Here in Israel, racism is alive and well - Haaretz

In Boston, Christopher Columbus was beheaded. In Bristol, England, the Tory member of Parliament and slave trader Edward Colston was thrown into the harbor. King Leopold II of Belgium, whose brutal rule in the Congo killed millions, was disfigured and pulled down. It continues throughout the world, but not here: Baruch Goldstein’s grave in Hebron is fine, and the Rehavam Ze’evi Bridge is strong and stable.

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For Netanyahu, it's either annexation, election - or bothCredit: Haaretz

The foundations of the world are changing, but Israel watches from the sidelines and has not joined the upheaval. Perhaps that’s because in other countries it’s the people who decide what will be in the public space, and the people no longer want to walk through the streets with their children, past mutilators cast in bronze.

Here in this crazy place, on the other hand, at the height of these tumultuous times, a person can write a post that is breathtaking in its ignorance and racism, and still be a television presenter and a legitimate member of a roundtable: “It’s important to say: Slavery ended 200 years ago. Since then the United States has been flooded with waves of immigration of Hispanic, Chinese, Jewish and other minorities. They all surpassed the blacks by almost every measure. Why?? And no, washing their feet won’t change the situation.”

Protesters rallying near the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia, June 13, 2020. Credit: JAY PAUL/REUTERS

Shimon Riklin, a far-right journalist, is not important. We are important, however, and we have to admit that the United States, England, Germany, Belgium and every other country in the West has surpassed Israel by almost every possible measure. At a time when HBO is removing “Gone with the Wind,” one of the most popular movies of all time, from its streaming service because it is suffused with longing and nostalgia for the dying world of the South, with its estates and its cotton plantations and its slaves – here, in our country, there are people who wonder out loud, in public, what kind of inborn racial inferiority it was that left the blacks behind. Our society needs these Riklins, because the entire occupation is based on their sick logic, and it is also what enables us to seriously discuss the annexation plan.

Throughout the world a storm is raging. Even the most pessimistic people in the African American community say they have never seen anything like it. Only 50 years have gone by since the protests that broke out in the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and people in the United States, as well as in many other countries, are taking to the streets to protest racism.

Only here is the statue of Shimon Riklin still standing. It is standing in the center of the public space, and the public is not rising up and saying “Your time is up, the world is changing its colors.” That’s because he makes our deformed existence here possible. He is the unconscious of every one of us, which asks why people in the Gaza Strip don’t improve their living conditions, and why people in Judea and Samaria use their money to compensate families of terrorists instead of building an opera house.

All over the world, hard questions are being asked about state violence. A white sports broadcaster says that what the world needs now is a new Martin Luther King Jr., to which a black reporter from The New York Times replies that it’s a shame that you all killed him. And here, we tsk-tsk at the violence of the protesters. demonstrators. All over the world the monuments to the bloody history of colonialism are being toppled, and here we’re annexing.

A police officer looking toward the toppled statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis along Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia, June 10, 2020.Credit: @thicketoftrash/AP

That’s why the statue of the shameless racist allows us to continue to think that there is no Palestinian people, only a collection of murderous peasants who, if asked, would rather live under the boot with a Star of David than to be subjects of the Palestinian Authority. They want to enjoy the rotten fruits of plenty that have fallen from the tree, that we generously let them glean. That’s why this statue of the racist who supports the theft of private land stands in the city square. We need it to justify our deeds here every single day.

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Here in Israel, racism is alive and well - Haaretz
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