Sex with an Arab in the Promised Land

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Noam Sheizaf, journalist and proprietor of the ever-interesting and often provocative Promised Land blog, brings us a hilarious post about the super-sensitive issue of Jewish-Arab sex in Israel. It’s a subject that often elicits Faulkner-esque responses in our otherwise liberal society; luckily, we have people like Yedioth Aharonoth columnist Karin Arad to poke hilarious, irreverent fun at our prejudices.

Arad answers questions about sex for Blazer, a wanna-be Gentlemen’s Quarterly that’s owned by the Yedioth group. Noam translated part of her answer to a man’s discomfited query about his feelings regarding his girlfriend’s admission to having once had an Arab lover. In her fabulous response, Arad reminds the reader that she (Arad) is half Arab. Who knew? Well, Noam did, and he assumed that most people were similarly well-informed. But based on the responses of my Facebook friends, Noam is better informed than we are.

In response to the request of reader Doshka, I agreed to translate the rest, which I’ve patched together with Noam’s excerpt, below. The original in Hebrew is here.

If you are offended by frankly sexual talk, curse words or any type of discourse that muddies the boundaries of the politically correct, stop here. Do not click on the page jump. Seriously.

Question for Karin Arad:

“My girlfriend has a very rich sexual history. I’m totally cool with that. Recently, however, I discovered that she also slept with an Arab. That is, they went out for awhile and also had sex. I’m finding this kind of disturbing. I’m not racist at all, so is it normal that this bothers me?” Micha.

Answer from Karin Arad:

Normal, racist, what a bunch of nonsense. Racism is a natural human trait.  Your racism is normal, but you should try to get over it. Why? Because it’s Neanderthal and disgusting. Besides, what is a racist? Lieberman? Someone who has no problem killing people that don’t belong to his social class? General hatred of the other? Believe me, they are all racists and they are all abnormal. I don’t know a single guy in the universe, tolerant though he might be, who would remain indifferent upon discovering that his girlfriend had some kind of triple digit past. Which is understandable, since there’s a high probability of his falling short in the comparison department.

Your specific case is much worse, since rumour has it that Arabs have much bigger dicks than Jews. And as long as we’re on the subject, there’s a chance she’s gone out with an Arab from the Bakri family, who are known to have quite an attraction for Jewish women. If that’s the case then you’re in for a whole lotta trouble, because then you’ve got to add to the impressive equipment an elite education at an English boarding school, intelligence, perfect manners, totally hot looks, and incomparably gentlemanlike politeness.

Palestinian-Israeli actor Salah Bakri
Palestinian-Israeli actor Salah Bakri

Regarding your feelings of discomfort, calm yourself. You are not alone. Arabs are fashionable. I might even go so far as far as to say that Arabs are the new blacks – that everybody is fucking these days for nationalistic reasons, and in search of exotica. This is totally acceptable. In fact, most of my good friends have slept with Arabs. I don’t know if it bothered them. Perhaps it bothered their Yiddishe mamas, but I am the last person to whom they would admit this.

You see, Micha, most of my friends are guys I slept with, and the sum total of the Arabs they slept with is, more or less, me. And since they are not complete morons, they tend to hide their racism from me. They don’t greet me with “ahalan wa-sahalan”; they don’t ask for baklawa; they don’t hide Palestinian flags in my wallet next to my Palestinian ID; and they don’t joke about vibrating Molotov cocktails in my bed. They are extremely sensitive.

This can’t be said about you, Micha. You see, I understand that you’re in genuine distress, and that your friends in Yisrael Beitenu don’t return your calls, but what the hell gave you the idea to ask this question of the only girl you know whose mother’s maiden name is Suleiman? There are simply no words to describe your stupidity. In summary, I hope the whore you’re sleeping with gives you gonnohrea and syphillis, amen. Oh, sorry: I meant, “Allah hu-akbar.”