We are ‘unwilling for an Arab to date a girl from among our people’: Israeli org uses Zion Square lynching to push racist agenda

Israel/Palestine
on 39 Comments
flyers
The racist Lahava flyer being distributed in Jerusalem

Israel’s Alternative Information Center (AIC) and +972 are both reporting on another racist flyer being distributed by Lahava , The Organisation for the Prevention of Assimilation in the Holy Land. The threatening flier warns Palestinians (“Arabs”) against “visiting Jerusalem malls or the pedestrian street….this isn’t the place for you.” The reason? Allegedly to protect Jewish women from contact with ‘Arabs’.

Haggai Matar at +972 reports NGO Ir Amim has filed a complaint to police against Lehava, accusing it in incitement to racism and violence.  All this comes on the heels of the August 16th Zion Square lynching in which attackers claimed their victims were trying to talk to a Jewish girl, a claim the victim has refuted.

Haggai Matar at +972  translates Lehava’s flyer.

Dear Arab guy:

We don’t want you to get hurt!

Our daughters are valuable to us,

and just as you would not want a Jew to date your sister

we unwilling are also unwilling for an Arab to date a girl from among our people.

Just as you would do anything to stop a Jew from dating your sister – so do we!

If you are thinking of visiting Jerusalem malls or the pedestrian street [Midrechov] with the intention of dating Jewish girls – this isn’t the place for you.

You may walk around in your own village freely and find girlfriends there, not here!

Last week an Arab who thought he might find Jewish girls got hurt.

We don’t wish for you to get hurt,

So respect our daughters’ honor

As we mind it dearly!

Lehava organization    [email protected]

Yesterday Noam Sheizaf offered a background on the promotion of ethnic segregation in Israel, emphasizing on preventing relations between Jewish girls and Palestinian men.

The holy war against Arab-Jewish relations and the Jerusalem lynch:

The most vocal is Lehava, an NGO that calls upon citizens to inform them of any case of mixed marriage or relationship. Their low-tech internet site, filled with racism and hate-talk, has a section titled “shame page,” which features the pictures of women, mostly public figures, who are in relationships with non-Jews. The head of Lehava, a Kahanist called Bentzi Gopstein, said today that the Jerusalem attackers “have raised Jewish honor from the floor and did what the police should have done.”

……….

A flyer warning the public about an Arab who threatens to “defame” Jewish girls, distributed in a Jerusalem neighborhood in 2011.

The holy war against interracial relationships has been central to the agenda of racist groups throughout modern history. In many places, the first to suffer from attacks (and later, laws) were Jews. An attempt to introduce laws against intermarriage was the main reason the Knesset rejected Jewish supremacist Meir Kahane in the 1980s. At the time, Justice Shamgar wrote that such ideas “remind us of the worst persecution in Jewish history.”

As it turns out, a prescient reminder.

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Mock poster in German by Amir Schiby

Matar reports the latest Lahava poster has been circulating on Facebook, gathering many supporters as well as critics who have  “compared its content to Nazi agendas”. This poster in German is a translation of  Lahava’s text, tauntingly directed at Jewish men.

This is not an issue we can expect to fade anytime soon. There is another poster at +972  by Israeli artist Zoya Cherkassky, calling on Jewish men to “not meddle in women’s decisions on whom to date,” recommended.

About Annie Robbins

Annie Robbins is Editor at Large for Mondoweiss, a mother, a human rights activist and a ceramic artist. She lives in the SF bay area. Follow her on Twitter @anniefofani

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Israel/Palestine

39 Responses

  1. Shegetz
    August 22, 2012, 6:31 pm

    Ah, your timing is perfect Annie. Thanks!

    While I find that incidents like the recent attack in Zion Square do indeed say something about what some people may believe is appropriate behaviour, I don’t think it follows necessarily that such events speak much about the country or the culture as a whole.

    I find what tends to be more telling is the reaction of the general public and media, and what questions get asked or not asked.

    In this spirit, I headed over to The Jerusalem Post. Oh my. Here’s the article they have up on this exact issue.

    Far-right group warns Arabs not to flirt with Jews
    http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=282200

    Read some of the comments. It’s quite enlightening, well in a dark, scary, morbid sort of way….

    • Annie Robbins
      August 22, 2012, 6:44 pm

      thanks for the link shegetz, i will check it out. i saw it first at 972 and did not know it had hit the msm yet. thank goodness for 972 and AIC, the lead the local news on israel as far as i am concerned. will check the comments now. i think the rghtwng is far more of a threat to israel than they perceive. youth with these morals is…the death of a nation.

      • Shegetz
        August 22, 2012, 6:59 pm

        “will check the comments now”

        Hope you have a strong stomach and a bottle of codeine handy for the resulting headache. ;p

      • Annie Robbins
        August 22, 2012, 10:11 pm

        those comments are unbelievable. i guess they don’t have any moderation over there.

      • seafoid
        August 23, 2012, 4:07 am

        I don’t think anyone is in charge in Israel. The rhetoric of the settlers about “leftists” is going to lead to murders.

