“If my only other choice is to wash dishes and clean toilets and streets for these people, I’d rather be in their movies. At least I get to be some kind of Bedouin” (Lavie 340). The creation of the state of Israel and the ensuing policies has permanently changed the culture and way of life for Bedouin of the Negev desert. This climate has resulted in the Bedouin losing part of their culture due to Israeli policies and laws. This political reality has also forced them to adapt to form a new way of life that is completely different; it is a forced hybridization of western and Bedouin ideals. They face racism and bias based on historical interactions and western accounts in academia and in the media. While Israel treats them as second-class …show more content…
The two main branches of the military that carried out these plans were Unit 101 and the Green Patrol. One of the most extreme actions of Unit 101 was the expulsion of the al-Azazmeh sub-tribes in 1953-54 after the massacre of their women and children. Legally the Bedouin were subject to expulsion at any time because they were not given identity cards, ID cards were not issued until 1952, four years after the creation of Israel. The Green Patrol held the tasks of forcing the Bedouin give up their land rights and culling the sheep herds to prevent “overgrazing”. Because of the Absentee Property Law of 1950 if the owners of the land were not there for a day it was considered “abandoned”. The Green Patrol would “clear” the land by terrorizing the Bedouin camps and forcing them to move location, therefore giving up their land rights. One way they would accomplish this was to kill the camp dogs and cause general panic. Moving even a couple hundred meters meant that the camp elder or elders would lose their rights to the land. The 1950 Black Goat law prohibited the grazing of black goats “outside one’s own holdings”, this law also targeted the Bedouin, further crippling their economy. From 1977 to 1980 the Green Patrol …show more content…
One notable Zionist institution is the Jewish National Fund (JNF). They have played a large role the acquisition of Bedouin lands. By the October of 1950 the government sale of land to the JNF had tripled, with 40% of that being “abandoned” land. The JNF not only had become substantial landowners in their own right (owning 13% of all the land in Israel), but they also held enormous sway over the use of the government held lands. The Israeli Land Authority manages 93% of Israeli land; it replaced the Israel Lands Administration in 2011. The JNF has representatives in 6 of the 13 seats on the Land Authority Council, where it has preserved its influential role and helps shape the policy of the Israeli Land Authority. This is an organization that publicly states, “…the loyalty of the JNF is given to the Jewish people and to only them is the JNF obligated. The JNF, as the owner of JNF land, does not have a duty to practice equality towards all citizens of the state.” (White
Elizabeth Fernea entered El Nahra, Iraq as an innocent bystander. However, through her stay in the small Muslim village, she gained cultural insight to be passed on about not only El Nahra, but all foreign culture. As Fernea entered the village, she was viewed with a critical eye, ?It seemed to me that many times the women were talking about me, and not in a particularly friendly manner'; (70). The women of El Nahra could not understand why she was not with her entire family, and just her husband Bob. The women did not recognize her American lifestyle as proper. Conversely, BJ, as named by the village, and Bob did not view the El Nahra lifestyle as particularly proper either. They were viewing each other through their own cultural lenses. However, through their constant interaction, both sides began to recognize some benefits each culture possessed. It takes time, immersed in a particular community to understand the cultural ethos and eventually the community as a whole. Through Elizabeth Fernea?s ethnography on Iraq?s El Nahra village, we learn that all cultures have unique and equally important aspects.
The Charge of the Light Brigade is about an army of six hundred men on
The United States launched an operation known as Operation Desert Shield, also known as the Persian Gulf War, in August of 1990 in response to Saddam Hussein’s order to the Iraqi forces to take over Kuwait. President George Herbert Walker Bush made the decision to send American troops to Saudi Arabia to form an international coalition that would eventually turn into an operation known as Operation Desert Storm. The United States Army had not witnessed an event of such international and Homefront importation since the Cold War.
During the Second World War, the Japanese suffered great embarrassments because of their race. A law in 1948 provided reimbursement for property losses by those imprisoned, and in 1988 Congress awarded compensation payments of twenty thousand dollars to each survivor of the camps; it is estimated that about 73,000 people will receive this compensation for the violation of their liberties (2009). This topic is of significance in today’s society because of the War on Terrorism in Iraq. The same topics have come up in discussion during present day, making these past events significant when terrorism and counter-terrorism tactics are topics of national-security issues. The only difference is that Arab-Americans are not forced into concentration camps.
...dentity*. The government’s huge efforts to promote sedentism, reflects the common prejudice that nomads represent a deterioration that is extremely distant from modern life. The advocacy of officials towards racial discrimination has made the diffusion of racism inevitable. Accordingly, when Bedouins, particularly the Awlad Ali tribe, visit Cairo and other cities, they describe Egyptians as inhospitable and unhelpful people*. While I was initially shocked by their statements, I came to realize that “hospitality” is such a relative term, for in the presence of racial discrimination, how on earth were these Bedouins going to see the hospitable side of Egyptians! Furthermore, such an outwardly biased system will no doubt advocate the formation of stereotypes towards “inferior” groups, and it will help create a correlation between stereotyped traits and life chances.
“…a camp – made up of twenty or more khaki green tents, arranged in rows. We approached the camp in a long line, and at the gates we were met by a group of men in military uniforms”(Nazer 105).
There seems to be a question of what resources are given to women in the Middle East and North Africa for them to have social change and be given the rights that they declare. Based upon their age, sexual orientation, class, religion, ethnicity, and race this identifies someone’s social status which results in the ge...
