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All That’s Left

By leila segal / April 12, 2009

January 09, 2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IDF fundraising banner, outside army radio station Galgalatz, Jaffa

My neighbour is worried about me. He sits me down earnestly and tells me I am in danger. It’s the Arabs. My Arab friends. ‘Because, you see, it’s not just in the West Bank. In Jaffa too. They can kill you here too.’

I’m friends with Arabs, although I’m a Jew. That’s not normal here. Oh, it’s accepted, tolerated. I’m a lefty. They feel sorry for me. I’m European – I don’t really understand.

‘There are many faces of things here,’ my neighbour says. ‘There’s the obvious face – the one we all see. But the Arabs who live here – we humiliate them every day. They hate us. You hear that–?’ A car is driving around the square, playing Arabic music really loud. ‘–it’s not just some young guy having fun. He’s saying fuck you Jews. And one day he wants to get his own back. And that’s why I’m worried about you. One day you might be sitting with some family in Jaffa – some nice Arab family–’

‘Friends–’

‘And someone who knows someone will come… I’m worried you’ll get hurt.’

‘But why pick me? There are Jews everywhere here. They can kill anyone they like.’

‘You’re the soft target,’ he says darkly. ‘You hear about that girl up north who got raped by six Arabs? We hate Jews, you fucking Jew, they told her.’

On the TV are black-masked men shooting huge rocket launchers at distant apartment buildings. ‘Palestinians,’ my neighbour says. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate Arabs. I just don’t want to live with them. We’ve tried the right way to solve this conflict. It didn’t work. Now all that is left is the wrong way.

‘We’re all fucked. If we can’t do it the right way we might as well fucking shoot the Arabs. Shoot them all. If we can’t solve it the good way, I want to be the one holding the gun.’

POST A COMMENT

  • By Ismail 4/26/09 at 10:50 p.m. UTC

    Is there a new literary consensus that I somehow missed? Is Wilde’s style now considered "leaden"? Is he now thought of as a rhetorician?

    Of course not. Alcove’s ignorance extends beyond politics to embrace literary criticism as well, a topic about which he apparently knows nothing.

    Notable is the fact that the poor fellow declined to address a single one of my points regarding the worthlessness of his "you hadda be there" standard of credibility, which is as foolish as the rest of his effusions.

    I am very pleased that he has rendered my beloved NYC an even better place by decamping to the Usurping Entity. Enjoy the few moments of Zionist hegemony left to the sorry experiment that is Israel, and let me give you a tip-learn some Arabic.

    That perfumed enough for you? 

     

     

  • By Ismail 4/26/09 at 2:01 p.m. UTC

    "Who has more credibility? A Jew who lives and works in Jaffa or a left-wing outsider from London…"

    Interesting. So I guess you’d agree that an Arab who lives in Jaffa would have more credibility than a right-wing Jew from, say, New York, right? I mean, the Arab lives there, so by your own standard, his account should be privileged. But Jews live there, too, and their accounts may differ from the Arab’s, or even from each other’s.

    Oh, my, now I’m confused. Oh, wait…I see the problem. Alcove-one’s measure of credibility is so incredibly blockheaded that a moment’s consideration reveals its utter uselessness.

    Unless alcove is ready to aver that, for example, only US citizens who’ve been to Iraq may credibly pronounce upon the justice of the war, and then deal with the fact that opinions differ even among that subset of Americans, he should gracefully retract his ill-considered comment and beg us all for forgiveness. 

     

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