"The Israelis"

---

So I finally got around to finishing "The Israelis" and I think it is a really awesome text book. It really went in depth with a lot of relevant topics, including issues that I have run into. I found the whole book extremely relevant but there were a few parts that definitely spoke to me. They included the section on sexual relations and harassment, the conflicting cultures, and the Christian section.

Living in Israel I have noticed that the way women are treated is completely different here as compared to the US. In Israel I feel that women are almost put up on pedestals, they are treated better by a lot of the society but at the same time there are limits in what they can do in this society. I’m not trying to say that Israeli men treat women badly, although I do feel that the culture is more misogynist and sexist than the states. For example, once I got on a bus in Jerusalem and asked the bus driver a question about one of the stops. He answered very politely and after I sat down behind him, he contintued to talk to me: asked what I was doing here, where I was staying, where I was from, that sort of thing. A man got on a few stops later and tried to ask a question and the driver was very curt and rude with him. It’s a very interesting contradiction. Here a male supervisor can kiss a female subordinate on the cheek if she is having a bad day but in America that would be sexual harassment. Conversely, women get a lot of unwanted attention, sometimes very vulgar attention. There are also barriers to women advancing in the army and work place.

I also thought the conflicting cultures sections was really interesting but the section about Christianity in the Holy Land was the most interesting to me. The section really brought home some of the situations I’ve been in, that I’ve mentioned in this blog before. Even in Tel Aviv I get dirty looks if I were my cross and Rush has mentioned this too. I really emphasize with the Arab Christians, as they are caught between two worlds. They aren’t Jewish and their Arab, which means that Jewish Israelis are less likely to trust them or interact. Additionally they are Arab but no Muslim, which makes Palestinian Muslims angry. The book mentioned that during the second intifada Arab Christians were targeted by Muslims. I would go as far as to say that the Christians suffered from hate crimes. Christians, all Christians whether you are European, American or Arab, live on the fringes of Israeli society. They are often victims of hate crime or suffer in daily interactions. The gulf between the different religions is growing, which makes peace even harder to obtain. And unfortunately the gaps within Christianity continue to grow, between the Catholics and the Greek Orthodox, between the Armenians and the Orthodox, between the Protestants and all orthodox religions…

It astounds me that in a western state (or a state that wants to be western) there are prejudices like this.

---