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Last update - 13:16 29/08/2008
Your mama's from Morocco
By Neri Livneh
Tags: Tel Aviv, French, Jerusalem

The receptionist and realtor we were told to talk to spoke French between themselves. The realtor, a young, elegantly dressed man, spoke in the thick accent of a new immigrant. He explained that they target tourists and new immigrants from France. It turns out that even upon Jerusalem the French have descended in droves, and not just around my home in Tel Aviv. A few days later, I read in the paper they feel Tel Avivians are hostile toward them. That was old news to me: I've been hearing hostile remarks directed at the French all over beachside cafes, the nearby pharmacy, the supermarket and at recently-opened kosher shawarma stands. Usually the comments come from people who take pride in their enlightened worldview, which is free from racism, naturally.

In Jerusalem, things are a little different. The French people in the capital are certainly not dressed scantily, as in Tel Aviv, where you see half-naked men and women in tube tops or bikinis, proudly displaying the new sunburns sported by them and their children, their roasted hue looking a lot like creme brulee. They are mostly more religious, more traditional, coming to live more than to sightsee. That substantive difference changes the nature of the racist remarks, which take on a more anti-religious slant. Though whether in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, this racism is ugly, as stupid and twisted as any form of racism. Apparently even on this matter we can serve as a light unto the nations.

What surprises me most is the unbridled enjoyment people take in making the most base and boorish of comments. Like someone quenching his thirst after a long journey in hot weather, like ravenous hunger after decades of dieting, like a dam wall bursting. From the old institutionalized racism of white Ashkenazim toward black Mizrahim, comes the silver tray served by the State of Israel in its first thirty-something years.
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For years, I've been hearing from everyone that the sectarian gap and discrimination against Mizrahim belong to the history books, or that they are simply the invention of manipulators looking to perpetuate them for their own benefit. There is a lot of evidence to support these claims. For years I haven't heard explicitly racist language of the sort I would hear in my childhood and even in the early 1980s, when I worked in an impoverished Jerusalem neighborhood. For years - ever since I was labeled as such by a Jerusalem mayoral candidate - I didn't hear the racial epithet "Frank," or the jokes about Moroccans stabbing people or Romanians stealing things that were so common when I was in the army. Though every so often, mostly in Jerusalem, I still hear about Russian criminals and prostitutes.

Maybe something in the world has changed, or maybe political correctness was victorious. Either way, because the racists in our midst are tired of having to hold back, political correctness has come crashing down with this onslaught of French tourists. What is so unique about all this hatred of the French is how it's justified by the haters and the grumblers, who are overcome with rage every time they hear French on Gordon Beach. "They're not even French," they all say. "They're Moroccan."

We're like the cafe? waiters in Paris' Fifth Arondissment, the very ones who have provided some of us tourists the grounds for xenophobia and anti-French rejudice, and proof of why it's better to get to Turkey on a package tour with Hebrew television in the hotel. Those Parisian waiters can't stand anyone whose ancestors aren't buried in a churchyard in a French village and who don't call bug juice Kir Royale.

We don't hate then because they're French, we hate them because they're "Moroccan" or "North African." I actually overheard an argument in a local cafe over whether Moroccans or Tunisians are considered the more inferior French citizens. It's suddenly gone back to being fine to hate Moroccans, as a general term for all Mizrahim, as long as they're not ours, of course. We love our Moroccans - as long as they're in Sderot, Yeruham, Kiryat Shmona and the rest of the development towns we stuck them in without asking for their opinion. And may I remind concerned readers that my mother's maiden name is Kalfon, not exactly a popular name in Krakow.

We also accept them without a fight in the big cities as long as they are well assimilated into Israeli Ashkenazi culture, and, moreover, as long as they don't stray from their allotted cultural niches. Sometimes it's really hard for us to understand what they are complaining about, but of course, we all got mad at former MK Ori Orr for saying exactly that. It's time now for the revenge of the racist Ashkenazi who learned to be politically correct. We made him endure our Moroccans and now he's taking it out on their Moroccans: the French ones, who, in case you didn't know, are like a rash - as loud, barbaric, hot-tempered as all the Moroccans.
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  1.   Not surprising 14:48  |  david 29/08/08
  2.   your mama is from morocco 15:48  |  rachel simson 29/08/08
  3.   Hysterical Mis-use of the term `racism". 16:31  |  FOX 29/08/08
  4.   There should be a new term 17:58  |  sWeis Melbourne 29/08/08
  5.   The Prices Keep Going Up 21:57  |  goldie klugman 29/08/08
  6.   Disgusted with Israelis` behavior toward friends 14:15  |  nina 31/08/08
  7.   Your mama.... 07:26  |  Ariella 01/09/08
  8.   Your article insulting the Marocan people 01:47  |  Marc Issan 08/09/08
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