One primary reason why Middle Eastern men oppress women is their deeply rooted belief system as well as their needs. For example, their belief that the Middle Eastern woman’s duty is being a dedicated homemaker encourages them to disallow her from seeking an education. Ramsay M. Harik and Elsa Martson, revisit this concept in their book, Woman in the Middle East, as they state that many males convince their women that education is unnecessary nor relevant to their household responsibilities. "The girl will spend her life cooking and having babies, why does she need to read or write? This was a common attitude in much of the Middle East until the last fifty years or so" (24). The common consensus was that once educated, these women would question many of the injustices suffered, would demand better treatment...
"The Sources of Anti-Semitism - Anti-Semitism, News from the Middle East - SPME Scholars for Peace in the Middle East." SPME. The Filmmakers Newsletter, n.d. Web. 05 May 2014.
The Women of the Middle East have played substantial roles for their corresponding countries since the advent of colonialism in the region. Middle Eastern women have worked in all types of fields including medicine, education, agriculture, government, private sector, and even defense. They have kept roofs over their family’s heads while their husbands were away in wars, or even in foreign countries to work in jobs that they could not find in their own countries. The roles of women in the countries of Yemen and Oman are no exception, but while they still find ways to contribute to their country, they care constantly stereotyped, discriminated, and ridiculed by men who are known and unknown to them. This paper will discuss the individual contributions of the women living in Yemen and Oman, and will discuss in further state laws and cultural norms that are affecting the women living in these countries today.
In 2005, the Palestinian director and writer, Hany Abu-Assad, released his award winning motion picture, “Paradise Now.” The film follows two Palestinian friends, over a period of two days, who are chosen by an extremist terrorist group to carry out a suicide mission in Tel-Aviv during the 2004 Intifada. The mission: to detonate a bomb strapped to their stomachs in the city. Because the film industry seldom portrays terrorists as people capable of having any sort of humanity, you would think the director of “Paradise Now” would also depict the two main characters as heartless fiends. Instead he makes an attempt to humanize the protagonists, Khaled and Said, by providing us with a glimpse into their psyches from the time they discover they’ve been recruited for a suicide bombing operation to the very last moments before Said executes the mission. The film explores how resistance, to the Israeli occupation, has taken on an identity characterized by violence, bloodshed, and revenge in Palestinian territories. Khaled and Said buy into the widely taught belief that acts of brutality against the Israeli people is the only tactic left that Palestinians have to combat the occupation. In an effort to expose the falsity of this belief, Hany Abu-Assad introduces a westernized character named Suha who plays the voice of reason and opposition. As a pacifist, she suggests a more peaceful alternative to using violence as a means to an end. Through the film “Paradise Now,” Abu-Assad not only puts a face on suicide bombers but also shows how the struggle for justice and equality must be nonviolent in order to make any significant headway in ending the cycle of oppression between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
It is no surprise that the Middle East has been present in American cultural rhetoric. Topics featuring Arabs and Muslims have appeared in various media format from news coverage, to discussions, to the accessible Hollywood fraternity. The earliest of American movies have portrayed Arabs and Middle Easterners in exotic ethnic terms. This has served as the perfect framework for movie productions in which they have played the villain opposite American ‘good guys’ and so created stereotypical image of ‘otherness’. Before I discuss the consequences of such representations I refer to Sut Jhally’s documentary based on Jack G. Shaheen’s book of the same name, Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies A People. The documentary looks at movies that have depicted the Arab as a caricature, a cartoon model, and a terrorist. The consumers have absolute control over the experience of viewing images for the very fact that the scenes in these films do not share or speak directly with the audience. My reaction to this has resonated with a sense of falseness and dissatisfaction. The intent here is to not debate whether these depictions are good or bad; it is to present the ways these images are imperfect. The documentary establishes how the maintenance of hegemony in a world of inequality is doing the world no favor in terms of image. Jack Shaheen’s narration in the documentary validates how Hollywood movies are particularly guilty of propagating these incorrect portrayals of Arabs yet Shaheen is also victim in his biased behavior towards the Arabs.
Jordan’s demographic balance is made up of ethnic Jordanians, non-Arab immigrants who came before Jordan’s independence (i.e Circassians, Chechens, and Armenians), several waves of Palestinians, Lebanese, Iraqis, African refugees from primarily Sudan and Somalia and recently refugees from Syria. The integration of these ethnic groups generally depend on the time of their arrival with those arriving the earliest having integrated the most and therefore are the least vulnerable. The further integration of certain refugee groups namely Palestinians remain hampered by political considerations namely the Israeli-Palestinian peace deal that would foresee the establishment of a new Palestinian state. Despite Palestinians being short of full political citizens, the general situation of Palestinians is considerably better off than those from la...
Edward Said “States” refutes the view Western journalists, writers, and scholars have created in order to represent Eastern cultures as mysterious, dangerous, unchanging, and inferior. According to Said, who was born in Jerusalem at that time Palestine, the way westerners represent eastern people impacts the way they interact with the global community. All of this adds to, Palestinians having to endure unfair challenges such as eviction, misrepresentation, and marginalization that have forced them to spread allover the world. By narrating the story of his country Palestine, and his fellow countrymen from their own perspective Said is able to humanize Palestinians to the reader. “States” makes the reader feel the importance of having a homeland, and how detrimental having a place to call home is when trying to maintain one’s culture. Which highlights the major trait of the Palestinian culture: survival. Throughout “States”, Said presents the self-preservation struggles Palestinians are doomed to face due to eviction, and marginalization. “Just as we once were taken from one habitat to a new one we can be moved again” (Said 543).
In more recent years, women have started taking on a more vital roles in society. The Palestinian mothers and daughters broke traditional gender stereotypes at the end of nineteenth century. They started an ideological battle against the traditions and customs that men in Palestine and Middle East region imposed on them. The following are important milestones regarding the evolution of the Palestinian