The Israeli–Egyptian encounter
The encounter between Jews and Arabs takes place in an isolated environment of relative symmetry and friendliness, necessary for fostering rapprochement and cooperation. However, the deep-seated tension between the peoples and a degree of suspicion and mistrust are still apparent in the encounter, and the underlying uneasiness is not removed (Cohen, 1971, p. 218; Maoz, 2000a).
Given this in-built tension, it is crucial to examine the attitudes that exist within the groups. Studying the change in attitudes as a result of the encounter could contribute significantly to our understanding regarding the evolution of intergroup contact in general and in tourism specifically.
One of the conditions posited by the contact hypothesis is the equal status of the two sides. Only under conditions of symmetry is the encounter assumed to induce a positive change in attitude and weakening of stereotypes (Patchen, 1995). In most encounters examined there were usually a few dozen Israelis and very few Egyptians, sometimes only one person. One would expect an Israeli hegemony to be reflected in the outcome of the encounter.
There is no consensus among the relevant authorities on social norms favouring equality (Amir, 1969, 1976). Former studies have shown that Israelis tend to believe they are intellectually superior to Arabs (Bizman and Amir, 1982; Amir and Ben-Ari, 1985). On the other hand, some Israelis believe the Arabs are superior to them in the social domain and that they are warmer and friendlier (Amir and Ben-Ari, 1985). Israelis who participated in the investigated encounters were tourists, and most of the Egyptians were ‘professional hosts’
– waitresses, clerks, hotels and camps’ owners and their employees – as well as officers and police officers, usually stationed at the border. Most of the Israeli tourists were from middle to upper class and of Ashkenazi origin (92.2%);
77.5% of those who completed the questionnaire declared an average or higher salary; 41.7% had a bachelor’s degree and 12.5% a master’s, while only a few of the Egyptian hosts declared an academic education (but could not find an alternative job in Egypt because of very high unemployment there).
Israelis in Sinai do not meet farmers and village people, only a specific group of service providers. Nor do they meet intellectual Egyptians. Egyptian tourists usually travel in the heartland or to the fancy Sharem A-Sheque beach resort, where Israelis rarely go. Most of the Egyptians in northern Sinai are from lower and middle classes. Israeli tourists in Sinai do not see modern Egypt
(Amir and Ben-Ari, 1985, p. 107; Uriely et al., 2009) – the advanced industry, new Cairo suburbs, shopping malls, new cars, etc. Their encounter with Egyptians takes place in beach resorts that combine high-class hotels with very basic huts, sea and sand. Bedouins meet Israelis usually in the Huts areas, while other Egyptians usually meet them in hotels and relatively high-class restaurant areas.
Effective contact requires cooperative activities to achieve mutual goals and dependence on one another’s efforts (Sherif, 1966). Most of the encounters investigated were based on a mutual economic goal, but not a political one.
The Egyptians serve as hosts and their goal is to attract as many Israeli tourists as they can, who demand cheap but good-quality services and goods. Most meetings take place in a relaxed atmosphere on the beach, but those which take place at the border are usually tense. In most encounters, the participants mainly discuss topics related to the vacation – the beaches, the facilities, the food. Small talk is very apparent. Discussion of the external political conflict is mostly excluded from the conversation, especially by the Israelis who do not wish to discuss such issues (Maoz, 2000b; Uriely et al., 2009). Ignoring discussions on politics and the fact Sinai is loaded with Israeli food and culture makes the peninsula seem like a detached environmental bubble, shut off from outside disturbances. Gali, 30, an Israeli tourist (all names are fabricated), described Sinai as an ‘ex-territory … it is a bubble … a place which does not belong really to anyone … no-man’s land …’. Most conversations between the parties are in English and in Hebrew. Arabic is hardly spoken between Israelis and Egyptians, but a few Arabic words are interwoven in their conversations.
This pattern of Jewish dominance appears primarily when individuals deal with neutral subjects or carry out joint tourist activity (Maoz, 2000b). Israelis, as guests, expect to be served and indulged by the Egyptians, while the Egyptians usually show a great desire to please them. However, a second and perhaps more interesting pattern of Arab power emerge in encounters between Israeli tourists and Egyptians who own or run a hotel. These interactions serve as a source of empowerment for Arab men and offer them an opportunity actively to express their masculine identity and their advantages over the tourists. Many hotel owners and managers are highly admired by Israeli tourists, who try to befriend them.
A very important condition in the contact hypothesis is that the contact should involve personal and sustained interactions between individuals from the two groups. These interactions, according to Pettigrew (1998) should incorporate the potential for the formation of friendship with members of the other group. To what extent are friendships created between Israelis and Egyptians in Sinai? How frequent are personal interactions there? What exactly does the term ‘friendship’ mean to them? These questions were directed towards both Israelis and Egyptians, and the answers were not identical.
