Middle Eastern Man is a Rational(izing) Creature

Average citizens in the civilized West must be baffled by current and not so current political events in the Middle East.  These include Egypt’s election and post-election chaos, Syria’s non-election chaos, and Israeli’s confusing election results.  They must think that we are either crazy, masochistic, or both.

I have recently read two books, a biography of Nasser, the Egyptian leader, and an analysis of (Arab) Palestinian history in the 1920’s and 1930’s.  My conclusion from these books is that this apparent insanity is neither new nor accidental.  In the words, it is perfectly rational, if not rather tragic and destructive.

My view is as follows:  Towards the end of the 19^th century, the spirit of nationalism created and sponsored by the French revolution and physically propagated by Napoleon reached the Jews and the Arabs.  This desire for independence, both political and cultural, was translated into an ideology, a somewhat far-fetched ideal.  In the case of the Jews, it was Herzel and dream of a national homeland in Israel while the Arabs aspired to the glory of the independence and dominance of Islam centuries before.  Each of these long term goals ignored several aspects of inconvenient reality, not the least of which were the European interest and the annoying existence of each other.  Nevertheless, the target populations were receptive to the idea and eventually bought it hook, line, and sinker.

It took a while, but the French and British eventually left the Middle East (tail between the legs and all), but the annoying fact that Jews and Arabs shared the same territory would not go away.  The options were simple: change the ideologies and preach tolerance and multiculturalism or maintain it and behave schizophrenically by alternating between denial (i.e. Arab distinction between “Jews” as compared to” Israelis” and Golda Meir's “there are no Palestinians”) and violence (let us count the wars).  For many reasons, changing an ideology is quite difficult (ask the U.S. Republican Party).  It is also dangerous to political and physical life, i.e. Rabin and Sadat.  So, the more convenient and popular option was to fight reality and each other. 

The results are quite tragic: death, poverty, anger, refugees, and misery.  Still, for most politicians of all stripes in the area, the greatest disaster would be peace.   It would render their ideology and raison d’être irrelevant.  As a final note, in England,  Cromwell was not despised because he was a dictator, but because he was tolerant.  The fact that, as Pascal said, man is thinking reed does not make leadership any easier.  Leaders cannot go too far from the conceptions of their people.

Names Matter

To take Hannah Arendt slightly out of context, language not only expresses what feel but determines what we feel.  A prime example is food.  Especially in the modern age when most people don’t raise their one food or often don’t even see a live animal aside the zoo, the source animal and the food on the plate are completely distinct in the people’s mind.  Theoretically and, for some people, practically, the thought of eating that cute rabbit or lamb takes the appetite away.

The culinary solution is to linguistically avoid connection.  The first way is to more accidental and historical than intentional.  Due to class and language issue in Norman English, where the French-speaking Normans enjoyed the “fruit” of the labor of the Anglo-Saxon speaking locals, the animal and derived meat had different names.  Cows, lambs, and pigs produced beef, mutton, and pork, respectively.  To be fair, saying out loud that you would like half of a pound of cow sound today a bit crude.

A more purposeful vocabulary shift is the purposeful development of alternative vocabulary to make certain foods more palatable.  Some examples include venison, sweetbread, tripe, and sausage / hot dog.  In animal terms, that means eating wild meat, generally deer, brain, intestines, and garbage meat in an edible bag, respectively.  As for the latter, how many kids would enjoy a hot dog if they knew what really was in it?

Modern culinary literature, i.e. the art of making it almost it impossible to understand what you are going to order, emphasizes foreign words because they sound exotic and induce no image in diners’ minds  concerning what is the source of their protein.  It sound so adventurous (and accordingly expensive) to eat les fruits de mer, escargots, canard, or calamari, to name a few.  To those who are afraid to ask, those lucky people are about to eat shellfish, snails, duck, and squid.  How delicious!  (Actually, they are in my opinion, but, as they say in French and most languages, chacun á son gout or to each his own).

So, when you go to that fancy restaurant and struggle to understand what exactly you should order (and are afraid to ask, as Woody Allen would say), remember, it is sometimes better to bluff your way and confidently order that mysterious item.  You might discover that brains are really tasty, or maybe not.

What you don't know does not always hurt you - Gender distinction

The Middle East is a sexist place, socially and linguistically.   Gender definitely matters.  The exact form depends on the specific ethnic and religious subgroup.  For example, in many subcultures in Israel, women and men sit separately, sometimes even in different rooms.

It also affects language.  English and Russian have the unisex they and они [oni], respectively;  French has the flexible on, which can refer to any grammatical gender or person.  By contrast, in Hebrew, the second and third person pronouns and all verb forms must reflect gender.  There is no escape in ambiguity.

