Israeli hummus cafe gives Jewish-Arab tables half off

Israeli hummus cafe gives Jewish-Arab tables half off - Al Jazeera English

A hummus cafe in Israel is giving a 50 percent discount to tables mixing Jewish and Arab diners, in a campaign the owner hopes will bring people together as dozens of people have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian violence this month. Kobi Tzafrir, the owner of Humus Bar in the town of Kfar Vitkin, initially posted the offer on Facebook. "With us we don't have Arabs! But we also don't have Jews... With us we've got human beings! Real excellent Arab hummus! Excellent Jewish falafel!", the post, which by Monday evening had been shared more than 1,000 times, read.

Best of luck, I have little faith at this gesture making any impact. Sorry to put it this way but everyone over there seems to have a more vested interest in conflict than peace, Israel included.

Nice gesture.

very nice

Just as in this thread the act is made by Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews. That's always a wonderful thing to see however the problem is that it deals with the relation between Jews and Arabs within Israel while the absolute majority of terror attacks are coming from Palestinian territories and East Jerusalem.

The recent wave of terrorism directed against Israeli Jewish citizens is the result of decades of incitement within the Palestinian territories by the Palestinian authorities and individuals in the position of power(Imams, school teachers, etc.). While the majority of Israeli Arabs are not exposed to incitement and to the promotion of the murder of innocent Jews to forward religious/political goals that cannot possibly be said about the Palestinian public as the culture within the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem is a completely different culture of death and hatred and the religious belief that being killed while in the act of murdering Jews gets one the favor of God is a widely accepted one within these territories. (Becoming a "Sha'id", getting 72 virgins, and the entire story)

It is thus unfortunate that gestures like the one in the OP, as heartwarming as they are, are not going to help stop the violence, the madness and the barbarism. Only putting an ending to the incitement would do that.

Apocalypse said:

Just as in this thread the act is made by Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews. That's always a wonderful thing to see however the problem is that it deals with the relation between Jews and Arabs within Israel while the absolute majority of terror attacks are coming from Palestinian territories and East Jerusalem.

The recent wave of terrorism directed against Israeli Jewish citizens is the result of decades of incitement within the Palestinian territories by the Palestinian authorities and individuals in the position of power(Imams, school teachers, etc.). While the majority of Israeli Arabs are not exposed to incitement and to the promotion of the murder of innocent Jews to forward religious/political goals that cannot possibly be said about the Palestinian public as the culture within the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem is a completely different culture of death and hatred and the religious belief that being killed while in the act of murdering Jews gets one the favor of God is a widely accepted one within these territories. (Becoming a "Sha'id", getting 72 virgins, and the entire story)

It is thus unfortunate that gestures like the one in the OP, as heartwarming as they are, are not going to help stop the violence, the madness and the barbarism. Only putting an ending to the incitement would do that.

Click to expand...

The lesson in all of this is, I think, that it is culture, more than anything else, which contributes to the behaviour of groups. within Israel Arabs have been able to develop a culture that still draws on their heritage but has been separated from the worst of tribal customs and, more importantly, was divorced from the radicalism that has been fermented in Arab societies everywhere else in the middle east. Of course there is cross-pollination and Israel can no more completely insulate its Arab population than we can in other western countries (we all know of the British Muslims who have joined ISIS etc). But Israel has been able to give its Arab citizens a positive vision and a positive political reality in which to pursue goals that are more in line with western philosophy and western thinking, all the while respecting their religious and cultural identities.

Unfortunately, to really fix the problem the Palestinians would need to be subsumed within a positive dominant political, ideological and economic society and then slowly disabused of their existing cultural norms and beliefs. And Israel is not strong enough or big enough or politically supported enough to do that. And since the only Arab country that is anywhere on the scale to modern open progressiveness is Jordan (and even that is not really supported on the ground, I don't think), there really is no hope for the kind of real change the Palestinians need to move past their broken culture to anything that could allow for a positive vision of the future to take hold.

And yes, this is the Palestinians' fault, though Israel probably had a window between 1967 and 1987 to work to deprogram Palestinian society and establish institutions to import what are essentially anglosphere values into their political and cultural systems, but (i) 20 years was probably not enough and (ii) Israel did not enter into the occupation with that mindset and did not undertake a plan to get them there, so that opportunity was lost.

Case in point:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rYCQjQkRGs

Only in Israel can Arab culture produce people who think as clearly as this and be willing to challenge the prevailing Arab orthodoxy.

CJ 2.0 said:

Unfortunately, to really fix the problem the Palestinians would need to be subsumed within a positive dominant political, ideological and economic society and then slowly disabused of their existing cultural norms and beliefs. And Israel is not strong enough or big enough or politically supported enough to do that. And since the only Arab country that is anywhere on the scale to modern open progressiveness is Jordan (and even that is not really supported on the ground, I don't think), there really is no hope for the kind of real change the Palestinians need to move past their broken culture to anything that could allow for a positive vision of the future to take hold.