      • Shegetz
        August 23, 2012, 7:29 am

        The follow-up is just as much fun:

        Lynching victim’s mother: I pity the attackers

        The really creepy comments are those that start out denouncing the attack, or wishing Jamal a speedy recovery … then it’s a sharp about-face a sentence or two later … either into blaming the victim, blaming the ‘arab-squatters’ in general as the real inciters, or the most bizarre one:

        Reb_Yaakov

        I hope this boy makes a complete recovery.

        I am bothered by some of the language of this article. The title indicates that the boy is a lynching victim. “To lynch” means to put to death, so to call him a “lynching victim” is inappropriate.

        He was said to be “brutally” attacked. I think we can determine the nature of the attack on our own, so why is it necessary to use an animal pejorative to describe the attack? Do non-human animals generally attack out of hatred?

        The boy’s father is described as a “kind-faced, blueeyed man.” I would rather know what he is like than be given superficial information about his appearance. Are blue-eyed people nicer or kinder than brown-eyed people? Is that why it’s important to note this? Perhaps that kind of mindset explains why Jesus was often depicted with a northern European appearance instead of the swarthy appearance that Jews of 2,000 years ago manifested. I just think that creating this kind of imagery is especially inappropriate for a news article.

  2. Blake
    August 22, 2012, 6:39 pm

    Surely it should be the choice of the girl though I cannot imagine why any Palestinian would want to put their lives in danger though by putting themselves through such trauma. Speaking with a Palestinian female friend inside “Israel”, she said no one she knows would even think of such a thing. They would be frowned upon inside their community so will basically be considered an outcast.

    • Annie Robbins
      August 22, 2012, 6:46 pm

      blake, they are using this excuse to cleanse the streets of ‘undesirables’. “We don’t want you to get hurt!” my a**.

      not to come to west Jerusalem’s malls or public areas to meet a girl is code for ‘do not come to west Jerusalem’s malls or public areas.’

  3. Tzombo
    August 22, 2012, 6:51 pm

    The German is awful, Google Translate?

  4. lysias
    August 22, 2012, 7:01 pm

    I wonder how blacks in this country can be made aware of this Jim Crowism in Israel/Palestine.

  5. lysias
    August 22, 2012, 7:03 pm

    Any poster in German has got to have the word Rassenschande. Also the equivalent of rein arisch (rein jüdisch?).

  6. ColinWright
    August 22, 2012, 7:05 pm

    The JP Comments column is actually more significant than the flyer itself.

    I ran down it when there were forty posts. Twenty seven of them expressed approval.

    “Yup. Kill them first if they so much as look at a Jewish girl in the wrong way or try to violate her modesty!”

    They’re serious. Interesting to see if the JP throws up something justifying the lynch.

  7. seanmcbride
    August 22, 2012, 7:41 pm

    Someone should collect all the hate speech from the Jerusalem Post, Ynet News, the Jewish Press and similar publications. There is a torrent of it. In fact this extreme hate speech almost seems to define the essence of contemporary Zionism. It would be interesting to analyze it in depth.

  8. elephantine
    August 22, 2012, 7:54 pm

    I guess the sexism shouldn’t be too surprising considering all the racism…kind of goes well together. When you think you’re superior, you find all kinds of possible ways to stand apart and above everyone else, I guess. Still, it’s pretty revolting.

    What did that Minister say? Israel belongs to the white man? They really mean it literally, I guess. Not brown or black people and not even white women. The. white. man. With Bibi as King of the Castle. Well, isn’t that lovely. What century do this bigots live in anyway?!

    • straightline
      August 22, 2012, 8:30 pm

      So what about Obama? Would he qualify to be allowed in?

      • elephantine
        August 22, 2012, 9:19 pm

        Oh they might let him in…but they better not catch him anywhere near a nice Jewish girl. He’s been warned!!

        Obama’s already got his plate full (of racists) at home anyway.

      • ColinWright
        August 22, 2012, 9:44 pm

        “So what about Obama? Would he qualify to be allowed in?”

        Have you ever thought about just why it is that Israeli Jews hate him so? It really is a bit inexplicable otherwise.

  9. Ranjit Suresh
    August 22, 2012, 9:49 pm

    It’s edifying to compare the comments on the Jerusalem Post or Ynet’s sites and the comments on American right-wing websites. Take your pick with the latter. Even if you look at one of the most virulently race-baiting American political sites like Breitbart.com (which of course is also militantly Zionist), the comments are not on average as bigoted and racially supremacist as those on the Israeli sites.

    As a matter of fact, real counterparts to comments on JP or Ynet can’t even be found in all white nationalist websites. Some, like Occidental Observer and David Duke’s site, are staid in comparison.

    Basically, you can only find analogous hate on extreme sites like Stormfront. That is Israel’s company today. Now, bear in mind one is an outcast fringe of American politics. The other is the most powerful lobby in Washington, the major power in the Middle East, and the ideological impetus for perpetual war.

