Apparently the idea of Jews and Arabs bonding is so popular that The New York Times tried it again: Princeton Players Are Divided by Heritage, United by Basketball. It's a nice theme: how 2 girls--Niveen Rasheed, who is Palestinian-American and Lauren Polansky, who is Jewish--with different heritages from cultures that are caught in a conflict with each other can get along and be friends.
But there is something wrong here.
On the one hand is Rasheed's Palestinian background:
Rasheed’s parents are Palestinians, born and raised in the West Bank, and one of her sisters is part of the Palestinian diplomatic corps at the United Nations.
“It’s a big part of our family’s culture,” Rasheed said after a practice last week, adding: “You would think with all those factors I’d have in the back of my mind that L. P. is Jewish. But the way I was raised was that you should not have personal grudges against someone for their background.”
... Rasheed is more politically aware than Polansky. She has relatives living in the West Bank, follows developments in the Middle East on Arabic- and English-language television and says her family takes part in pro-Palestinian protests. Until she became so immersed in basketball that it was hard to find free time, Rasheed made several visits to the West Bank.
Rasheed family members find fault with the Israeli government but say they try not to let that affect how they treat or view individuals who are Jewish.
“We believe that peaceful solutions are the best for anything,” Rasheed’s mother, Hanan, said in a telephone interview from her home in Danville, Calif. “Living in America, you live in a melting pot. We’ve taught our children to be open-minded. The kids never came home and said, ‘Oh, I have a Christian friend or a Jewish friend.’ We love Lauren. She is a charming young lady and very sweet. Niveen loves her because they have so much in common. That’s how she picks her friends. It just happens that she happens to be Jewish.”
Looking for opportunities that were not available in his homeland, Rasheed’s father, Robert, came to the United States in 1967 after the Arab-Israeli War when he was 17 and lived with cousins in Oakland. He later played soccer at the University of Wyoming and went into real estate. Hanan Rasheed came to the United States in 1973.
On the other hand is Polansky's Jewish background:
Polansky’s father, Jon, who died in 2005, was Jewish, and her mother, Cynthia, from South Africa, is Catholic. Polansky was raised as a Jew, and she said her focus growing up was on her education, basketball and friends.
“Niveen is my teammate and my friend,” Polansky said. “None of that political stuff that is going on on the other side of the world is that important to me. It has never affected our friendship.”
Yup, that's it. What makes Polansky Jewish is that one parent was Jewish--and since her mother is Catholic, Polansky is only Jewish in a 'journalistic' sense. It makes for good copy.
The resulting message of the article comes across as a lesson of how Jews and Arabs can get along: as long as Jews don't make a big deal of their religion, history, culture--and of course, Israel.
No Thanks. The only reason there is no conflict is that only one side is actually in the game. Polansky of course is free to feel no attachment to Israel, but her example is irrelevant, and not a little misleading.
On the other hand, it does reinforce the lesson being pressed on both sides of the Atlantic that extra sensitivity to Islam and making concessions to it can avoid those riots and Islamist terrorist attacks.
Can there be peace if both sides are proud of their culture and who they are?
It better be.
[Hat tip: Jonathan Tobin]
Technorati Tag: Jewish-Arab Dialogue.
3 comments:
We get similar articles in the Israeli media, most of which are so incredibly stupid but this is the typical wishy-washy mentality of liberals, this sentimental crap which conveniently overlooks the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Your observation is most correct, that friendships with Arabs works provided the Jewish partner has weak Jewish identity, does not defend Jewish interests, & essentially, adopts a left-wing anti-Israel position, in effect saying I'm one of the ''good Jews'' not an evil ''Zionist oppressor''.
Since I'm originally from an Arab Muslim country, I'm all too familiar with this phenomenon. My ''friends'' were all anti-Semites, anti-American, & virulently anti-Israel. As long as I avoided ''sensitive'' subjects, all went well. But, when I spoke bluntly about Islam, about Israel, or made fun of the incredibly stupid & ignorant comments about Jews & Judaism, it always ended in an argument.
This seems like a lot of bullshit to me. What difference exactly do 2 american born girls have from each other when they lived in the same area and go to the same schools? So there parents have different backgrounds which for some reason we don't here anything about the jewish side or what kind of jewish connections there actually is? Was Lauren ever in Israel? did she go on birthright maybe ?
The point the article is attempting to make is something of a stretch, especially there is no Jewish or Israel bond on Polansky's part. It is nothing against Polansky, who in point of fact is not Jewish. It just shows what a reach the reporter is making, going after a story that clearly is not there.
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