It was the second day of SALAM (Successful Arab Leaders at Michigan), a transitional program for newly matriculated Arab freshmen and transfers to the University of Michigan. We held a discussion with recent U-M Arab Alumni about their undergraduate experiences as hArab-Americans. One panelist shared an anecdote about a U-M faculty member, who had to be told that not all Arabs fast for Ramadan since not all Arabs are Muslim. Everyone in the room laughed it off — but it was still a strange experience, as it exhibited that a person can go years conflating Arabs and Muslims to such an extent that they become synonymous, and that this is a belief held by a surprising and disappointing amount of people.
In the fall, I participated in the first SAFE (Students Allied for Freedom and Equality) book club meeting. We started by introducing ourselves, and it was surreal to see how many undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty who had shown up. We started with a group reading of “Letter from Gaza’‘ by Ghassan Kanafani and had a discussion afterwards. A Palestinian graduate student recalled a memory: someone being surprised by the fact that he was Arab Christian, as if being Arab and Christian was an impossibility. Irony swelled when he stated that he was born in Nazareth, the same town that Jesus had grown up in.
There are plenty of examples of Arab Christians having the same experience. I cannot help but recall when The New York Times published an article that included and later corrected the false conflation, “Mr. Viorst was also the victim of criticism from Muslim scholars like Edward Said, the Columbia University professor who was a “‘leading champion of the Palestinian cause.’” Edward Said had grown up Christian and lived his later years secularly. I don’t believe that the mistake was made maliciously, yet it makes apparent the prevalent assumption that Arab equates to Muslim.
Edward Said is known for coining the term “Orientalism” which he defines as a dominating European or Western perspective of the Orient (the East) in academic, political, social and cultural discourse that reduces the Orient to a series of misrepresenting stereotypes grounded in fantasy. In this article, when the word “Orientalist” is used, it is not referring to a well-meaning academic of Oriental and Arab literature and culture; rather, it refers to an individual who consciously or subconsciously subscribes to the skulking prejudices put forth by Orientalism against the Arab.
Then and now, Christian Palestinians are suffering harsh conditions. Several were killed in a series of bombings conducted by Israel near churches in Gaza. Two Christian Palestinian women were sniped dead by an Israeli sniper in front of Gaza’s Holy Family Church. Palestinian Pastor, Munther Isaac, has issued a statement condemning the genocide of his own people, with several sermons since. Israel’s rhetoric relies heavily on the assumption that Arabs equate to Muslims, to justify their onslaught with no regard for loss of life using their muddied definition of terrorist, as a result leading to the abandonment of all Arabs by “God-fearing” Christians in the West. If the mere idea of a Christian Palestinian was acknowledged, the Occident (the non-orient) would be forced to confront a guilty conscience: they have been either complicit or directly supporting an occupation’s excuse for an onslaught upon the ones who were meant to be considered brothers and sisters, upon the very identities the align themselves with.
The League of Arab States includes 22 countries: Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Yemen, Djibouti, Somalia and Comoros. Being under the category of Arab or Muslim-majority countries, they are often mistakenly assumed to have the same culture
My father, when he was around my age, traveled from his home country, Egypt, to Iraq. He still vividly remembers the conversation he had with an Iraqi taxi driver. The taxi driver was speaking the Iraqi Arabic dialect and my father could not understand a single word. He thought the man was speaking another language entirely. It was only after the taxi driver played Umm Kulthum, an Egyptian singer known to have no equal worldwide, that he realized the man could speak Arabic. After this, the two agreed to have their conversation in Modern Standard Arabic, the literary version of the language used in educational and governmental settings, news outlets, as well as other formal settings.
There is one joke my father loves to quote. Playwright George Branden Shaw once said, “England and America are two countries separated by the same language.” Yet, for the most part, Americans and Britons have little to no trouble understanding each other, in contrast to Arabs. The stark distinctions between dialects signify stark distinctions in culture as well. Arab culture is not one culture; it’s a conglomerate of multiple different cultures and peoples.