For example, a typical American teenager can make the following statement:  They (the friends) invited me to a party.  The parents have the privilege of pretending that the invitation came from friends of the same sex.  Ignorance is bliss.  Hebrew parents can have no illusion.   הם [hem] and הן [hen]  are both gender specific, male and female in this case. 

This clarity also affects the world of entertainment.  For example, in English, Frank Sinatra’s signature song I did it my way can be sung by both male and female singers.  That is true for most love songs also.  Unfortunately, that does not work in Hebrew.   The verb form for the female “did” and “love” will have a different number of syllables, making it difficult to convert for a singer of the opposite sex.  If the singer chooses not to change the words, it creates a disjunction between the gender of the singer and verb form. 

This sharp distinction also creates daily decisions for Hebrew speakers.  Imagine the head nurse speaking to the hospital nursing staff: 18 female nurses and one male nurse.  Which form should the head nurse use, the male or female form?  Traditionally, the male form was and is used, although today it seems a bit awkward, even if most Israeli females do not make an open fuss about it.

So, as the French and diplomats know very well, there is nothing wrong with ambiguity sometimes, especially if you want to hide information or keep the peace.

On the way to Jerusalem or My Home is my Castel

Many Americans are interested in buying real estate in Israel, an investment supposedly guaranteed to rise in value over the years.  With Google Translate and English-speaking lawyers, there is no problem in reading the “for sale” notices.  However, there is a large gap between understanding the words and knowing what really what you are getting.

First of all, watch the room count number: an Israeli four room apartment has three bedrooms.  The family room, called the salon in Hebrew, counts as a room, although the kitchen doesn’t, for some reason.  Secondly, the sizes are listed in square meters, not square feet.  The ratio is a bit over 1:10, i.e. 100 m² = 1076 sq. ft. and 150 m² = 1614 sq. ft.  However, as Mark Twain would say, numbers can lie.  First, Israeli buildings are almost entirely made of brick.  They are measured from the external edges of walls.  Given the size of the bricks, that can add significant square meters to the total, to the joy of the building contractors and city tax collectors and at the expense of the actual living space.  More seriously, in many parts of the country, the ground is very rocky, making initial development costs expensive.  As a result, many apartments are built upward with multiple floors, 16 steps, or half floors (Miflasim).  The total area includes those almost useless stairwells.  So, not all 120 m² apartments are created equal.

Speaking of floors, like Europe, most Israeli buildings have a ground floor.  The first floor requires walking up stairs.  Buildings up to three stories are not required to have elevators.  So, a third floor apartment, no matter how wonderful it is inside, can be a real physical condition builder when you have groceries to haul up of 48 steps.   Seriously, such apartments pose seriously problems for older people with limited mobility.

Another source of misunderstanding is the penthouse, which may bring images of a fancy place in Manhattan, but often means an average apartment spread over the top two floors of a building.  I suppose the residents of penthouses do not have to suffer from noise from the upstairs neighbors (unless their son or daughter has a room on the top floor), but they do get to enjoy the fruits (or mushrooms) of the first rain of the season when the roof starts to leak.

Lastly, an almost unique Israeli housing requirement is the mamad, the reinforced room.  All newer housing requires it, but many older houses and apartments lack it.  This room, which has reinforced cement and a special window and door, is very useful when Israel’s not-so-friendly neighbors starting reenacting those thrilling lines from the American national anthem:  … and the rocket’s red glare and bombs bursting in air…  On the flip side, it is a real headache drilling a hole in those walls.  So depending on where you want to live, having a secure room could be on your check list.

So, as the expression goes, let the buyer beware.  Israel has no Brooklyn Bridge to sell, but it has its share of Potemkin village property.

Victory, Defeat and the Middle East

The Middle East is truly difficult for the Western World to understand.  It seems familiar and similar,  but peculiar and annoying differences keep on popping up.  For example, there are two words existing in all languages (to the best of my knowledge) with clear meanings: victory and defeat.   In regards to war, if your armed forces can or do take over the enemy’s territory, you win.  If you have to ask for mercy, you lose.  Every kid who ever had a fight in the schoolyard understands that.

However, in the Middle East, the words have become confused.  In 1948, 1956, and 1967, both Israelis and Arabs agree that the former won and the latter lost. Since then, Lewis Caroll has taken over, i.e. a word means what I intend it to mean.  In 1973, Egypt and Syria had to run to Russia and the UN and ask for a ceasefire because Israel had wide open roads to Cairo and Damascus.   Curiously enough, Israelis view the Yom Kippur War as a great defeat while the Egyptians regularly celebrate the anniversary of the great victory.  In the first and second Lebanese wars (the former officially known as Peace in the Galilee Campaign), the Palestinians and Hezbollah were forced to retreat, to the sea in the former case, granted while causing quite a few casualties for the Israelis.   Again, the sides seem to view the matter inversely, with the Israelis very uncomfortable with the memory of the conflict and the former two groups proud of their resistance. 

