I found this video on YouTube elaborating the accomplishments of the Jewish and of Israel. It describes how boycotting Israel would be nearly impossible because so many things that people use daily incorporates innovations produced by the Jewish nation, such as computer chips and certain medicines.
It is impossible to miss the sarcasm in the narrator's voice as he describes how to effectively boycott Israel to show lack of support. In addition to the sarcasm, the narrator paints Israel as a Western state essential to civilized living. In the end especially, it shows Israel as the victim of terrorists (while it doesn't specifically say Palestinians) and anti-Israel groups.
The disrespectful discourse on the comment board shows how there is clearly more opinions than the one shown in the video. I find the comments particularly interesting. The majority of them do not reference the video at all, but rather attack Islam and Muslim culture. However, there are some extremely hateful comments about Israel and the Jewish faith. As I am writing this, a particularly hateful one was posted by the user "WeKnowz."
The reaction the the video, in my view, is more powerful than the actual video. It shows how radical some people are about the Israel-Palestine conflict. Although it is uncertain whether these users would be saying such things if they could not do so anonymously, it is a bit of a shock to see how much hate some people have toward another group. Although I am certainly aware that it exists, I was still startled when I read some of the comments.
Here is the link- I was having major issues embedding it or doing anything else that made sense.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saeky9I5T9c&feature=channel
A sexual revolution -- women moving up in Iran
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To continue the focus on women from the reading, I found this article
posted on a non-profit news-source called Iran Focus**'s website. The
article itself...
15 years ago
To begin with, that video is actually pretty hilarious. I agree that the tone is obviously sarcastic, which is reinforced with the various images on the video, particularly the pop culture references (such as Dr. Wilson from House and even random Disney characters). The video, a project for a Harvard class according to the "end credits," also juxtaposes images of antisemitism with the "boycott of Israel" project. While it is amusing, the video also ignores the complexity of the situation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I also noticed that the end credits have a note "no Israelis or Palestinians were killed in the making of this video," which I find rather interesting.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that the comments are extremely interesting, including WeKnowZ's rather incendiary comments. Aside from blatant racism (on both sides), I found this comment interesting "The Israeli's seem to forget that not all Jews are Israeli and not all Israeli's are Jews. Infact the Zionists wich to forget that there exists Christian Israeli's and Muslim Israeli's. [all spelling and grammar in context]" from Tzimnewman3. Even though not all Jews are Israeli, don't most (if not all) support the state of Israel? And all Jews do have the right to move to Israel, based on their ethno-religious identity. The point about Christian and Muslim Israelis is interesting. Portrayals of Israel often neglect the fact that Israel is not a homogeneous, Jew-only state. However, the question of Israel is a highly contentious topic, as the comments for the video illustrate.
Not all Jews are pro Israel. In fact there are large orthodox communities that are vehemently anti-Israel. Most of the Jews who lived in Arab states prior to 1948 weren't Zionists by any stretch of the imagination, but became Israeli nationalists (which is different) after being kicked out of their own nations and arriving in Israel. There are also a number of intelectuals who favor a 'post-zionist' Israel. These are the one state solution Israelis.
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