One often hears the Jewish complaint that Arabs teach their children to hate Jews. Few know that Israelis themselves teach hatred of Arabs.
"Why we have a New Testament: "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." --Blaise Pascal, Pensees, 1670
Moses may not have known about natural selection, but he transmitted his god's explicit commandment to kill and steal from out-group members as a recurrent major theme. Two distinct policies were put into effect. First, all members of nations located in the land that was to become Israel were to be killed outright. Subsequently, people in surrounding nations were to be killed unless they agreed to become subservient to Israel. Both policies are given in one passage of Deuteronomy (20:10-18; RSV), with instructions regarding people outside of Israel given first:
"When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it. And if its answer to you is peace and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you. But if it makes no peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it; and when the LORD your God gives it into your hand you shall put all its males to the sword, but the women and the little ones, the cattle, and every- thing else in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as booty for yourselves; and you shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the LORD your God has given you. Thus you shall do to all the cities which are very far from you, which are not cities of the nations here. "But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded; that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices which they have done in the service of their Gods, and so to sin against the LORD your God."
For prior occupants of the promised land, there can be no doubt that this meant genocide according to the word's modern definition (RSV): "They should be utterly destroyed, and should receive no mercy but be exterminated, as the LORD commanded Moses" (Joshua 11:20) . . . Utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling" (I Samuel 15:3). And, as if they had a sense of Hamilton's (1964) inclusive fitness: "You will make them as a blazing oven when you appear. The LORD will swallow them up in his wrath; and fire will consume them. You will destroy their offspring from the earth, and their children from among the sons of men" (Psalms 21:9-10).
There can be no doubt that this commandment was mandatory, as Maimonides explained (Judges 5:4, italics not added; cf Elba 1995, Lior 1994): "It is a positive commandment to destroy the seven nations, as it is said: Thou shalt utterly destroy them. If one does not put to death any of them that falls into one's power, one transgresses a negative commandment, as it is said: Thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth."
The Israelites' campaign to carry out their god's commandment to commit genocide against the native inhabitants of Canaan-cum-Palestine took several generations. It began with Joshua's massacre at Jericho. Contrary to the Christian song "Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho," according to scripture there was no battle at all. It was a siege, at the end of which all of the city's inhabitants were killed except Rahab the prostitute (she and her family were spared in exchange for helping Joshua plan his strategy, Joshua 6:16-17, 19, 21, 24, RSV): Joshua said to the people, "Shout; for the LORD has given you the city. And the city and all that is within it shall be devoted to the LORD for destruction . . . But all silver and gold, and vessels of bronze and iron, are sacred to the LORD; they shall go into the treasury of the LORD." . . . Then they utterly destroyed all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and asses, with the edge of the sword . . . And they burned the city with fire, and all within it; only the silver and gold, and the vessels of bronze and of iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the LORD. The half-life and penetrance of such cultural legacies are often under-appreciated.
Some 3,000 years after the fall of Jericho, Israeli psychologist George Tamarin (1966, 1973) measured the strength of residual in-group morality. He presented Joshua 6:20-21 to 1,066 school children, ages 8-14, in order to test "the effect of uncritical teaching of the Bible on the propensity for forming prejudices (particularly the notion of the 'chosen people,' the superiority of the monotheistic religion, and the study of acts of genocide by biblical heroes)." The children's answers to the question "Do you think Joshua and the Israelites acted rightly or not?," were categorized as follows: "'A' means total approval, 'B' means partial approval or disapproval, and 'C' means total disapproval."
