Video survey: Racism in Israel
Eli Ungar-Sargon of Cut fame, whose blogging here at Jewschool has generated some interesting conversations, is off and running on his next project—a documentary film about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As part of that project he surveyed both Israelis and Palestinians about their attitudes towards the other (i.e. Israelis about Arabs and Palestinians about Jews). The interviews with Palestinians have not been completely translated yet, and so the data is not ready, however, the data about Israelis is ready. Its not surprising, though its not pretty. At the same time, the data and interviews do not seem to support the screaming headline that the piece was given in Electronic Intifada where it was published. Here is the video:
The essay is here
Obviously all forms of racism must be combated. And some of the viewpoints represented in this video are awful.
I would point to the difference between Israeli and Palestinian media.
Here is a link to an Israeli show that used a hidden camera to test Israeli attitudes toward Arabs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KvdQite8rww
You can argue that they only show the positive clips, but the fact that this aired does say something about the society. Contrast this with Palestinian media that consistently uses displays blatant anti-semitism rivaled only by the meida in Nazi Germany.