Friday, October 9, 2009

Palestine / Israel Today

In Postcolonial Literature we are reading literature from Palestine and we have looked at a time line of events that stretch back to the Balfour Declaration, WWI, WWII, 1967, 1973, and so on. I want to bring this troubling history into the present by addressing both:

The War on Gaza, 2009

These powerful and disturbing pictures are of a Palestinian girl, Halima, before and after the Israeli attack on Gaza this year. These pictures were circulated around the world, but not in the American mass media. According to Wikipedia,
Between 1,166 and 1,417 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed. More than 400,000 Gazans were left without running water, while 4,000 homes were destroyed or badly damaged, leaving tens of thousands of people homeless; 80 government buildings were hit.

Attack on Lebanon, 2006

Again, according to Wikipedia,
The conflict killed over a thousand people, mostly Lebanese civilians,severely damaged Lebanese civil infrastructure, and displaced approximately one million Lebanese and 300,000–500,000 Israelis, although most were able to return to their homes. After the ceasefire, some parts of southern Lebanon remained uninhabitable due to Israeli unexploded cluster bomblets.
And a BBC Report.

You were alive during these events this year and in 2006. I ask, what did you hear about them in the American media? How did this contrast with what the rest of the world heard? Why? What role did America play in these events? Are you curious to understand more?

8 comments:

Yours Faithfully said...

Really amazing, thought-provoking blog site!

Ashley Hillard said...

Wow. I'm glad you followed up on these attacks which you brought up during our last class. These statistics and images mean so much more because of the films we have watched and the book I have started reading for next class (A Lake Beyond the Wind by Yahya Yakhlif). How can the U.S. government fund such attacks on civilians and how can U.S. news outlets fail to give them due coverage? It seems that our media is acting as a government branch.

mariabenson said...

I was quite aware of the events in Lebanon because my step-father's family was directly affected. I lived in the U.S. at that point already, but made sure to get the news paper regularly, in addition to being updated through my family. My grandmother's and my aunt's homes were entirely demolished. The local elementary school, that my sister had attended for one semester, was also hit (during summer brake thankfully). My grandmother just finished rebuilding her home last year. While many of the family fled, some of my uncles and cousins stayed in the region. It was very unsettling.

*Jillian* said...

Although I knew some of the details about what was going on in Lebanon, I never realized how drastic everything was. I figured that America doesn't show all the bad points or even a majority of what is going on, but I guess I never realized just how much is kept from us. It is sad to think that in 2006 I probably know more about what was happening on MTV and in entertainment than I know about real world things. I guess that is partially my fault as well, but I will definitely be paying more attention in the future.

Marie Teitgen said...

Oh my goodness. The picture of the girl is so horrible and devastating. It doesn't surprize me that the photo wasn't distributed in the US. We don't even see photos of our war dead and wounded, heaven forbid other casualties of war around the world. What an insular life we lead!

Megan Carson said...

These photos are so sad and disturbing. Obviously, I realize that children are killed in war, but it takes on a whole new meaning when a picture like that is in front of you.

Ms. Carly Fricano said...

This is absolutely horrifying. I've been watching some other videos on youtube, one of which is a Norwegian doctor concerned with the fact that medical help is being denied to the injured and dying during what he refers to as the largest "man-made crisis" he can remember. The fact that we can live here ignorant of the horrors going on in the world in scary. I, too, need to pay more attention to non-U.S. news sources.

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