Thurday January 22nd.
Today in class we watched a video (which unfortunately I forgot to write down the title of) that profiled the Israel/Palestine conflict. Obviously much of the world's attention has been focused on the region for quite some time when the land that Israel now occupies was given to them by a coalition of nations. They felt that it was proper retribution for the horrors survived by many of the Jewish people of Europe and around the world who had been victims of antisemitism, acts against humanity, and an overall practice of diaspora that has spanned for centuries. The video was very pro-Palestine in that it focused on the bias nature of the media in America in its coverage of the more recent conflicts. Some of the most interesting information that was shown in the documentary to me was how there are media checkpoints and certain words to "puff" up the pieces and depict the conflict in a certain way. One example of this is the frequent news reports that depict Israel as a victim. There was always stories that are released that describe the acts of Palestine as heinous, suicidal acts that are constantly trying to inflict more and more suffering onto the people of Israel. There is now arguing that the American media is slanted towards the support of Israel. While we are on the subject of American media bias, did you know that Israel receives over 6 BILLION in aid per-year from the American government...
Personally, even more so as someone who was raised Jewish, I find myself in support of land being given back to Palestine and some sort of arrangement being reached that allows for BOTH an independent Israel and an independent Palestine. It may be just a pipe dream as many mediators from presidents to media celebrities have tried to bridge the political and ideological gaps between the two groups with not so much success. With Iran undergoing internal modernization both politically and militarily and Hamas having control of missiles, there is always going to be a threat for Israel and with America standing behind them like a big brother, this hurtful game of words, is soon enough going to snowball and become a major military conflict if the rest of the Islamic world decides to fight for their sacred land and protect their "brothers". It may have only been the first class, but I envision this scene as a constant theme in my Modern Middle East and North Africa class and look forward to learning more not only about the history, but on what steps have been made to remedy this gap in political ideology in the past and more importantly with the recent outburst of violence, what will be done in the future.
-Ben
alot of things are happening in the world, that we don't know about your government has made some deals with alot of groups on earth, in order to get the support and to support them, but at the same time America, trying to find peace between the nations.
ReplyDeleteYour right the video was extremly pro Palestinian, but none the less I thought it was a very good film and very informative. Maybe if we could have seen a documentary that was Pro-Israeli then we could have both sides of the story. Wether or not something is biased doesn't mean its not true so I would say the video was very informative
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ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, this conflict has already become a major modern day political conflict over anything else. While America does give ridiculous amounts of aid to Israel, we are after all allies and have been for quite some time. Not to mention, America also once gave a great amount of aid to Palestine as well. When we realized Palestine chose to use that aid in creating military-like camps for students and young children and adults instead of for summer camps like we were told the money was going towards..well, you can imagine the anger that quickly came from America..
ReplyDeleteand as for land being given back to Palestine, we tried that too, but they chose to continue fighting.. in 2000-2001 the Camp David-Tabas negotiations convened and set the foundations of a new peace between Israel and Palestine. Arafat, Clinton and Barak were shaking hands, making peace, and prepared to sign the negotiations. Even though Arafat and Israel were prepared to give Barak and Palestine essentially everything they had ever asked of Israel, he turned the agreement down at the last minute, without even suggesting a counter-proposal. I could easily argue both sides of the conflict, but I mentioned those specifics just so you had a clear idea that both sides really are in the wrong, they both continue to make mistakes and to choose violence over peace..hopefully their future generations will get past all of their current devestations, and find truth behind the lies the elder generations repeatedly teach and preach to them, and find peace anyways
I enjoyed your reflection on this intro video. I was also raised as a Jew and would hope that one day these two sides could reach an agreement that would allow for both an Israeli and Palestinian state. If I were to make a suggestion, though this is also a pipedream...I would say to split the state of Israel in a way that would satisfy both sides economically and politically. Of course there will be some sort of displacement on both sides, but the fact of the matter is that nothing is gonna be done without some sort of compromise from each side. The final thing to do is make the holy city of Jerusalem a neutral city in order to avoid religious conflict and confrontation...which, of course is the origin of this confrontation.
ReplyDeleteThis is very true. I agree with your take on the conflict. I think its true that the land should be back to Palestine, but also, they could come up with a compromise that would make the land readily available to everyone.
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