There are two kinds of Egyptians according to Israelis’ perception – the soldiers, officers and clerks at the border, whom they always meet, but for a brief time, and the managers and employees on the beaches. The encounter with Egyptians in official roles takes place in a stressed, formal and negative atmosphere where Egyptians serve as official representatives of the Egyptian
government. No personal connection is created. However, close relationships may occur if the Israelis choose to live in hotels or eat in high-class restaurants, usually owned by Egyptians, or in hut camps of which most are owned by Bedouins. Formal, distant and cold relations with the Egyptian officials are replaced by informal, friendly, often warm relations with Egyptians working in the tourism industry. The encounter with the latter usually takes place in a relaxed and positive atmosphere – on the beach or in a restaurant, where the Egyptians function as service providers.
Many Israeli tourists come to Sinai on a regular basis – 25.5% a few times a year, 27.6% once a year and 21.3% every couple of years, usually for 3–5 days; 54.8% of them stay in a Husha (a local bamboo hut), 11.9% in a bungalow and only 27.6% in a hotel (the rest on the beach or in other places).
Thus, they have the opportunity to form close friendships with the locals.
Nevertheless, only 11.6% of the Israelis who filled out the questionnaires claimed to have an Egyptian friend: 5.4% have only one friend, and the rest – 6.2% – two friends and more (almost 1% claim they have more than 10 friends!). Indeed, most of the interviewees did not term the relations they have with the Egyptians as ‘friendships’. A few made a point of stressing that the relationships formed there are not ‘regular friendships’. David, 52, who has visited Sinai on a regular basis, twice a year for the last 14 years, said, ‘There is of course a difference between friendships formed here and the ones I have in Israel … here they are not really friendships …’. Shlomo, 47, has visited Sinai 20–30 times already and says ‘Certain friendships are formed … if I am asking for special things he [the Egyptian] will do them for me like moving to another bungalow, eating something special, ordering me a cab … my daughter had real friendship with his daughter, kissing and hugging … but friendships here are not like the ones in Israel, mainly nice, light conversations …’.
Most Israelis do not befriend the local Egyptians, and some express a degree of resentment. According to the questionnaire’s results, 88.4% of the Israelis have no Egyptian friends at all. Yasmin, 32, who has been visiting Sinai on a regular basis since 1993, says about the Egyptians she meets there, ‘I never make any contact with them. I don’t like being around them, they do not induce a good atmosphere. I don’t know what they think about us. I don’t think they like us.’ Noa, 30, her second time in Sinai, says, ‘I don’t have relations with the locals here. I do not make any effort to get to know them, I don’t do anything to make it happen.’ But she adds that: ‘if the initiation would come from the other side I may cooperate.’ Daniel, 26, who has visited about 20 times, talks about the language barrier, but adds that ‘Even if there was a translator I would not be interested in getting to know Egyptians. Bedouins – yes.’ And Moran, 22, says, ‘The locals are naggers, always coming, sitting beside me and harassing … I am not interested in befriending them, this is not the purpose of my visit’. Almost all the Israelis investigated expressed resentment towards the clerks, police officers and soldiers they meet at the border and at other official encounters. Eyal, 35, says, ‘I don’t like the Egyptians at all … I usually meet the officers and policemen … they harass us, they are harassers, harass in checking for weapons and drugs, making trouble for Israelis and for Bedouins.’
Egyptians, on the other hand, tend to brag about their close relations with Israelis and tight friendships. About 70% of the interviewees claim to have created close friendships with Israeli tourists and it was not uncommon for them to show the first author photos, business cards and letters that ‘proved’
their claims. Hassan, a man in his 30s, who owns a tourist shop in Tarabin Bazar, said, ‘I have many friends from Israel. During my birthday the telephone does not stop ringing.’ Hassan told about his former Israeli girlfriend and declared he wants to marry an Israeli woman. Said, a hotel manager in his 40s, says he has ‘… many relations, a few good friends. They call, send mail’.
Ahmad, 24, a waiter says: ‘I have 20 Israeli friends, maybe more, people I correspond with by e-mail. I opened three e-mail accounts for that purpose, because there is not enough place in one. I have some very good Israeli friends, they are closer than brothers, real friends’. It is also not uncommon for Egyptians to adopt Hebrew or western names and to pretend to be oriental Jews (Cohen, 1971, p. 223) or just Israel-lovers.
Many Egyptian interviewees made a clear distinction too between different kinds of Israelis – Israeli soldiers, official clerks and politicians, whom they perceive in a negative way, and Israeli tourists visiting Sinai, described in a more positive way (Uriely et al., 2009). A clear distinction was drawn between:
‘The soldiers and the rest of the Israelis … they are different. Soldiers do not have feelings’ (Muhamad, a waiter). The interviewees rarely saw the contradiction in their perception – the fact that most Israeli tourists serve or have served in the Israeli army at one point in their lives. Muhamad was asked how he refers to Israelis who are both tourists and soldiers, and answered (after reflecting on the question): ‘Those who serve in the army are just following their orders’.
