Lisa Naomi Goldman vs identity politics

Being a matter of revisiting old friends and ex-friends, this post isn't going to be very remarkable. Just a bit of lazy fisking and confirmation of status, so don't get excited.

I have stumbled on Lisa's remarks re Haaretz' article Israeli Arab ballerina takes crown in Israel's first transgender beauty pageant. Since I'm not very much into beauty pageants, you can read the article yourself, but the headline tells enough. And here is Lisa's analysis of the article:

Can we lose the term "Israeli Arab" already? Imagine if the New York Times referred to Barack Obama as the first coloured president of the United States. So freaking offensive.
And notice that the second 'graf opens with the information that she's Christian. The subtext: More liberal than a Muslim, of course. And, somehow, less Palestinian, perhaps. Less scary. More like us Jews.
Also, I am bracing myself for a whole slew of hasbara articles about how Israel is just the most awesome place in the world for Arabs to live. Because there are no transgender beauty pageants in Egypt or Syria, right. Forget equal civil rights for Jewish and Arab citizens. So unimportant when we have, like, beauty pageants that allow Arabs to compete alongside Jews.

So, to the fisking now:

Can we lose the term "Israeli Arab" already? Imagine if the New York Times referred to Barack Obama as the first coloured president of the United States. So freaking offensive.

To start with, I am not sure what the complaint is about. Living in US of A, the nation of about 97 genders and enough identity tags to split the population into approximately 300+ million separate species, one is decrying that comparatively innocent "Israeli Arab"? Strange, innit?

As for the second sentence, the one that starts with "Imagine...": I've performed a simple search in the New York Times innards, with the search term "obama black president". The first page of the search results is presented below*. Sufficient to say that there were 57,300 results, and even if we assume that 90% of those are false responses... Imagine. Yeah, freaking offensive. Or not, depends how you look at that, I guess.

And notice that the second 'graf opens with the information that she's Christian. The subtext: More liberal than a Muslim, of course. And, somehow, less Palestinian, perhaps. Less scary. More like us Jews.

That notion of Christianity of the Israeli Arab transgender ballerina could be dispensed with by a reference to the previous response. Otherwise there is nothing factual in the rest of the quote for fisking. Still, there are two points worth a notice: clumsy creation of a strawman, by putting into Haaretz'(!) collective mouth some words this uber-progressive media outfit wouldn't dream about; and a practically uninterrupted use of sarcasm.
In fact the whole missive, as it appears at the beginning of that post, is a chain of sarcastic sentences. I am not sure that I agree with Oscar Wilde's opinion that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. But one thing for sure: overuse of that otherwise fine tool makes - to use some imagery - all the difference between a spitting cobra and a garden hose (under low pressure).

Also, I am bracing myself for a whole slew of hasbara articles about how Israel is just the most awesome place in the world for Arabs to live. Because there are no transgender beauty pageants in Egypt or Syria, right.

I don't know whether the victory of the Israeli Arab Christian transgender ballerina caused a plethora of Hasbarah articles, not following the genre. Possibly, although I tend to doubt it**. I am also not sure whether Israel is the best place for Arabs to live. I would suspect that Saudi Arabia, UAE and similar spots will have some added attractions for a person of Arab persuasion. On the other hand, I can easily mention several Arab countries which an Arab person will definitely shun in favor of Israel.

I guess the last thing Syrians and, to some extent, Egyptians, think about right now is a transgender beauty pageant. With good reasons, too, so I don't think this point needs any fisking.

Forget equal civil rights for Jewish and Arab citizens.

First of all, why? Secondly, even if someone forgets, lots of Arab (and Jewish, by the way) citizens, not to mention extremely attentive external watchers will remind us. No worries.

So unimportant when we have, like, beauty pageants that allow Arabs to compete alongside Jews.

I don't really know... oh, that was another, thankfully the last, spurt of sarcasm. Strengthened to no end by that "like", of course.

So, what could I conclude about that missive by Lisa? No useful content, awkward attempt at a strawman creation, almost criminal overuse of sarcasm; what was all that about?

Yep, another attempt to stick it to the ex-fellow Z...s.

Fail.

(*) That NYT search (click on the image to view in comfort):

(**) After all, I went to google for Ta'alin Abu Hanna, the lady that won that contest. A lot of entries indeed, but most of them non-Israeli, with quite a few articles in the Arab press***. And, verily a wonder of wonders: most of the articles use "Arab Israeli from a Catholic family" or similar. Go figure...

(***) Am I allowed to say "Arab press"? I am not sure anymore /end of sarcasm for that post