Scholar talks on Israel

Visiting Fulbright Fellow Oren Yiftachel took time over winter break to discuss such topics as culture and politics in the Middle East, the bond between the United States and Israel and becoming part of the University community. A political geographer from Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Yiftachel will be teaching "Land and Policy in Israel" in the Political Science Department this semester. Yiftachel spoke of how Israel's settlement policies affected his own family in the Galilee. "We were considered the heart, the pioneers of Israeli society," he said. Although the community where he grew up was just 500 meters from a development town inhabited by "Mizrahi," or Oriental Jews, he said the contact between the two towns was minimal. "It's striking how much prejudice and aloofness we felt towards those people, while at the same time we were brought up to think that all Israeli Jews were one," he noted. The professor sees Israel's policy of settling Oriental Jews in Arab-populated "internal frontiers" as having helped keep the Mizrahi out of Israel's mainstream. Dependence and poverty resulted from the inaccessibility of opportunity. "And, perhaps worse than all, since place reproduces social relations, was the production of an angry young generation," Yiftachel said. Nation-building also crushed the Mizrahi way of life, according to Yiftachel. "In terms of the incredible richness of this Jewish Arab culture, I think it's a goner, just like the Yiddish culture," he said. "And you're talking about, with Iraqi and Yemeni Jews, communities that existed two and a half-thousand years." The effect of settlement policies on Israel's indigenous population also concerns Yiftachel. "Let's not get one thing wrong," he said. "The oppression of the Mizrahi Jews was at the cost of the Palestinians -- there's no symmetry here. They lost everything." Yiftachel feels that the Palestinians' belief that their cause is just and their strong attachment to the land -- one that may run even deeper than Jewish citizens' -- will in the long run give them "enormous intransigence and resilience." Speaking as a political geographer, Yiftachel commented on the continued importance of "place" today, calling it "fundamental to identity." "There still exist boundaries to where people can feel comfortable, where the culture is, where they can thrive, and to which they want to contribute," he said. Yiftachel sees a tremendous backlash against forces of globalization and the anonymity of the cities of the western world where "you're every place and no place." In his view, a sense of rootlessness among Americans is what draws many of them to the Middle East. U.S. policy towards Israel has been less than ideal, according to Yiftachel. "The U.S. has been a strong ally to Israel," he said. "But, as regards peace, it's been more of an impediment in the last ten years." He believes that the right-leaning American Jewish lobby has been a major determinant of this nation's Middle East policy. Americans' apathy and the benefits to the arms industry of continued conflict also have played a part, Yiftachel added. The professor described his experience at the University as "enriching," noting the high level of scholarship and students' diligence. As for what has surprised him most about living in the U.S., he mentioned the tendency of politicians to "go public" with personal tragedies and the "incredible level of commercialization." On the positive side, Yiftachel has enjoyed the beauty of many sections of Philadelphia and finds the urban fabric of New York "just fantastic." Despite his many responsibilities, the Fulbright Fellow has not had much trouble combining work and family life while at the University. "There isn't the rigid home-office separation that might occur for other people," Yiftachel said. "I don't consider myself to be working very hard. The work is so full of exploration and curiosity."