Thursday, January 8, 2009

Teach the Children (to Hate!)




(Note: I saw this video posted by Nedster on the Jews Sans Frontiers blog)
In the West, we are often shown tragic images of Muslim children dressed for Jihad. Sometimes we are shown Hamas propaganda teaching children to hate Jews using puppets, etc.
We don't get to see how Israelis (mostly settlers) teach their children to hate Palestinians(& Arabs in general)and regard them as sub-human animals.
How would these images of gun-toting Israeli children being taught to hate be received in the pro-Zionist USA? I guess "Don't Mess with the Zohan" is one answer.
Israeli children are taught this hate and Palestinian children see the fruits of such hate in their situation (& dead relatives) and are expected not to hate back.
It’s odd the onus of resisting hate is shouldered squarely on the Palestinians lest they continue the oft quoted "Cycle of Violence" TM. The children throwing stones at the violent occupier's tanks are portrayed as irrational haters.
Children should not be raised to hate, regardless of who that target of hate is. Same goes for child soldiers. That’s pretty basic shit. I guess I'm a naive dreamer.

It’s convenient for Israel and to our sensibilities that the objects of Israeli dehumanization are Arabic given our history of Orientalism. We are so unoriginal that even Yellow Peril fears are recycled and applied to our fears of a "rising China". The NeoCon War on Terror propaganda (clash of civilizations) would have obviously been more difficult against a non-brown group as well.
How convenient an old "exotic Other " gets to be "the Other" for our times. Our historic racism toward everything "Arabian" allows even the most ardent anti-Semite to support Israel and hate their victims. Anti-Semitism in the West is thankfully receded to historic lows, but we have become pickier about which Semites we discriminate against.

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