    • ColinWright
      August 22, 2012, 10:02 pm

      “…Basically, you can only find analogous hate on extreme sites like Stormfront. That is Israel’s company today. Now, bear in mind one is an outcast fringe of American politics. The other is the most powerful lobby in Washington, the major power in the Middle East, and the ideological impetus for perpetual war.”

      …and heavily equipped with nuclear weapons and delivery systems. The absurd part is how she claims her opponents are the threat. Like Nazi Germany protecting us from the Czech menace.

      • American
        August 22, 2012, 11:34 pm

        It’s not the hate screechers that worry me…it’s the cold blooded ‘justifiers’ with a false veneer of intelligence like Zell and the Ayan Rand ‘business-men” who ‘strategize’ for Greater Israel like the settler leader profiled.

      • Sibiriak
        August 23, 2012, 2:55 am

        Lol!

    • seafoid
      August 23, 2012, 6:35 am

      Israel is a colony at perpetual war with its neighbours. It will naturally have more hate speech. White nationalism is a game for inadequates. Colonies run for the needs of the military are different. It isn’t a game. It’s all most of the people in the colony know.

      White nationalists aren’t indoctrinated en masse at school like Zionists are. They have to observe the rules of social acceptability followed by lay people. Zionists don’t.

      White nationalists do not have their own language which is set to a certain worldview where others are deemed inferior. Zionists do.

      White nationalists must compete with more tolerant memes in the wider society. This mechanism appears to be breaking down in Israel.

  10. chuckcarlos
    August 22, 2012, 11:17 pm

    damn right…

    next thing you know all them damn arabians will be trying to steal precious bodily fluids…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NwRDVddyGc

    all 1/4 of humanity of them damn towel wearin moslems…can’t trust them, no how…first they want to live next door, next thing you know they’ll want to borrow some flour or sugar for a cake…and then they want to go to your dance party…

  11. ColinWright
    August 23, 2012, 1:55 am

    Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

    Hebron stages its weekly ‘running over of the child.’

    http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=513787

    This really is getting to be a regular event. My own idea is for the Palestinians to make up and paint a concrete ‘child’ and plant it where it’s not actually in the way but eminently hittable for next great warrior for Zion who comes along.

    That’d weigh about four hundred pounds. Think about hitting a 400 pound chunk of concrete at 30 miles an hour or so. Do Israelis like to drive without their seatbelts?

  12. FreddyV
    August 23, 2012, 2:51 am

    This is some sick shit….

    Lynchings, blatant race hate, JPost comments, Geller, Muni, Ann Ryand references, Romney, Oren, Bibi calling for preemptive strikes on Iran and so on and so on….

    I’m completely fed up with reading about this fascist looney bin and it’s blind rampage off the edge of the proverbial cliff.

    I think Iran’s leaders are right, but I don’t think Iran will do it. The Zionist regime will wipe itself off the map.

    I think I’m going on Mondo vacation for a bit.

  13. Shmuel
    August 23, 2012, 3:49 am

    I don’t know whether anyone has translated Cherkassky’s brilliant poster, but here goes:

    Dear Jewish guy!

    We really don’t ask you who we should go out with, and if we feel like going out with an Arab – it’s really none of your business!

    If you’re not getting any, then it must be your fate to jerk off, but carefuly, because we don’t want you to get hurt!
    ———————
    Daughters of Israel

    As sociologists have noted, the connection between racism and misogyny is not incidental.

  14. bintbiba
    August 23, 2012, 6:29 am

    Thanks for translating, Shmuel.
    What a sad, sad, sad state of affairs.
    Good for the “Daughters of Israel”. !!

  15. Boycott Israel on Campus
    August 23, 2012, 7:04 am

    Is there any doubt that Israel is a Nazi society? Even if an Arab is in the process of being lynched under their noses, the Israeli police know they can turn their backs with impunity.

    Nazi societies deserve to be boycotted.

  16. Walid
    August 23, 2012, 8:18 am

    Annie, if the Arabic poster being circulated to spook Jerusalem’s Arabs is the same as the one at the top of this page, they won’t understand what it’s about because a quarter of the words in it are not Arabic. The words “Jerusalem” or “the pedestrian street [Midrechov]” aren’t in the Arabic text and the whole thing is totally incoherent. It’s translated by someone with a very little knowledge of Arabic. Ironically, the salutation says , “(the) honourable Arab man”, “al-rajul al-Arabi al-muhtarram”. These guys writing or translating the poster are polite assholes.

    • Shmuel
      August 23, 2012, 8:34 am

      Not surprising, since the flyer isn’t really directed at Palestinians anyway. The “Arabic” is just part of the gimmick. BTW, the Hebrew is pretty polite too.

  17. sliver
    August 23, 2012, 10:03 pm

    that translation into German makes no sense at all. There are plenty of sources for such placards. They were everywhere. If you can’t do a translation that makes sense forget about it.

    • Mooser
      August 23, 2012, 10:44 pm

      Don’t worry Sliver, we’ve got a commenter here who can make sense of all this, and tell us why it’s a good thing for Israel, and a sign of better things to come.
      Oh, Winnie, could you come over here for a minute?

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