A new NGO attempts to build a case against Israeli racism. Omayma Abdel-Latif talked to the founders Where in the Middle East did a school principal get away with burning the New Testament in front of students? And in which country did a religious man say that a man's life is more important than a woman's? Was it Iran? Saudi Arabia? The right answer is Israel, where teachers at religious schools, it turns out, urge their students to write to soldiers to encourage them to "kill as many Arabs as possible", and where an IDF officer at a checkpoint may use glass shards to carve a Star of David on a Palestinian's arm. Israel's dark side, argue a group of Arab activists who have founded Arabs Against Discrimination (AAD), is rarely seen by the West. The horrors described above, and much else, are rarely reported in both Western and Arab media. The new NGO, which is being launched today, will have as its primary objective the monitoring of the Israeli media in order to expose any content with a racist and discriminatory nature. It will also attempt to bridge the language gap between the West and the Arab world -- where very few people speak Hebrew -- by offering comprehensive overviews of what is being published in the Hebrew press. Based on a personal initiative by Al-Ahram Board Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Ibrahim Nafie, who also heads the Arab Journalists Federation, a group of Arab activists have been laying down the groundwork for the project over the past six months. The AAD's web site will provide translations from the Hebrew press into three languages -- English, French and Arabic. The site will feature stories that discriminate against the West, women, Israeli Arabs, Islam, foreign workers, Palestinians, and Christians. It will also feature stories translated from the Hebrew press on freedom of expression, citizenship laws, intellectual extremism and the refuseniks. AAD, according to Emad Gad, Editor of Al- Ahram's (Dirasat Israelyia) Israeli Studies, a periodical on Israeli affairs, and AAD's secretary- general, aims to combat all forms of racial and ethnic discrimination by highlighting the blatant slurs, extremism and intolerance which permeate Israel's press and media discourse. He said the discrimination was not just against Arabs, but also against a slew of other ethnic and religious groups. "There is no endgame here," explained Abdel- Alim Mohamed, an expert on Israeli affairs. "This is about a side of Israel that is not reported. Israel is reported only in terms of its relation to the Arab world, but not in terms of a society where racism, extremism, and dehumanisation of the other -- be it an Arab or a Western -- have become the order of the day." Another AAD founding member explained that while there is a constant invocation in the global media of anti-Semitism against Jews, there is hardly any mention of what is going on in "the other Israel". "There is a black hole when it comes to the institutionalised racism, extremism and anti-Gentile discourse permeating the media, intellectual and religious circles in Israel," Diaa Rashwan told the Weekly. For years, Israeli politicians and media entities have accused Arab, and particularly Egyptian, media, of using anti-Jewish slurs. One Washington- based web site -- MEMRI -- is actually devoted to undermining the reputation of the Arab press by selecting its most offensive writings, translating them into English, and disseminating them to the widest possible public, usually out of context. Yigal Carmon, who used to work in Israeli intelligence, runs the site. Although Carmon has denied that the site serves an Israeli agenda, many Western observers believe it does. While Gad acknowledged that AAD was formed in part as a response to such "vile efforts", he said AAD would not use the same tactics, and would definitely not be taking things out of context or tampering with the translations. "We don't need to resort to such tactics because the reality itself is already so appalling. We also post the original Hebrew text to eliminate any suspicions." Over the past six months, the group has managed to get its hands on what they described as a wealth of articles, audio-video material and literature that is -- if judged by international standards -- abhorrent beyond imagination. Western test readers, according to Rashwan, registered shock and disbelief when offered a chance to read the material. While the group does not claim to be neutral about the Arab-Israel conflict, they insist that the criterion used to select the articles is neither political nor ideological. "We did not deal with issues like house demolitions or extra legal assassinations. This is not about quoting the extremist examples in the Hebrew press, but rather highlighting mainstream trends which reflect the Israeli establishment and society's thinking." AAD will also feature a legal unit that will be taking those media outlets or figures who make anti-Arab or anti- Muslim pronouncements to court. The Arab press, according to Rashwan, will also come under AAD scrutiny. "While there is a huge gap between the kind of Israeli racism that exists in public and media discourses, and that which exists in Arabic, the Arab press should know that using racist or discriminatory remarks does not do the cause any good," he pointed out. While AAD's staff does not have high hopes that exposing the institutionalised racism in Israel is likely to yield radical shifts in western policies towards the Middle East, they think it might eventually catalyse more international pressure on Israeli society to rid itself of some of the more abhorrent forms of institutionalised racism and discrimination. (www.aad-online.org)
