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This phenomenon is totally new among the Egyptian society, and totally in breach of the majority's common feeling towards anything related to Israel. Hence, stereotyping that type of marriage has found its way through Egyptian society, that has begun to speak about the Israeli plan to retake Sinai through Egyptian-Israeli marriages, in which the Israeli wife asks her Egyptian husband for a piece of land in Sinai as condition to complete her life with him. People in Egypt have also begun to speak about "Israeli infiltration of the Egyptian society through mixed marriages."
Titles such as "The Marriage of Egyptian men to Israelis - a Phenomenon or a Conspiracy?" began to appear in the Egyptian daily newspapers. Moreover, the position of the Israeli law towards children of Jewish- none Jewish marriages inspired the Egyptian public to spread more and more stereotypes about Egyptian-Israeli marriages, to deal with people involved in such marriages as traitors, to look at children resulting from such marriages as if they were their future enemies, and to fear more and more possible Egyptian-Israeli divorces that might give the right to Israeli wives to take the children and go to Israel.
Since the raising of the Egyptian-Israeli marriage issue in the Egyptian press in 1998, all Egyptians who were intending to marry Israelis had to think properly about their new situation as betrayers of their society. Couples involved in such marriages have to be adapted to the powerful stream of stereotypes generated by the Egyptian society. In major cases that didn't result in bringing children, divorce was the final outcome. In other cases, couples had no choice except escaping from Egypt and evading to the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, or even Israel. In particular, most of the Egyptians involved in such marriages have chosen Israel as a new country for residency, and as a better place for avoiding stereotypes about Jews and Egyptian-Israeli marriages. A few of Egyptians having Jewish or Israeli wives have succeeded in persuading them to convert to Islam, trying to satisfy the society whose acceptance of such marriages is extremely important to overcome the psychological damage caused by the stereotypes.
Actions like these were overwhelmingly accepted and approved by the Egyptian society, because of the certainty that the resulting children will be raised and educated as Egyptians or as Muslims, but not as Israelis. Nevertheless, a relatively smaller group of Egyptian intellectuals and religious people sees that not every Jew is a "typical stereotyped Israeli," and can accept smoothly marriages between Muslim males and Jewish females who do not merely accept the Israeli policy. A wider group of Muslim Egyptian males intending to marry out prefer choosing Christian spouses rather than Jewish spouses, under the pressure of the loud stereotypes that connect Judaism to Israel.
Jews existed in Egypt until they left when the state of Israel was founded in 1948, under the pressure of the outraged Egyptian society. Before 1948, Egyptian Jews were considered as an essential part of the society, and they were not treated as enemies. The Egyptian Jewish population reached 88,000 in 1952, when the last census was made just before the Egyptian revolution. Before the appearance of Israeli-Arab friction in Palestine, marrying between Muslim Egyptians and Jewish Egyptians was very normal, especially in urban areas where the concentration of Jews was. Since the outbreak of the Arab-Israeli wars, first in 1948 and then in 1956, the way the Egyptian society dealt with Jews had become extremely hostile. Jews in Egypt were accused of espionage, and the society had begun stereotyping Israelis and Jews as a whole group.
A vast group of Egyptian intellectuals and politicians see that the present Egyptian society does not know the big difference between Jews, Israelis and Zionists. The Egyptian President's political advisor Dr. Osama El Baz, sees that not every Jew is an Israeli, and that Islam is a tolerant religion that shouldn't be misused by some Muslims to develop enmity with other religious groups. He says that even within Israel, moderate people seeking for a true peace and for true normalization with the neighbor Arabs exist and have a loud voice in their society. El Baz explains his view by saying that "the lack of understanding that stereotypes of Israelis should not be generalized has let the Egyptian society's reaction against Egyptian-Jewish marriages unfriendly". Moreover, those intellectuals see that the Egyptian people should get rid of generalized stereotypes, while condemning "Zionism" and "Zionists" whose goals mismatch totally with the goals of the Egyptian society. Those Egyptian intellectuals accept Egyptian-Israeli marriages, if based on love and loyalty, and away from any political or "Zionist" influence.
Egyptian-Israeli marriages are inextricably linked to the individual motives of the spouses. Hence, this kind of marriage represents a sort of individual opposition to the mutually perceived ideas and stereotypes in both the Egyptian and the Israeli societies. However, the Egyptian and the Israeli societies are still influenced by their inherited stereotypes, and they both fear the spread of these mixed marriages. The future of Egyptian-Israeli marriages is now in the hands of tolerant intellectuals of both sides, who can reach a common basis on which Egyptian- Israeli marriages can happen with no fear of public disapproval. Egyptian-Israeli marriages did not appear until peace was established between the two countries. Moreover, the later conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, amplified by the overwhelmingly accepted stereotypes inside the Egyptian and the Israeli societies, has eliminated severely all forms of economic, political, intellectual and social normalization between Egypt and Israel, including mixed marriages. Therefore, only a fair and a comprehensive peace process in the Middle East, denying all forms of unwarranted stereotypes and inherited hatred and hostility between Arabs and Israelis can transform Egyptian-Israeli marriages into common phenomena widely accepted and approved by both Egyptian and Israeli people.
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Writer Profile
Saladin
My name is Ayman el-Hakea, I am a Construction Engineering graduate from the American University in Cairo. My origins date to an interesting mixture of Yemeni, Moroccan, Albanian, and Egyptian ancestors. I always try to be a moderate Muslim, I like animation, geopolitics, comparative religion, and football. I like to be with "people"...and I hope my writing isn't boring for anyone.
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Comments
opinion Joseph A. Mikhail | May 30th, 2007
dear ayman,
that is a very decent and fair article .
you know my orientation will be toward whom in such a discussion but still i must be honest and fair also so lets get to the facts 1- in judaism if you converted to X or Y and originaly you are jew JEWS still consider you as jew they dont accept the fact that you converted wether officialy on the paper or between you and whomever
so the fact that a muslim guy married a jew girl and converted her to islam the child in front of the jew ppl will be considered a JEW do you think they would leave him i mean do you think by anymean they will simply leave him they will go after him convince him they will take the necessary steps lol so dont worry about that point
2- in 2006 the official reports about the israeili tourists in egypt was exepected to be 300,000 visitor but the facts where that 415,000 israeili tourist came to egypt in 2006 a conspiracy? no egypt is way too cheap then israel (probably i would done the same) imagine it you need 1hour bus from tel aviv to eilat then 10 minutes bus to get from eilat to TABA in egypt and voila you are in :) and while you pay at least 300$$ for one night in a decent hotel in eilat you pay 120 or 160$ in the same decent hotel in egypt :) so what do you expect lol
3-about the guys marring israeilis wether convert them or not (not the issue now) i fell sorry for them from the ppl stero typing and thats true that guy can never see his familly again its like commiting a crime and hiding from the authorities
such a guy can never ever come home again never see his freinds again if not for him for them the national security in egypt wont let him nor his familly nor his friends alone if they knew he is marreid to an israeili whom to blame the ppl ?? nop actually its the governemnt who continues to make barriers between the insiders citizens and anyone in the outer world the gov. keep on spreading those poisoned ideas into the poor ppl brain and the citizines mostly are naive and feel terrified fromt he governement while most of them isnt really well educated so if the gov. started catching ppl married to israeilis and spread 2 or 3 rumors booom everybody will stay home terrified
so actually the sterotyping and the conspiracy in MY own opinion is a Government act to make a barrier so nobody do it :D
thanks mate
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