What was it that bestowed upon our ancestors such ill-will towards the Arabs?
Not long ago, the owner of a Majorcan palace found 13th-century graffiti on his basement wall. It was scrawled there by a knight en route to the Crusades. Translated, it read: "Sod the Arabs."
Some references to the Arabs are an attempt at humour. Ezra Pound addressed Lawrence as "My Dear Hadji ben Abt el Bakshish, Prince de Mecque," and Winston Churchill, whose early work on the Sudanese campaign contains plenty of anti-Arab racism, would address Lawrence as "My dear 'Lurens'," because that's how Arabs pronounced Lawrence's name.
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I would say, in many instances that if individuals don't like the cards dealt to them by the powers that be, that they reserve the vitriol toward their masters. Other than that only animals can't scrape low enough to demonize and this when they have ulterior motives.
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ReplyDeletePalestinians i've spoken with don't seem to care that they're inspiring to many. typical response: "yeah, we know that, but it doesn't help us."
also, their isolation creates a time lag in terms of information/consciousness - for instance, while we can feel the BDS movement growing and feel like change is happening, people here really feel defeated.
the IDF come here every night to make arrests.
it seems palestine is different from the rest of the "arab world" in the level of free speech, or so i've been told.
guest was me. yasmin
ReplyDeleteInteresting. What parts of the west Bank does the IDF often visit? I have been told that the IDF are stying out of Gaza and large chunks of the West Bank. This new policy seems to have started because of the new Palestinian security force battalions. Why would the IDF arrest people in the West Bank if they could request the Palestinian security forces to arrest them?
ReplyDeleteYasmin, could you please share what Egypt is like. I look forward to visiting Egypt.
ReplyDeleteIf I had the time, I could search through historical accounts, letters, and memoirs of Arabs and find just as many negative and stereotypical comments and unkind remarks made by Arabs about "the Other".
ReplyDeleteEven such luminaries as Ibn Sina [Avicenna (980-1037), the most famous and influential of the philosopher-scientists of Islam], considered blacks to be “people who are by their very nature slaves.” <span style="">“Blasphemy Before God: The Darkness of Racism In Muslim Culture” by Adam Misbah aI-Haqq</span>
The great geographer, Idrisi (1110-1165), ascribes “lack of knowledge and defective minds” to the black peoples. Their ignorance, he says, is notorious; Men of learning and distinction are almost unknown among them. <span style=""> –[See</span> <span style=""> Lewis, Race and Color in Islam, pp.37]</span>
We had a terrific Ramadhan [sic]
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Why the [sic]Mr. Fisk? It's the correct way to transliterate it..It's a a common mistake to write it with a D ...Arabic has two letters that confuse transliterators..DAL written as 'D' and DHAA written 'DH'..Thus, it's Ramadhan, but very few "purists" (As'ad and I are two of them) who care...
<span>We had a terrific Ramadhan [sic]
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Why the [sic]Mr. Fisk? It's the correct way to transliterate it..It's a a common mistake to write it with a D ...Arabic has two letters that confuse transliterators..DAL written as 'D' and DHAA written 'DH'..Thus, it's Ramadhan, but very few "purists" (As'ad and I are two of them) who care...</span>
A similar case of confusion are the two letters K (KE in Arabic) and Q (QUA)...But who QARES?
"visit"? haha. they're ALWAYS here. that's why it's called "occupied". they're here at the checkpoints for one thing - they have military bases all over. the checkpoints are inside the WB, not on the borders.
ReplyDeletemaybe the idf take some prisoners inside the 48 borders, i don't know. but it's no secret - they don't come that late.
yasmin
or maybe they take the "worst of the worst." like the children. or the guy who threw a rock.
ReplyDeletecheckpoints are on the borders, too, of course. and i just learned that coming in on the allenby bridge now only gives you access to certain areas. new change. so now i either come in through ben gurion (never), taba (visa for two weeks only) or another bridge from jordan.
ReplyDeleteThanks Yasmin. "visit" was a poor word choice. What I meant is that the IDF still occupy large chunks of the West Bank, including through check points. However, recently the IDF had tranferred many check points to the new Palestinian security battalions, as well as responsiblity for more parts of the West Bank to them. This is my understanding at least. Does the IDF conduct operations in the areas they recently transfered to the new Palestinian security forces? Do they inform the Palestinian security forces about these operations in advance?
ReplyDeleteI also read that Israeli citizen Palestinians have recently recieved greater rights to travel in the West Bank. This apparently has been a boon to Palestinian businesses in the occupied territories. Can Palestinians who are Israeli citizens use the same roads in the occupied territories that Jewish Israeli citizens can?
Sorry for so many questions. I am sure life is very busy for you Yasmin, working at a hotshot NGO and everything. But it must be awesome to be living in the rich diverse Egyptian culture. A civilization over 7,000 years old, with so much music, so much family, so much art . . . and so much better food than we get in the States! And the domestic help, facials and hair salons too. Some of the mosques in Egypt are amazing.
I got to stop writing. I am becoming too jealous ;)
you have removed any doubt in my eyes that you are an internet persona. you may even be kahein.
ReplyDeleteWho qares, lol.
ReplyDeleteInteresting to see what you picked out when you did your "objective search" vza.
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