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This is precisely the point I was trying to make. Most people who live in Western socieities cannot fathom the thought that this is not an issue of pure politics. This is a conflict of cultures.

In the Palestinian territories, ridiculously absurd lies and blood libels are widely accepted and considered unquestionable reality by the mainstream public and leadership. The recent wave of terrorism for example is based on the widely accepted belief in the Palestinian territories that Israel is willing to destroy al-Aqsa and build the third Jewish temple over its ruins. This belief is so bizzarre, surreal, laughable and absurd that it didn't get any real attention from the Israeli leadership and mainstream public until the current wave of terror. And yet this belief is what they believe in and what motivates 100% of the terrorists, and because they believe in that they have no problem at all to support murders of innocents because they really and sincerely believe that these murders are good and that they serve their goals to prevent this fantasy of the destruction of al-Aqsa. These are not beliefs held by their extremists and radicals, not at all, these are beliefs held by the so-called "moderates" in the leadership of the Palestinian authority and by the mainstream Palestinian society.

Abbas: Israelis have no right to desecrate our holy sites with their filthy feet - Arab-Israeli Conflict - Jerusalem Post
'13-year-old was executed,' Abbas claims falsely - Israel News, Ynetnews
Breathing down Abbas's neck, Fatah leaders want Israeli blood | The Times of Israel

So if Palestinians can create a lie, convince themselves of that lie, and then act on that lie and murder innocents, the begging question is what can possibly be done by Israel or any other outside party to stop this? And the unfortuante answer that no one wants to hear is that it's impossible to stop it, just like it's impossible to stop ideologies like that of ISIS from existing because these backwards ideologies and barbaric actions are strongly based and deeply rooted in the core values of these cultures, the values of fundamentalism, hatred, and the glorifying of death.
Terror requires no excuses.

Apocalypse said:

This is precisely the point I was trying to make. Most people who live in Western socieities cannot fathom the thought that this is not an issue of pure politics. This is a conflict of cultures.

In the Palestinian territories, ridiculously absurd lies and blood libels are widely accepted and considered unquestionable reality by the mainstream public and leadership. The recent wave of terrorism for example is based on the widely accepted belief in the Palestinian territories that Israel is willing to destroy al-Aqsa and build the third Jewish temple over its ruins. This belief is so bizzarre, surreal, laughable and absurd that it didn't get any real attention from the Israeli leadership and mainstream public until the current wave of terror. And yet this belief is what they believe in and what motivates 100% of the terrorists, and because they believe in that they have no problem at all to support murders of innocents because they really and sincerely believe that these murders are good and that they serve their goals to prevent this fantasy of the destruction of al-Aqsa. These are not beliefs held by their extremists and radicals, not at all, these are beliefs held by the so-called "moderates" in the leadership of the Palestinian authority and by the mainstream Palestinian society.

Abbas: Israelis have no right to desecrate our holy sites with their filthy feet - Arab-Israeli Conflict - Jerusalem Post
'13-year-old was executed,' Abbas claims falsely - Israel News, Ynetnews
Breathing down Abbas's neck, Fatah leaders want Israeli blood | The Times of Israel

So if Palestinians can create a lie, convince themselves of that lie, and then act on that lie and murder innocents, the begging question is what can possibly be done by Israel or any other outside party to stop this? And the unfortuante answer that no one wants to hear is that it's impossible to stop it, just like it's impossible to stop ideologies like that of ISIS from existing because these backwards ideologies and barbaric actions are strongly based and deeply rooted in the core values of these cultures, the values of fundamentalism, hatred, and the glorifying of death.
Terror requires no excuses.

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Agree, except it is not impossible. It's just not going to happen. If we could turn a thoroughly nazified Germany into a beacon of tolerance and human rights and turn a subservient, deferential, militaristic, honour-based Japanese culture into what we have today, clearly it is possible to take radically different cultures and impose positive change on them through direct, forcible efforts. We have also seen countless other cultural changes imposed on societies over time (not all of them good, of course), either by outsiders or by insider radicals or visionaries (e.g., Mao, Ataturk).

But there is not only no will by the international community to do this here, not only would they not support such efforts but they would actively work to obstruct them. And at the same time, there seems no prospect that the Palestinians would be able to be imposed upon by a radical reformer that could take control over their society and fix the culture that is so profoundly broken. So as a result the Palestinians will remain locked into their self-defeating culture, the Israelis will continue to need to manage them and minimize the negative impact on Israel and its people, and the conflict will necessarily continue, with or without Israeli concessions, with or without Palestinian sovereignty and independence.

don't behead me bro