Jim Crow In Israel?

In 1951, a black man was charged and convicted of assault with intent to rape, although he was 75 feet away from his alleged victim at the time of the "assault." This was only one of many instances in the Jim Crow era of the American South where accusations of "reckless eyeballing" of a white woman led to criminal charges or even the lynching of black men. Is the same now happening in israel?

Jim Crow in Bat Yam
Op-ed: Racist protest in Bat Yam advanced male supremacy alongside Jewish supremacy
Jessica Montell • Ynet

In 1951, a black man was charged and convicted of assault with intent to rape, although he was 75 feet away from his alleged victim at the time of the "assault." This was only one of many instances in the Jim Crow era of the American South where accusations of "reckless eyeballing" of a white woman led to criminal charges or even the lynching of black men.

That seems like a very long time ago in American history. But it doesn't seem so far from the reality we saw this week in Bat Yam.

About a week ago signs were hung up throughout the city calling on residents to come to a demonstration: "They're not going to hit on my sister! What would you do if an Arab hit on your sister? We're putting a stop to this!" This demonstration was part of a broader wave of racism that began a few weeks ago when several dozen municipal rabbis ruled that it was forbidden to rent apartments to Arabs.

The apartments issue was also part of the demonstration in Bat Yam, but most of the signs and speeches focused on the "danger" inherent in relations between Arab men and Jewish women. Some speakers railed against sexual harassment of Jewish women, others lectured against inter-ethnic dating. From a women's rights perspective, of course there is no connection between the two. But for the demonstrators, they are in fact the same thing. It seems a woman's free will is irrelevant.

Judging by the pictures in the press, the main sign at the demonstration declared: "Daughters of Israel for the People of Israel." It would appear that for the organizers of the demonstration, these are two mutually exclusive categories, with the former being some sort of property belonging to the latter. Women are analogous to the apartments that the Arabs are "trying to get"; women are also a possession that the Arabs covet.

And thus racism against Arabs also manifests as sexism toward Jewish women. This was certainly a racist demonstration, but it was also a demonstration to maintain male dominance. From the pictures in the press there were few if any women at the demonstration, but even if a few took part, the demonstration advances male supremacy alongside Jewish supremacy.

Exploiting sex card

This is not to say that sexual harassment is not a serious problem in Israeli society. Every woman in this country has suffered such harassment or knows a woman who has been harassed or assaulted, whether by Arab men or Jewish men. Such incidents are far too common in the workplace, in the military, on the street and in the home. Both the criminal justice system and society as a whole need to address this problem.

But this has nothing to do with the demonstration in Bat Yam. Just like white racist men in the Jim Crow south mobilized to protect "their women" when African Americans began demanding equality, so too Jewish extremists exploit the sex card in a backlash against Arab demands to be equal citizens in this country.

Many people justifiably expressed outrage at the racism of the demonstration, including Bat Yam Mayor Shlomo Lahyani. "The city of Bat Yam denounces any racist phenomenon" Lahyani declared. "This is a democratic, law-abiding country. We reject this racism and these shameful statements." Such words are encouraging, as is the fact that only a small number of people took part in the racist demonstration, while opposite them Jews and Arabs demonstrated for full and equal citizenship.

But this is not enough. I was disappointed that no one pointed out the blatant male chauvinism of the demonstration. And just a few days after the Bat Yam demonstration, another news item shows the other side of the same coin: the police arrested a gang of Jewish youths, including a 14 year-old girl who lured Arab men to a Jerusalem park so that the gang could savagely beat them. Here again women – in this case a girl child – are used as sexual objects to advance racist schemes.

Anyone who cherishes basic values of justice and decency must work to combat the racism that seems to be spreading in Israeli society. But we can't do that by sweeping sexism under the rug. We have seen quite clearly this week that racism and sexism are inextricably linked. The fight against male chauvinism is important in its own right. It is also a crucial component in the broader fight for equality for all.

Jessica Montell is Executive Director of B'Tselem: the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. http://twitter.com/#!/JessicaMontell

 

Comments

[yidandahalf]

Jim Crow was and is the colloquial black term for segregation. It comes from a song "Jump Jim Crow". It is, more often than not, mis-used in the media. Again, it means segregation from the black stand-point.

[Yoel Mechanic]

1.5*Yid: neat historical tidbit: thanks.

Here is a reference on this:
Woodward, C. Vann and McFeely, William S. The Strange Career of Jim Crow. 2001, page 7
However, it may not be mis-use by the media, but rather a semantic evolution of the usage of an expression.

[danny]

Those screaming kids weird me out.

[Yoel Mechanic]

This historical analogy of 2010 Bat Yam to the 1950's segregation in the USA is very out of whack. Why not just analyze the current situation without the red herrings of other situations that are historically unconnected, and in fact only connected by the emotional feelings of the commentator. If you want a closer analogy of the feelings, look at the wide scale anti-Jewish bigotry in the middle east, this whole attitude of 'the Jews are taking over, the Jews are getting uppity to think they can have a country of their own' and 'Jews have no right to live or own land in the middle east' etc. etc. (Its available to watch on Al Jazeera, not to imply that is the only thing you see on Al Jazeera) What we are seeing here is an outraged Jewish reaction and backlash to this pervasive bigotry. This doesn't excuse it, nor does it mean that it isn't a bigotry of its own. But this idea that it happens in isolation, and we are supposed to believe this is some kind of Jewish supremacism like the 1950's South is absolutely ridiculous. Nor is the word 'racism' (in modern parlance that means biological racism) appropriate, but is used merely for incendiary purposes. More accurate and justified words can be used to describe the hostilities.

[yidandahalf]

YM, Unhappily, Shmaray goes off on some ACLU civil rights tangent with every effort to legitimize his ideas.He needs to get out more, get away, or whatever it takes to get outside himself from time to time. He seems to be unaware that the African Express de-boarded a very long time ago.
I apologize if "de-boarded" does not fit and trust my collegues will provide correction.

[Yoel Mechanic]

1.5*Yid; OK... I hear ya. My comments here were directed at Jessica Montell. I guess this all suggests that Betselem, in addition to their legitimate reporting about human's rights violations is also going to engage in advocacy journalism to help support the two state solution (or worse yet the one state solution) I'm beginning to see that YNET prints stuff like this quite a bit: like I say what the Y in YNET for? They should stick to news and not some much of this advocacy journalism. In fact it seems that all journalism in Israel is advocacy journalism, but that's another story