Israeli religious-right parties escalated dehumanizing anti-Arab rhetoric in the 1980s.

Evidence

This ambivalence runs to the very early days of the state. “We do not want Israel to become Arab,” declared Ben-Gurion in a fit of forthrightness. “We are bound by duty to fight against the spirit of the Levant society.” Yet, because Jews, de-Arabized or not, they are better treated, considered to belong, with more access, rights, political representation, and increasingly political power and acceptance than non-Jewish Arab Israelis. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 602 (#expands, via linked claim)

In the racist mind of the aging Benjamin Emanuel—who does not know the language of concealing one’s bigotry and speaks like the Irgun terrorist that he was—he simply switches the African for the Arab and lets go of “the values upon which he has raised his family”. What the senior Emanuel uttered is not all that odd for an Israeli racist. The domain of anti-Arab bigotry in Israel, from which Benjamin Emanuel draws freely, is not limited to Irgun terrorists. “Mohammad’s a pig”, and “Death to Arabs” are the staples of Israeli racism regularly sprayed on mosques and spewed at the residents of occupied Palestine, as is the hurling of severed pigs’ heads into Muslim houses of worship. — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 567 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Israel’s founding ideology combined anti-Arab rhetoric with Jewish supremacy over Arab citizens — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 602; Anti-Arab slurs and vandalism are routine staples of Israeli racism — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 567

Broader Connections

• Israel’s founding ideology combined anti-Arab rhetoric with Jewish supremacy over Arab citizens #expands (0.78) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 602
• Anti-Arab slurs and vandalism are routine staples of Israeli racism #complicates (0.72) — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 567