Both sides declare that Sinai is their first and only opportunity to meet the other. Ilan, 27, an Israeli tourist said, ‘I am lucky to have the opportunity to meet Egyptians face-to-face … this time I even met Egyptian tourists for the first time … and the meeting made me think how much it will be theoretically great to meet such people, and that communication is very important.’ Mussa, a waiter in his 20s said, ‘The first time I met Israelis was in Sinai. I realized then that they are human beings, that you could talk to them.’ The encounter, many say, has contributed to a change in their former stereotypes, attitudes and images of the other side. How does the encounter change former mutual attitudes? In what direction do they change? These questions will be discussed in the next section.
Change in attitudes
Previous research suggests that initial attitudes may influence both the amount and the direction of attitude change in interethnic contact (Amir, 1969). In a former research project, it was found that Israelis’ perceptions of Egyptians changed after encounters with them in a negative direction in the intellectual dimension along with positive change in the social dimension, and that the change was related to the direction of the original attitude. Initial positive beliefs
about Arabs’ social skills and negative beliefs about their intellectual abilities tended to gather strength after a visit to Egypt (Amir and Ben-Ari, 1985). In the current research a dual process was found – a positive change of old negative beliefs, based on stereotypes and on the media, along with a smaller number of cases of strengthening of initial negative beliefs.
We will divide this section into two sub-sections. The first will discuss the change in images and attitudes of the Israeli tourists towards their hosts and the second will concentrate on the change in attitudes of the Egyptians towards their guests.
The Israeli change of attitudes
Over two-thirds (69.3%) of the Israelis who answered the questionnaires said the encounter with the Egyptians did not change their attitude towards them.
Some of the interviewees expressed indifference towards the Egyptians. Those were usually the ones who were not interested in forming any kind of contact with the locals. They declared they had no interest in the Egyptians, their personality or character and had no wish to get to know them. Some did not care if their hosts were Bedouins or Egyptians and could not tell the difference.
Many of them preferred to disregard political issues while in Sinai (Maoz, 2000b). Gali, 30, said: ‘I don’t think about politics. I don’t know whether the owner of this place is Egyptian or Bedouin and I don’t care … I have no opinion about the Egyptians, I know nothing about the Arab world.’ It is interesting to note that Gali regarded herself as ‘extremely left wing’ in her political views, but claimed she would rather leave her political views behind while in Sinai.
Nevertheless, in most cases Israelis did have opinions about their hosts, which were frequently negative: 28.3% of the ones who filled the questionnaire did not agree with the statement ‘In my opinion, the Egyptians can be trusted’;
56.3% did not agree with the statement ‘I feel understanding towards the Egyptians’; 33.7% did agree with the statement ‘In my opinion, most of the Egyptians hate Israelis’; 13.8% admitted to feeling angry towards the Egyptians;
while 9.3% declared feeling hatred towards the Egyptians.
Israelis carry bad memories from several wars with Egypt and from more recent dramatic and fatal events. The Israeli participants tended to mention those events frequently. The older Israelis talked more about the wars while the young ones tended to mention occasionally the first terror attack, in which 13 Israelis were killed. Many saw the Egyptians as violent, aggressive and repressive prior to the encounter. Some of these images were intensified after the encounter with them. At the same time, a different process occurred more frequently: many Israelis developed more positive attitudes towards the Egyptians due to the contact. Initial positive beliefs about Arabs’ social abilities tended to gather strength after the visit to Sinai while negative beliefs about their violence and rudeness intensified too. The Egyptians’ intellectual abilities were viewed in a more positive manner, unlike former findings (Amir and Ben- Ari, 1985).
A negative attitude change
Initial negative beliefs about the Egyptians’ violence, aggressiveness and rudeness were reported as intensified by only 3.9% of the tourists who filled out the questionnaires. In most cases, encounters with the Egyptian soldiers, police officers and official clerks were the ones that intensified those negative images. Often these are the only Egyptians an average Israeli tourist will meet, as many Israeli tourists, mainly young ones, choose low-class hut camps owned by Bedouins and Sudanese. Egyptians in official roles are perceived as annoying, obnoxious, violent and harassers. They are seen as people who intentionally work slowly with the purpose of testing the Israeli tourists’
patience. ‘I don’t know the Egyptians’, says Yasmin, 45, who has been living in a Sudanese camp in Sinai for the last 4 years, ‘I only know the policemen and clerks. They are very slow in everything and I don’t like them. They are exactly as I thought they would be.’ Uri, 33, feels ‘tension in the air, anger, in spite of the peace’ whenever he meets Egyptians at the border. ‘They represent the establishment, you meet them at the border in the role of banker, policeman, customs-officers, the bureaucracy. I thought they were obnoxious and I was proved right.’