The latest of chapter of  this Go reversal game is the most recent tit-for-tat exchange in Gaza, otherwise known as the Pillar of Cloud operation, which ended some two weeks ago.  The Palestinians objectively were extremely unsuccessful in their goal of killing civilians while the Israeli air force destroyed most of their planned targets with minimum collateral damage, as civilian casualties are euphemistically called.  Predictably, Israelis are uneasy with the result while the Palestinians are celebrating their phantom victory, i.e. the vague promise to talk about opening borders.

Clausewitz wrote that war is another means of diplomacy.  I suppose that the claimed victories and defeats are actual if you taken into account the political goals of the parties.  Still, as Orwell suggested, the complete misuse of words eventually strips them of all of their meaning, especially in the Middle East.

National Streets

Street names are culturally specific.  Some countries treat their streets as long strips of asphalt while others give them much more historical significance.

The United States as a rule shows little imagination but some practicality in naming its streets.  The most common names are trees (oak, elm, pin, etc), numbers, and letters.  The city of Portland, Oregon in its downtown area has all of its streets going north/south (to the best of my memory) named in alphabetical order according to the first letter, i.e. words beginning of a, b, c, etc.  It makes finding addresses much simpler.  The only real bit of history in most U.S. cities is the use of presidents, but it doesn’t go much farther than the founding fathers and a few exceptional ones, specifically Washington, Madison, Adams, Lincoln, Jefferson, and Roosevelt. 

A French city map is a history lesson, especially Paris.  Anybody who is anybody in French history has a street, however small it may be, named after him or her.  There is almost always a small plaque stating a few biographical bits and pieces about the person.  The older city has medieval names whose origins are often completely lost, such as Rue de Mauvais Fils (The street of bad boys).  The distinction between ancient and modern Paris is sometimesmarked by the word “Faubourg” added  to a street name somewhere along its length, as in Rue St. Denis and Rue Faubourg St. Denis. All in all, for the interested explorer, its turns every stroll in Paris into a wonderful look into the past.

Modern Israel tends to name streets after history and nature.  No Israeli municipality is complete without a Rehov Ben Gurion, Jabotinsky, Herzl, and Trumpeldor.  I live in a neighborhood whose streets are all military campaigns (most of which the younger generation has never hear of).  Ironically, it is bordered by a street called Derech Hashalom, meaning “The Way of Peace.” Fortunately, most residential streets are given the sweet sounding names of trees, birds, and flowers, such as Alon (Oak), Dukifat (hoopoe), and Harzit (chrysanthemum).  In many cities, such as Jerusalem and Zefat, the names of various rabbis and righteous people are noted.  By contrast, in many Arab villages, there are many “anonymous” streets, which I suppose adds challenge to the postal carrier’s job.

Of course, there is a joke about the high regard that Americans have for the late Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin.  Almost every freeway in the United States is named Begin freeway.

Inverse Proportions – (Politically proportional or not)

An inverse proportion can describe a relation where the scales of effort and results are opposite, i.e. greater effort is used for less consequence.  It applies to the 80/20 rule, which states that 20% of the work attains 80% of the results while the last 20% requires 80% of the effort. 

This rule has a curious parallel in politics, specifically the actual voting process in general elections.  In the United States, voting during a presidential year can take great time and effort.  Voters place their booklet in the holder and then punch holes for the choice for the following positions, depending on the year, of course: president of the United States, senator  and representative for the U.S. Congress, senator and representative for the state legislature, representative for city legislature, governor, mayor, judge, police chief, local prosecutor,  sheriff, and board of education members, not to mention countless state propositions where allowed in that state (California, for example).  Voting truly demands concentration and several minutes of concentration.  U.S. citizens are naturally expected, even around half of them fail to do so, to find time during their working day to get to the voting stations. 

By contrast, the Israeli voters go their voting stations, generally a school within walking distance, show their ID to five people, who mark off their name on a list.  That is the hard part.  Then they walk into a curtain covered booth, take out an envelope, choose a piece of paper identifying the party of their choice, place that paper in the envelope, seal the envelope, exit the booth, and place the envelope in the appropriate box.  In fact, it took more time to write that description than to actually do it.  Ironically, Israelis get a day off to accomplish that complicated task.  Even then, a significant percentage of Israelis do not vote.

In short, Americans have to work hard to vote and don’t get any time off for fulfilling their civic duty.  By contrast, Israelis have almost nothing to do, aside from getting to the voting station, to pick their Knesset members.  However, as illogical as it sounds, Israelis get a day off.  It is truly inverse.