Living with an Israeli

For the past two weeks I've been living with an Israeli academic I met during my travels in Europe. We hit it off when we first met and I was surprised to hear him say, on parting, that I should come visit him in Israel. When I contacted him late last year he seemed very keen to host me. Given that I'm struggling a bit money wise and accommodation is the single biggest cost for a traveller, and given that I wanted to get to know the locals better, I thought this was a great offer. What's more he happens to work at a conservative newspaper and offered to hook me up with government officials and politicans, even a right wing Jewish settler whom we'd describe as fanatical in Australia but over here is merely considered right wing. It was an offer too good to refuse.

It has definitely been a great learning experience. He has been a very gracious host, but it hasn't always been easy. For starters, I think I disappointed him because I'm not particularly religious or traditional. He happens to be a scholar in Muslim history so I think he was looking forward to dissecting my, perceived, pre-modern brain. Moreover, while he is quite open-minded and willing to discuss the Israel/Palestine issue to some extent I've reached the conclusion that he is actually quite close-minded and probably racist.

His interest in Islam, as I may have implied in an earlier post, is quite orientalist. His particular interest is tracking extremist Islamic scholars and, especially, diaspora Muslims in the West who take on their call to spread the word of Islam, including violently. His thesis comfortably fits within the orientalist mould because he concludes that Islam is a pre-modern faith and 'moderates' have to be found to champion the move towards Western-style democracy. Furthermore, he cites Israel as the model to emulate, being of course such a bastion of freedom and plurality, even for its Arab citizens (NOT!!). He's been widely published and is starting to get a lot of coverage in English-language countries. I'd love to post some links so you can read his stuff and make your own mind up but of course that would require disclosing his name.

I lumped down his comments with a lot of self control on and even, to begin with, was silent as he claimed that much of the story behind Israel's dispossession of the Palestinians was false. Eventually, however, I just could not let it go unnoticed. Now I believe I was firm but never rude or loud, I tried to be as diplomatic as possible, and I always gave him the last word or two or three and thanked him for broadening my horizons on the issue. But he really took offence to it. I think the straw that broke his back was when I asked if he thought Israel was at all like Apartheid South Africa.

Now he's saying that he cannot introduce me to the right wing politicians and government officials he previously promised as I may offend them and make him look bad. My initial reaction was surprise and sadness. 'If only I had shut up my big gob' I thought most of the day. But as I walked around Tel Aviv today I started to realise that I had not said anything in a disrespectul tone, did not use any derogatory words, and so on. Moreover, I was honest about my views. The other option would have been to be dishonest, pretend to be a 'neutral', ignorant bystander to the conflict and later quote him extensively without his knowledge... until he read one of my pieces in the press. The strange thing is we're still getting along but politics is a serious no-go area. In my friend's defence, these issues are close to the heart for Israelis and the instinct to be defensive is natural in many ways.

I contented myself with that rationalisation until, following that, we sat having dinner with his brother on the eve of Independence Day he told me this 'funny' story of how he overheard this woman in a bus 'singing' in a strange operatic way, and here I quote, "I wish we just exterminated all those Arabs!" His brother looked uncomfortable and I was really just speechless. I don't even think he was trying to rub it in but honestly thought it a funny story (because of the way the woman sung the words, not because of what she said). I have learnt many things on this trip, like just how ignorant I am and how much I need to learn. And I've also learnt that an intelligent man can be just as racist as an ignorant one. The former just tends to be more layered in his or her approach.