I hope you all looked at the video Adam posted last night, made by Israelis parodying the Palestinian-solidarity movement behind the flotilla. Watch the credits roll at the end, and you it looks like all the Arabs and Muslims in the parody are played by Jews.
In this sense it is like the popular but verboten radio show in the US before the civil rights movement: the Amos 'n Andy show, in which the black roles were played by white people, for a while anyway. Black people hated this show. The NAACP tried to get it off the air. Wikipedia says it stopped right after the civil rights act, 1966.
I don't think the producers of the flotilla parody had any choice but to hire Jews to play the non-Jews. Israel is a Jewish society. Part of the pleasure of visiting Israel for American Jews, famously, is we go over there and the bus drivers are Jewish, the peddlers are Jewish, the garbagemen are Jewish.
There are more Palestinians in Israeli society (20 percent) than there were blacks in American society during Amos 'n Andy (15 percent), but the Palestinians are second-class citizens. They are not required to serve in the military, and very few do. Their political parties are NEVER invited into the governing coalitions, which is why the Jewish Labor party ends up making coalitions with the far right wing. They're all Jewish! So 1/5 of the population is excluded from the government!
More Amos'n-Andy-ism:
Max Ajl posted this video (the second one down) from the Knesset meeting yesterday with translations of some of the things said to the Palestinian Member of Knesset Hanin Zuabi after she returned from the flotilla. One of the quotes:
"The blue and white flag is yours. You are in the Jewish state even if your bowels turn. The hatikva is your national anthem even if your heart twists/is aghast. And if you don’t like it - drink the sea of Gaza." -Arieh Eldad (National Union).
There were times in the U.S. when such vitriol was aimed at black people.
Yes, they do all seem to be Jews, and yet they are so not funny. Strange times indeed.
Guess there are Jewish Joe The Plumber types, at least where they are the ruling power and demographically bigger. Does Israel have a Daily Show? Is the anchor an Israeli Arab?
“Does Israel have a Daily Show? Is the anchor an Israeli Arab?”
Israeli political satire shows on TV? Shmuel, and others would know, I would think.
But it seems to be almost a platitude that the scope of political discussion (if not the scope of power) in Israel is wider than it is in the US media concerning Zionism and Israel.
Israeli TV, much like Israeli society, is segregated.
Historically, up until the early 1990s, there was one TV channel in Israel, surprisingly called Channel 1 ;)
Channel 1 is a government run TV channel through the Rashut Ha-shidoor, the Israeli Broadcast Authority.
Then in the early 1990s, Channel 2 started experimental broadcasts and later was jointly run by three major private companies that shared the broadcast schedule.
On Channel 1, the vast majority of shows are hosted by Jewish hosts. Then there are shows that are dedicated to the Arabic speaking population in Israel, which amount to about 1 hour a day, to include news and an entertainment show (comedy, variety, popular culture etc.). Fridays were somewhat different as Channel 1 would broadcast an Arabic-speaking Egyptian movie in the early evening. Ironically, those movies were also a hit among many Mizrahi Jews.
As far as Channel 2 is concerned, the broadcasts were 100% in Hebrew, by Jewish hosts. That may have changed in recent years, but I can’t say one way or the other. Channel 2 is a commercially run channel, so its programming is mostly driven by the market.
Of course, there are cable and satellite TV channels that cater to a wide range of viewership, however. They too reflect the kind of programming that is typical of Channel 1 above.
I keep trying to point out this comparison to the Afro-American community.
No self-respecting Zionist party in Israel would include an Arab party in a governing coalition. In the postwar South, the Democratic party packed blacks into Congressional districts, allowing them to elect black congressmen, who were then isolated, ignored, and totally ineffective in Congress.
The problem is not only that Jews were playing Arabs (and Turks I assume), but that they portray them in the classic stereotypes of bloodthirsty buffoons. This truly is what Amos ‘n Andy looks like in 2010.
Also, anyone else astonished at how this whole situation is just a big laugh for them? Would they be making funny videos if Jews had died?
Shockingly racist Ha’aretz 1973 cartoon about Idi Amin and black Africans on page 68 of Sasha Polakow-Suransky’s The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa .
Ha’aretz is a great newspaper today, but I would hesitate to call a newspaper that could publish that kind of cartoon a great newspaper back then. Mind you, I wasn’t reading it back then.
Of course it was Jews playing Arabs! Did you see how they said “The Khamas” instead of “Hamas”? No Arab would say “the” Hamas or pronounce the “H” as a “Kh”. Or act like a bloodthirsty buffoon for the amusement of Israelis (one would hope). Or many other obvious indicators.
This was clearly and self-consciously racist, although of course they don’t see it in terms of racism but in terms of the world’s hypocrisy in attacking Israel when all they did was murder nine unarmed civilians in international waters — I mean, who the hell wouldn’t kill a buncha scary brown people coming to threaten the legitimacy of Israel’s sacredly pure policies?
Of course, it takes a huge load of internalized racism to see the world like that, and to shrug off the murder of aid workers with inept attempts at lame humor. This is just another symptom of their utter (and apparently proud) break with reality.
25 years ago, Israelis urged South Africans to be hypocritical.
From pages 162-63 of Sasha Polakow-Suransky, The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa:
Says a lot about Israel today, I think.