Sunday, August 21, 2016

Oh, also on Uri Bar-Joseph's book "The Angel: The Egyptian Spy who Saved Israel"

Forgot to mention: of course, as typical in Israeli books on Arabs there is a racist section.  Here we goes: "the centrality of shame in Arab society.  Whereas in Western culture, much of a person's worth in society turns on the question of guilt versus innocence, in Arab culture the question is much more one of shame versus honor.  Shame reflects not just on the individual but also on the groups he associates with..." (p. 319)  And this guy got his PhD from Stanford: he may have used his time there to take a few courses in Anthropology (they have good anthropologists there).