An Israeli Playground, Armored Against Rockets

In a continued discussion about the roles of children in the recent conflict as well as the impacts of war on their development, I found a NYTimes story today entitled An Israeli Playground, Armored Against Rockets. This story focuses on Israeli children in Sderot but balances the story of an indoor recreation center with the impacts of this conflict on both Israeli and Gazan children. Interestingly included in the center are"two rooms set aside for counseling and a staff of mental health workers" and the author comments that "emotional trauma among the young is an area of great focus not only in Israel, but also in Gaza." The article is relativley unbaised when it focuses on children, it speaks to the great damage this is conflict causes to the children on both sides, but it ends admitting that Gaza may be worse off. Israeli children are being protected and considered, Israel can construct a recreation center to foster growth and support children affected by the conflict, and yet Gazan children are living in tents because their homes were destroyed.

When speaking to the actual conflict between Gaza and Israel, the article has a more biased tone, at least in my opinion: "Israel went to war in late December to put an end to the rockets, and though it pummeled Gaza for three weeks, killing some 1,300 people and destroying hundreds of buildings, the rockets have not stopped. On Tuesday, five fell around the Sderot area. Since the war ended on Jan. 18, some 160 mortar rounds and rockets, including nine long-range ones, have been launched from Gaza at Israel." It almost rationalizes the deaths of the 1300 people with the fact that Gaza continues to attack Sderot, even though the death toll in Israel is around 20. Obviously the article is focusing on Israel and the danger in the region, but in the section describing the similarities to the story of Purim and the current conflict, I felt like instilled some pity for Israelis over Gazans.

Disproportianate uses of force (sorry for the new post)

Hey, sorry I made a new post for this because I know we talked about keeping the remainder of our discussion to responses but I wanted to create a place for us to continue our in-class discussion of the disproportionate uses of force in this conflict. If you consider the crappy Soviet-era rockets against the 21st century Israeli military, the contrast is made very clear. To start, here is an article from the Huffington Post that discusses disproportionate use of force and self-defense, is concludes by saying that Israel's decision to bombard Gaza was ill-advised and that international criticism has mostly come from the UN and Sarkozy, while Obama has dodged the issue. If anyone finds any info regarding the quantifying/categorizing of force used by both sides, please post here,
Thanks!

Hamas and Fatah meet to talk about uniting

There was some discussion about what it would take for Palestinians and those who share the same views to gain some political leverage in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Recently the two political parties Hamas and Fatah who have so far been in heavy competition are having talks about Gaza's Future. As the article mentions, with any form of Hamas in the picture with government with a united two parties, official dialogue with the Israeli government would be pretty much impossible. Also talking with the EU and US could be problematic still if the new coalition is too Hamas-led. With possibly the same limited international governmental dialogue and a stronger Palestinian authority - is this a step back or a step forward for the region? What do you guys think?

sorry, this is part of the previous post

I accidentally hit the 'post' button before I meant to.  The following continues my last post:

"One will never know as most seem to be silent on the appointment of Lieberman as Israel’s new Foreign Minister. It is now an established fact that one does not criticise anything that goes on in Israel for fear of being labeled an anti Semite….. So I guess it’s up to us Israelis ourselves to do the condemning….. WHICH WE WILL!"

This cartoon and comment beneath it were also on this "Desert Peace" blog that I mentioned as the source to the Palestinian poster.  

This is related to my post before about the seeming unacceptability of criticizing Israel, at least by a politician.  It is interesting to see an Israeli acknowledge this fear of being labeled an Anti-Semite, and scream in its face (at least in this case).  I am not sure how common it is, but I certainly haven't seen much of it.  Does this come up often/with even more controversial issues?  Is a truly open and honest discussion taking place?  If not, is this why?  If this fear is a roadblock, what is being done to change this?

[note: Although my last couple of posts seem pro-Palestinian, I am not trying to propagandize.]

Palestinian poster

http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/

Posted on a self-proclaimed peace-maker's blog.  He lives in Jerusalem.

Politicians muckin it up / Apartheid

This post is connected to Jacque's post about the internet being a key to opening dialogue between Palestinians and Isrealis.  After Jacque emphasized the importance of the perspectives and opinions of the people actually involved in the conflict, I wondered what that would mean.  I imagined great progress in the peace process due to people's general good nature, abillity for compromise, empathy, and respect for one another.  But then I imagined how so many differing political agendas would get in the way of this.  Even if Israelis and Palestinians opened up a waterfall of dialogue and made real solution progress in the blogosphere, I fear that politicians would surely muck it up in the execution.

So, I searched "political motives in Israel Palestine solution."  It brought me to a basic blog titled "From Occupied Palestine," which had posted an article from a November article of Haaretz about the UN General Assembly President's comments likening Israel's policies towards Palestinians as a newer version of apartheid.  See the article here.  He went on to say that he felt it necessary to use such a heavily charged term, as it was the UN itself who passed a resolution against apartheid.  Then Israel's ambassador to the UN called him an "Israel-hater" because he hugged Iran's president, an outspoken critic/enemy of Israel.

So, does Israel enforce apartheid-esque policies (did you catch in the video about black market aid that 85% of Gazans are living below the poverty line?)?  Why is it so unique for an international official to criticize Israel (remember Brennan's post on Turkey's PM?)?  What about the politicality of the issue?  Perhaps blogging will be/is an immense aid to bringing together Israeli and Palestinian neighbors, but what are we to do with our politic(ician)s?

Hebrew anyone?

Here is a link to an article in Hebrew where I found an eye-catching cartoon of Obama painting the white house black. From just the cartoon and a blog I saw written about this, it seems to me as an incredibly racist cartoon. I think that race is a testy issue in the Israel as it clearly has an effect on the relations between the Ashkenazi Jews and the Mizrahi Jews and the Palestinians.

I don't feel right speculating about this cartoon before I know what the hebrew says that is written around it. Can someone help me out?

ימים של קלות דעת צורמת בסיקור"