It seems that this accusation, in a country whose cultural genetics contain information about catastrophes caused by racist attitudes, paralyzes any shred of dialogue that crosses the walls of denial and self-righteousness. From the moment the word "racism" is uttered, it's as if a bomb has been dropped. Both sides are entrenched in their emotional positions, and the dialogue that could advance the discourse or pave the way for change is suddenly silenced.
The Yemeni child abduction case is a good example of an issue that deserves deep dialogue, transcending political positions and ethnic and class affiliations. The dialogue is being stifled because the state, its officials, its medical system, and the efforts of these babies are wrongly accused of racism.
If the horror stories about the kidnapping of children who return and immigrate every few years are true, it is impossible to exaggerate in condemning the moral sin committed by the young country towards its new Yemeni citizens, in denouncing the dehumanization of immigrants by the medical establishment, the condescension and patronage that enabled this heartlessness, but one cannot blame those involved for racism.
On the contrary. If there is proof that Israeli society is cruel and exploitative, ethnocentric and condescending towards those classified as "others," but not racist - it is found in the child abduction affair.
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The ancient world was not racist.
The Romans did not define those they called "barbarians" as an inferior race, but as having an inferior culture. The Middle Ages were not racist either. The category for distinguishing between people then was religion.
This was also the practice in the Ottoman Empire in modern times: Slavs who converted to Islam held senior positions in the Ottoman army until World War I, and Armenians were murdered not because they were of a different race, but mainly because they were members of a competing religion.
The way of thinking that gave rise to modern racism was born in 15th-century Catholic Spain in a Jewish context. After masses of Jews converted to Christianity, the distinction between them and the original Christians on religious and cultural grounds became less valid. After they began to occupy key positions in the kingdom, including in the church hierarchy, and thus threatened the old elites, they were marked as a group whose progress urgently needed to be stopped.
But how do you stop a group that can no longer be distinguished by its religion?
That's when racial distinction was invented. The new Christians, the old-timers said, are not like us: they look different, they are made of different stuff, they are inferior.
This distinction was also accompanied by physical repulsion. In the first generations, marriages between new Christians and old Christians were rare.
Racism is a position that suggests a connection between biological origin and cognitive abilities. In Nazi Germany, too, one of the dimensions of racism was physical aversion to members of the Jewish race. Several of the Nuremberg Laws forbade physical contact with Jews.
The implicit assumption is that, because of their origin, the genes of Jews are corrupted, and therefore any contact with them will end up contaminating them. Aware of this ideology, a typical Nazi would not even consider kidnapping and adopting a Jewish baby, even if it were legal, because if the genes are corrupted, there is not much that can be done.
The education the child receives will neither increase nor decrease. The baby is a member of a cursed race and will forever remain spoiled.
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The Yemeni children affair, in which, it is claimed, Yemeni babies were kidnapped and given to Ashkenazi Holocaust survivors, even though it was clear to the kidnappers that the babies were of a different biological origin, shows, then, that even those with the most miserable moral code among Israelis - the perpetrators of this crime and their collaborators - were not racists.
Their way of thinking was nationalistic.
From their perspective, if it's Jewish, it's kosher. Although, in their opinion, there are Jews who are culturally backward, primitive, human dust that can be stepped on, there is nothing wrong with their genes; on the contrary, the Jewish potential lies within them too.
Therefore, kidnap their babies, remove them from their primitive environment, give them a European education in a stimulating and sympathetic environment, and they will become human beings themselves - proper human beings, and will make their kidnappers proud parents.
It's wrong, it's ethnocentric, it's deceitful, it's disgusting, but it's not racist. Those involved in the affair should therefore be exempted from the title of racists.
Only in this way can it be explored, without unnecessarily deepening the resistance and negative feelings. This must be done immediately, without fear and without prejudice.
• Dr. Rami Kimchi teaches at the School of Communication at Ariel University
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