cow is still sacred even as to them: Israel. Also, anything that would tend to paint Jews
with any of the characteristics dwelled on by the likes of Julius Streicher.
The Israeli show satirized the Gaza Turkey Shoot while it was going on:
link to able2know.org
How many Palestinians will Europe allow us to kill? Italy: 800, Germany: 6,000… IDF artillery shooting blindly into Gaza…. Hometeam 4, Visitors 500…
Makes The Daily Show look insipid, huh?
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