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'Ugly Israeli' goes viral

A series of videos recently spreading in the media show aggressive and rude Israelis on flights, in shops and at hotels.
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In recent weeks it’s been hard to escape the raging debate over the issue of the “ugly Israeli.” It seems that there isn’t anyone who hasn’t recently tut-tutted over one or another video documenting Israelis behaving crassly, violently and loudly. The opening shot was the “chocolate video” that shows passengers on a flight aggressively shouting at a flight attendant, demanding that he sell them chocolate. One of them says, “Sell her chocolate, what is she, an Arab?” The combination of verbal violence, aggression, racism and poor grammar made the video go viral, and it has been shown on TV news broadcasts as testimony to the lack of restraint in Israeli society, which seems to have forgotten how to behave.

In the weeks following, a wave of such incidents has flooded the media, so much so that Israeli daily Globes devoted an article to the phenomenon, with a headline that was itself vulgar: “Watch the Ranking: the 10 Crassest Videos of the Ugly Israeli.” The article included an edited video prepared by the travel website Daka Ha-90, and was shared on the Facebook page “Fighting the Ugly Israeli,” which has already gotten 35,000 likes. The chocolate video has a starring role, but it’s not even ranked first. Alongside it there’s a dangerous ATV ride on the beach, a picnic in a handicapped parking spot, an attack on a hotel worker and other delightful pearls of Israeli behavior. The Passover holiday added some cherries on top in the likes of fights at vacation destinations, destruction of hotel rooms and leaving an awful mess at tourist sites.

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