It is disappointing when current and former Israeli officials and their defendants don’t feel any sort of shyness when professing their desire to displace and distribute the Palestinian people over neighboring Arab countries. I could only imagine the outrage at the mere suggestion of a mass movement of any European population to another country. By rejecting the Palestinians as a distinct people, based on the Orientalist notion of common heritage and culture of Arabs, it becomes easy to make casual suggestions of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
Staunch Zionists have repeatedly urged Egypt to open the border and accept millions of refugees. The repetition of the request is arguably in willful ignorance of Egypt’s equally staunch refusal to allow another Nakba of the Palestinian people, again tantamount to ethnic cleansing. Egyptian officials have publically spoken about a leaked Israeli document proposing the movement of Palestinians to Sinai. It resurfaced and now warranted the long-held fear of Israel’s want to displace Palestinians to Sinai like the widely circulated phrase, “a land without a people for a people without a land.”
Zionists, when discussing Egypt’s refusal, have a habit of not addressing the aforementioned leaked document nor the response to it. By ignoring the reply, they join the historical Orientalist response when discussing the Arab. The Arab is robbed of his voice, his opinion and his history. Consequently, the non-Orient will speak on his behalf: Egypt is not accepting a forced displacement of a whole people, and therefore, it must be because Egypt does not want an influx of terrorists!
Egypt being in control of the border of Gaza alongside Israel is typically seen as a “gotcha moment” by Zionist proponents, especially by those who typically avoid debating historians or scholars on the matter. How can an Arab country be in control of a border alongside Israel, the so-called “oppressor” of an Arab people? Never mind the gross oversimplification of Palestine’s occupation necessary to impose this rhetorical question unironically. The interrogation implies the Egyptian government is the one and only representative of the Egyptian people. Again, Arabs have their voices stolen by the Orientalist, to put forward a cop-out explanation for Israel’s palpably disgusting disregard for the lives of Palestinians.
Regardless, the voices of the Egyptian people and by extension any Arab people will perhaps never be acknowledged by Orientalists as a credible source, even when it comes to their own self-determination. Pro-Palestine protests have filled the campus, rightfully condemning the genocide of now atleast 30,000 Palestinians. Yet in an attempt to delegitimize the opposers of the Israeli government, the Zionist non-Orient has no choice but to throw around the labels of “terrorist” and “terrorist-sympathizer;” harkening back to the use of Orientalist and racist tropes to not engage in an argument with the pro-Palestinian, but to remove him entirely from the conversation. We have been subjected to a centuries’ worth of rhetoric to have us represented as a dirty, unpleasant, uncivilized nuisance; and now at the mercy of a new generation of propagandists.
Through the unflattering categorization of Arab, Palestinian “human shields” have been acceptable sacrificial lambs for the greater cause of achieving complete and utter victory by Israel. The degree of loss would be unimaginable in a European or Western population, yet it has been a historical reality for the Orient. One must wonder if their target was embedded within American, European, or Israeli society; would 30,000 human lives still be acceptable? Israeli soldiers proudly post themselves looting Palestinian homes, wearing Palestinian women’s lingerie, and declaring their euphoria over bombing residential apartment complexes and schools with no criticism or acknowledgments from the Israeli nor American and European governments. Meanwhile, the Orient is chastised for daring to be dissatisfied over this revolting conduct. The Arab’s life is deemed worthless, with each loss seen as the end of a religious extremist with nothing better to do other than to be hellbent on committing acts of terrorism since birth.
It’s a shame Palestine has been disingenuously reduced to an issue of religious fanaticism. It’s a shame the implanted image of the Arab is a backwards grotesque hom*ogenous people, with an insignificant history. It’s a shame our voices are not only misconstrued, but not even acknowledged; as an acknowledgement of the Arab and the Palestinian identity inherently dissolves the manufactured narrative by the Orientalist. It’s a shame the Orientalist will perhaps never take a moment for self-reflection of his beliefs — beliefs that have cost us hundreds upon thousands upon millions of our lives.
MiC Columnist Ahmed Elkhatib can be reached at aelkhati@umich.edu.
