Jul 12 2009
This video is NOT racist!!
On the Haaretz website I found this article, which included the following video from a television commercial in Israel:
Apparently many people were disturbed by this video, and called it racist. I myself was disturbed. Not because of the video, but at the terrible misinterpretation of the video. This video is not racist! (unlike, perhaps, my picture at the top of the post) It’s quite the opposite, in fact.
Let me explain:
I had an interesting awakening one time in Israel. I was walking around the wall of the Old City in Jerusalem with a friend of mine who happened to be an Arab who converted to Judaism. I noticed some graffiti on the wall in Arabic and out of blatant curiosity asked him to translate.
His answer was, “Nah, nah. Just some nonsense.”
But I pushed for a real translation. Why? I assumed if an Arab was going out of his way to write graffiti on this wall, it must be some anti-Jewish propoganda.
What did it say?
“So-and-so loves so-and-so.”
Just some teenage nonsense like any other teen, with zero racism and no political agenda.
And my off the wall epiphany:
These folk have so much in common with me and all other Jews, and if circumstances were different they could be our best of friends.
And that’s why I absolutely love this video.
With all the negativity that can easily be spewn they choose to dwell on something Israelis and Palestinians have in common:
The both love soccer!
I think it would be an absolute tragedy if this celebration of our similarities were removed.
