Racism is a learned behaviour, it is not innate.
Factors that may contribute to racism and racially motivated violence include:
- "Xenophobia, the fear of of people who are different. An element of xenophobia is present in racism. Deep fear can express itself in racially motivated violence.
- A desire to feel superior to others.
- Racism is used by governments or groups to excuse systemic and systematic oppression and human rights abuses.
- Feeling protection of basic human rights for minority groups are "special rights", and are a form of inequality and reverse discrimination.
- Historic patterns of prejudice, discrimination, and racism. Colonialism, historic hostilities, and the slave trade contribute to modern racism.
- Ignorance of other cultures, religions, and values.
- Fear of sharing power with other groups of people.
- Isolationist and protectionist foreign policies.
- Laws and government policies aimed at preventing immigration of people of different cultures and religions."
Extracts on antisemitism
Yasmeen Serhan, 'Anti-Semitism has no place in Palestine advocacy',+972 Blog, 23 July 2014
"Anyone who claims to speak for Palestine while condoning acts of bigotry against our Semitic brothers and sisters should not be speaking on our behalf at all, let alone for those suffering in Gaza.
Amidst heart-wrenching death tolls and news accounts of the recent escalation in Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza, reports of violence in a Parisian protestagainst the Israeli military operation began to shower my newsfeed. Articles detailed how hundreds of participants in a pro-Palestinian demonstration allegedly took to the streets of Sarcelles – home to one of France’s largest Jewish communities – and wreaked havoc on the surrounding community.
Accounts described how protestors allegedly threw Molotov cocktails near a synagogue and set fire to local businesses and vehicles. Such actions came at the heels of Paris’ recent citywide ban on all pro-Palestine activity, including demonstrations. The protests, according to these accounts, were supposedly in the name of Palestinian “advocacy.”"
Shannon Thomas, 'Collective memory, collective trauma, collective hatred', August 2014
"Trauma runs through the narratives of both Israelis and Palestinians in the form of the Holocaust and the Nakba. But in order to rationalize their moral superiority, both sides actively deny the other’s suffering.
…Instead, both sides have done their utmost to vilify their counterparts, allowing them to justify aggression against civilians in the name of targeting the “enemy.” Israeli officials swat away the UN statistic that over 70 percent of the people in Gaza killed in Operation Protective Edge are civilians, blaming Hamas for the casualties and thereby erasing the need for remorse. Statements by Hamas have lauded the capture of an IDF soldier and the murder of Israeli teens Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaer, and Eyal Yifrah, making no differentiation between combatants and children.
So long as all those involved in the conflict refuse to look at the harsh and twisted reality of these logics, more people will suffer, more people will die, and more people will continue to come up with excuses for why it’s all okay."
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