Across a broad spectrum of Israeli social and economic classes, 66% of responses were "A," 8% "B," and 26% "C." The "A" answers tended to be as straightforward as they were numerous (Tamarin, 1966): In my opinion Joshua and the Sons of Israel acted well, and here are the reasons: God promised them this land, and gave them permission to conquer. If they would not have acted in this manner or killed anyone, then there would be the danger that the Sons of Israel would have assimilated among the "Goyim." In my opinion Joshua was right when he did it, one reason being that God commanded him to exterminate the people so that the tribes of Israel will not be able to assimilate amongst them and learn their bad ways. Joshua did good because the people who inhabited the land were of a different religion, and when Joshua killed them he wiped their religion from the earth. Tamarin (1973) noted that: "C" classification [total disapproval] was accorded to all answers formally rejecting genocide, either on ethical or utilitarian grounds. This does not mean that all "C" responses reveal non-discriminatory attitudes. For example, one girl criticized Joshua's act, stating that "the Sons of Israel learned many bad things from the Goyim." . . . Another extremely racist response is that of a 10 year old girl disapproving the act, stating, "I think it is not good, since the Arabs are impure and if one enters an impure land one will also become impure and share their curse." Other misgivings included (1966): I think Joshua did not act well, as they could have spared the animals for themselves. I think Joshua did not act well, as he should have left the property of Jericho; if he had not destroyed the property it would have belonged to the Israelites.
In contrast to the established difference between boys and girls in propensity toward violence and approval of violence in general, with regard to biblically commanded genocide Tamarin found that "Contrary to our expectation, there was no difference, concerning this most cruel form of prejudice, between male and female examinees" (1973). Less surprising, but more alarming, nearly half of the children who gave "total approval" to Joshua's behavior also gave "A" responses to the hypothetical question: "Suppose that the Israeli Army conquers an Arab village in battle. Do you think it would be good or bad to act towards the inhabitants as Joshua did towards the people of Jericho?" Tamarin (1966) received such responses as these: In my opinion this behavior was necessary, as the Arabs are our enemies always, and the Jews did not have a country, and it was necessary to behave like that towards the Arabs. It would have been good to treat the Arabs as Joshua and his soldiers did, as they are Arabs; they hate and retaliate against us all the time, and if we exterminate them as Joshua did, they won't be able to show themselves as greater heroes than we. I think it was good because we want our enemies to be conquered, and to widen our frontiers, and we should kill the Arabs as Joshua and the Israelites did. Some respondents disapproved of Joshua's campaign (answer "C"), but approved of similar acts if committed by Israeli soldiers. One girl disapproved of Joshua "because it is written in the Bible, 'don't kill'," but she approved of the conjectured Israeli Army action, stating "I think it would be good, as we want our enemies to fall into our hands, enlarge our frontiers, and kill the Arabs as Joshua did."
As a control group, Tamarin tested 168 children who were read Joshua 6:20-21 with "General Lin" substituted for Joshua and a "Chinese Kingdom 3000 years ago" substituted for Israel. General Lin got a 7% approval rating, with 18% giving partial approval or disapproval, and 75% disapproving totally.
© John Hartung Ph.D.
Monday, February 05, 2007
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Budget for cancer mapping doesn't extend to Arab sector
By Eli Ashkenazi
Four years ago, in June 2001, the Health Ministry published a map of the geographical distribution of malignant diseases in Israel during the years. The detailed report presents more than 68 pages of data about malignant diseases in communities with more than 10,000 residents. However, except for Rahat, the report did not include a single Arab community.
For some months now, environmental and social justice groups have been trying to find out why. No answer came until last October when the head of the Health Ministry's cancer registration unit, Dr. Micha Barhana, wrote: "Unfortunately, at this time we are unable to process and publish a mapping of disease in the Arab sector, because of budgetary problems, which prevent contact with the residential registries, and because patients' addresses have not been updated over the past years."
Dr. Barhana's reply was met with outrage. "It is inconceivable," says Leithi Ghanem of the Al-Rasd Organization for Environmental Quality, "We identify a worrisome upward trend in malignant diseases in the Arab sector. We want to get to the bottom of the causes and demand that a geographical mapping be published, identical to the previous one, but now with a focus on Arab communities. This publication will shed light on the medical situation of Israel's Arab population and will help focus attention and treatment to prevent further deterioration."
Ghanem presents data collected by the Israel Center for Disease Control, which shows that in the past three decades the rate of malignant diseases in the Arab population has risen by 97.8 percent among men, and 123 percent among women, as opposed to a rise of 39.8 percent for men and 24.4 percent for women among the Jewish population.
