Why Americans don’t understand Israeli Jews [View all]

[oberliner]

Excerpt:

Most Americans hate it when Israelis say to them, “Well, you don’t live here, so you don’t know,” when discussing Israeli politics. Yes, most Americans can understand that they do not suffer the consequences of Israeli and regional politics on an everyday basis—or for that matter, ever. However, the logic of stating that someone who doesn’t reside in a country can’t comment on its politics seems to completely diverge from accepting objective opinion, and also seems to counter any foreign policy analyst who isn’t exclusively commenting on his or her own country. It is precisely because Americans don’t live in Israel that they feel they can be less emotional about issues relating to Israel.

Another sensitive spot is political incorrectness. Many Israelis will joke about racism, the Holocaust or terrorist attacks, oftentimes as a way of coping with the political and military situation in the country. For Americans, these jokes are simply incomprehensible. For one, Americans have had few terrorist attacks on their own soil, unlike the second intifada, for example, in Israel. Second, America’s history of racism is a turbulent one, fought over centuries, and remains a sensitive topic today. American political and social culture denounces overt jokes on subjects like terrorism or race—even sketch comedies in the United States favor nuanced commentary on race or war rather than outright jokes about the subjects, which Israeli comedies favor. For most Americans, telling a joke about a bomb would be in extremely poor taste. So, when the Israeli father of incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel makes a comment about an Arab, most likely intended as a joke, it becomes national news and the subject of a sizable controversy.

The army is also viewed in completely different ways by Israelis and Americans. For Americans, the military is a place where you learn how to fight and use weapons against an enemy. The majority of Americans do not serve, and those who do are oftentimes deployed to regions far beyond their home country. There hasn’t been a draft in the United States since Vietnam (even then it was extraordinarily unpopular) and no universal civil service requirement exists either. Many Americans believe the Israel Defense Forces should reflect the military in the United States, but in most cases it doesn’t. The way I see it, Israelis look at the army as a time to bond with other countrymen and women, a place to learn a skill that can be used later in the workforce, and a place where a type of unification occurs - no matter your origin, you are a solider like anyone else. Americans can’t, essentially, understand the role the military plays in Israeli life, because it just doesn’t appear in Americans’ life as often. Israelis use the army as a networking resource, a place to meet other friends or a potential mate; oftentimes roles in the military will determine much of a person’s adult life. In America, this just isn’t the case. Oftentimes, the prevalence of a military experience in Israeli life leads Americans to view Israelis as a violent people, and this has grander ramifications on American-Israeli relations.

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/why-americans-don-t-understand-israeli-jews-1.426753