Ilana, 30, has ‘very few interactions with them, mainly at the border. There I experience them as violent, arrogant, rude, chauvinist and intrusive … they are very unpleasant, not smiling, very impolite, almost Nazis, talking Arabic, wearing uniform and carrying rifles like a Nazi. There is something in their power position that makes them like that.’ Many Israelis mention bad experiences they had at the Egyptian border. Daniel, 26 says, ‘They are greedy, violent, express aggressiveness. I had a fight with a policeman, he wanted my passport and I wouldn’t give it in his hand … it made me realize they are as aggressive as some say.’ Some, like Daniel, have met Egyptian officers and police officers who demanded extra money in return for small favours – Bakshish in Arabic. Most of the Israeli interviewees, although using this habit for their own benefit (like skipping the line) expressed deep resentment towards this phenomenon.
Many Israelis perceive Egyptians as very slow and apathetic, inefficient and lazy, a belief which stems from watching them at the border. Tali, 57, is sure that their slowness represents their will ‘to repay us for what we did to them in the wars’. She was sure prior to visiting Sinai that ‘they hate us … it penetrated my head in ‘56 when my father fought in brigade number 7 …’. She tries to be objective, but can’t forget ‘my friends who were killed in Egypt in the ’73 war.’
Her daughter – Moran, 22 – does not mention the past wars between the countries, but still thinks ‘the Egyptians are rude and apathetic … five clerks at one table standing around one clerk who writes … it strengthens all the stigmas about them’.
Moran, like other women, talk about the locals’ gaze – a term less known to tourism scholars (Urry, 1990; Maoz, 2006), which was frequently used by the Israelis interviewed. Ilana, 30, talks about ‘the way they look at me, the duration of time, staring. In Israel it is not acceptable. They gaze at you, penetrate your body’. The gazing Egyptians can be those on the border, but
not necessarily. ‘I felt them staring at me on the poolside’, tells Ira, 31, ‘I was uneasy, though somewhat flattered’. Yasmin, 32, mentions the gaze too as intensifying previous negative images; ‘I don’t like the Egyptians, how they look at you, give you a feeling they hate you … I hate the way they stare at me.
It is a reminder for me that I don’t like them’.
A positive attitude change
Over a quarter (26.8%) of the Israelis who answered the questionnaires and about one quarter of the Israeli interviewees said the encounter with the Egyptians has changed their attitude towards them in a positive direction.
Yoav, 35, second time in Sinai, said in his interview, ‘I did not know Egyptians until now and I adopted all the stigmas and stereotypes from the media, like they did … Here I have the first opportunity to meet them as human beings and to talk to them. I found out many things about them’. Most Israelis did not meet Egyptians prior to visiting Sinai and their attitudes towards them stemmed primarily from the media. These attitudes, as Galia, 37, diagnosed them, were rational, while the encounter induced emotions. ‘There is a great difference between hearing about the Egyptians and actually meeting them’, she says.
‘When I read about them in the paper it is mainly rational … [but] the personal encounter with an actual face, a person, arouses me emotionally …’.
Most of the positive change of attitudes was reported by people who declared they had formed relations with the Egyptians, and not by those who only met them at the border. The encounters the Israelis have with Egyptians do initiate change towards more positive attitudes, but the change is usually limited to two domains. The Egyptians are considered friendlier and warmer than before the encounter and in some cases more modern and intelligent, especially when the encounters were with Egyptian tourists or hotel owners.
Asaf, 32, thought ‘the Egyptians are less modern and intelligent than us’, but found out that ‘they are an educated nation, professional, scholarly’, He also indicates that ‘in Israel they say the peace is cold and that Egyptians don’t like us, but I don’t think so. I feel their warmth here … the fact that they make an effort to protect me, and that they let me be here, makes me happy … I find them sincere, warm and mature people.’
Ilan, 27, who made an effort to get to know the Egyptians says, ‘I thought they were less modern, a Muslim country … but they are very much like us … there are western Egyptians here who speak English and just like us want the same western education.’ Ilan met a few Egyptian tourists and ‘was sure they were Israelis … they look like us and dress like us … and it made me think’.
Many, like Ilan, saw some similarity between themselves and the Egyptians.
Yoel, 51, said, ‘Our mentality is Arabic too. Warmth, honour, the importance of respect and family …’ Shlomao, 47, who befriended Egyptians in Sinai says, ‘They are a great nation, happy people, happy to assist … nice, tolerant
… western and friendly … they are very much like us mentally and spiritually
…’.
Mainly men expressed a positive change in their attitudes towards