"In light of these figures," he says "adequate resources must be allocated to map malignant disease in the Arab sector, and to set a timetable for publishing the results."
Gil Yaakov, of the Coalition for Public Health, which unites 20 environmental groups in the area of Haifa and the north, says he is under the impression that the registrar wants to prepare a report about the Arab communities, but has not been provided with a budget. Yaakov explains that a mapping would allow them to correlate between industrial or transportation hazards and disease.
"When an area with high rates of disease is identified - and the north has many diseased areas associated with environmental pollution - policies can be changed," Yaakov says. "Only when a correlation can be shown is it possible to prevent installation of new hazards, or demand tighter standards. In most cases, the polluters argue that no connection between pollution and disease can be proved. Geographical mapping can be very helpful in demonstrating the connection. Mayors will only take action when presented with hard data."
The Coalition for Public Health says that in the absence of mapping it is hard to raise awareness, or organize residents to fight for their rights. "It is known that communities near the Haifa and Acre bay suffer from high rates of disease. We want to know what is happening in Shfaram, Tamra or Makr-Jadida. Currently it is easy to establish projects that create pollution in these communities. Mapping disease will prevent further marginalization of these communities."
Director of the Center Against Racism, Bakr Awawda, recently approached Health Minister Dan Naveh, demanding that Arab communities be mapped. "Only mapping Jewish communities violates constitutional rights, anchored in the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Freedom," says the letter, which was sent more than two months ago and is still awaiting a reply.
"This is a sensitive issue involving responsibility for human life," Awawda says. "I live in Kafr Kana. We sense that there are many more cancer patients over the past years. Perhaps there is a connection with emissions from the nearby industrial zone, perhaps it is the water sources. Who knows? A mapping could begin to point to answers to these disturbing questions. Why is Upper Nazareth in the report, but neighboring Kafr Kana and Nazareth are not?"
The Health Ministry said in response that the study only included large cities for comparative reasons, to seek differences in rates of disease. "According to the registry's data, disease in the Arab sector is much lower than in the Jewish population. The Health Ministry considers statistical mapping of cancer in the Arab sector as very important. The ministry is working with the appropriate bodies to begin a mapping of cancerous diseases in the Arab sector."
However, the ministry's claims to the contrary, perusal of the report reveals, that it does not include only the large cities. It actually lists 62 communities of more than 10,000 residents. Some, like Kiryat Shmona or Upper Nazareth are smaller than Arab towns that are not included, such as Umm al-Fahm or Nazareth.
"The report has produced two different groups," says attorney Khaider Ala from the Center Against Racism. "One, an overprivileged group, whose lives are dear to the state and to the Health Ministry; a second, whose lives are of no importance to the state. The state must implement an economic and social policy that will ensure the health of all its citizens."
Awawda and Khaider plan to petition the High Court and ask it to instruct the Health Ministry fo map malignant diseases in Arab communities."
Nearly one in four of Israel's 1.6 million schoolchildren are educated in a public school system wholly separate from the majority. The children in this parallel school system are Israeli citizens of Palestinian Arab origin. Their schools are a world apart in quality from the public schools serving Israel's majority Jewish population. Often overcrowded and understaffed, poorly built, badly maintained, or simply unavailable, schools for Palestinian Arab children offer fewer facilities and educational opportunities than are offered other Israeli children. This report is about Israel's discrimination against its Palestinian Arab children in guaranteeing the right to education.
The Israeli government operates two separate school systems, one for Jewish children and one for Palestinian Arab children. Discrimination against Palestinian Arab children colors every aspect of the two systems. Education Ministry authorities have acknowledged that the ministry spends less per student in the Arab system than in the Jewish school system. The majority's schools also receive additional state and state-sponsored private funding for school construction and special programs through other government agencies. The gap is enormous--on every criterion measured by Israeli authorities.
The disparities between the two systems examined in this report are identified in part through a review of official statistics. These findings are tested and complemented by the findings of Human Rights Watch's on-site visits to twenty-six schools in the two systems and our interviews with students, parents, teachers, administrators, and national education authorities.
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