There must be something in the air because two "race-mixing" stories have turned up in the news this week. One, of course, involves that wacko Louisiana judge who has refused to marry interracial couples.
The other, however, comes to us from the heart of Israel where, according to NPR, young Jewish men are forming vigilante groups throughout the country to prevent young Jewish women from hooking up with Arab guys. And you thought your mother was a pest! More...
Apparently, as Israeli settlements have steadily encroached on Arab territory, new opportunities for inter-ethnic romance have blossomed, no more so than in the new settlements around Arab East Jerusalem. The vigilantes claim Israeli girls are being enticed by the "bad boy" personalities of the Arabs. With names like "Fire for Judaism" and "Love of Youth" (huh?), the vigilante groups roam the streets in groups of 30 or 40 trying to break up dates between wayward Jewish gals and their Arab suitors. The municipality of Petah Tikva has even formed a special division to address what it sees as the problem of underage Arab-Jewish couples.
Sheera Frenkel of NPR went on patrols with some of these groups. One of the vigilante leaders, who chose to keep his identity secret, said his mission was to find mixed couples and break up their dates:
My heart hurts every time I see a Jewish girl with an Arab. It's extremely upsetting. I asked myself: How did we get to this situation? How did we descend to this level? It is a serious step backwards, in our eyes.
"Descend to this level?" Is this guy the Israeli equivalent of a David Duke wannabe, or just a garden-variety nerd blaming his sexual ineptitude on Arab dudes who actually got some game? I don't know about you, but if I was out on a date with, say, my Iranian girlfriend, and a gang of young white women rolled up and tried to warn me off those Middle Eastern "bad girls", I’m pretty sure I’d tell them to kiss my white ass.
One Israeli girl described the appeal of Arab guys this way:
There are a lot of girls that go out with Arab men because Arab boys are wild. They're bad boys. Some girls like that. I think they like us because Arab girls are all conservative and wear the covering on their hair and we dress normally.
In saying that the Arab boys are wild, is she implying that Israeli boys, such as the vigilantes, are boring by comparison? And does that also mean that these Israeli girls are wild?
This story has obvious echoes of American race history, particularly
the intertwined sexual allure and fear of "the dark-eyed handsome man".
It’s a classic colonial syndrome, wherein the subjugated become the
embodiment of repressed sexual fantasy and anxiety. It’s a subject
deserving of an all-star panel discussion between, say, Sigmund Freud,
Edward Said, Malcolm X, Benjamin Netanyahu, bell hooks, and for comic
relief, Lenny Bruce.
