The Wall

I'll admit it: before taking this class, I had only the vaguest conception of the "security fence" (otherwise advertised as the "Terror Prevention Fence") that has bulldozed its way through the West Bank. I heard it mentioned in passing on the news, but I had no idea of its scale and the impact it would have on the Palestinian territory it dissected.

I went in search of some in-depth information at typical American news sites like msnbc, cnn, and fox, but uncovered few references and no video material on the subject. I headed over to youtube, where I located a large number of independent short films critiquing the construction of the wall. If anyone has 25 minutes to spare, I would encourage them to watch "The Dividing Wall" by Journeyman Pictures, an independent British distributor of documentaries and news footage. A few interesting moments in the film relating to place/spacings:

• The Israeli government has placed the charred remnants of a bus ruined in a terrorist attack right next to a section of the wall. By moving the bus to this spot, they are emphasizing (in a visually shocking way) the link between this wall and civilian security: a permanent physical reminder that this is all that separates us from the terrorists who wish to penetrate our territory and kill our people.
• The personal stories documented in the film betray the arbitrariness of the wall's route and the negative effect its course has had on the Palestinian population. The wall cuts through an old woman's garden, harming the ecology of the area and forcing her to live on food donations. It separates one business owner from the nursery he operates and relies on for income. It physically (and hence socially) isolates one family's home from the rest of their village, holding them prisoner between the towering wall on one side and the security fence that surrounds a nearby Jewish settlement. All this shows the financial, social, and emotional toll of dividing the Palestinian landscape.
  
• At the conclusion of the film, one Palestinian says that "the time of walls has long gone" and that "they should build relationships and bridges to enhance co-operation and love among people instead of building a wall". In theory, I agree that the era of building walls should be over, but I wonder if that is the modern reality. The idea of physical barriers seems to still be current in American politics (e.g. blocking off the border with Mexico). Virtual barriers have become trendy in certain totalitarian regimes (e.g. China denying their citizens access to blogging sites where they might connect and communicate with the rest of the world). Bureaucratic barriers make it increasingly difficult to get visas to many countries, while some countries discourage the presence of foreigners through their legal codes (e.g. Turkmenistan refusing to allow foreigners to own property).
  

I also found this interesting news piece from English-language al-Jazeera:



This story talks about a Palestinian organization called "Peace and Freedom Youth Forum" that has teamed up with a Dutch advertising group to create the "Send a Message" site. Here, for the price of 30 euros, anyone in the world can have a message graffiti'd onto an area of the security wall. The message can be one of love, humor, hope, solidarity -- but it may not contain any offensive remarks or incitement of hatred. The effort is described by the members of the Youth Forum as an alternative (i.e. non-violent) form of resistance against the wall and the occupation in general. Their goal is to take this physical barrier, originally intended to keep people apart, and use it as a way to connect Palestinians and people across the globe. The majority of the proceeds go to communities whose agricultural and commercial activity has been damaged by the construction of the wall.

I have not heard anything about this project in the Western media. I suppose you could say it doesn't fit into the typical narrative on Palestine, which usually depicts Palestinians as a pulsating, screaming, flag-waving mob with a penchant for suicide bombings. Pacifism has never been associated with Palestine, but this story and even the story above prove that at least some Palestinians yearn for peaceful and productive ways to solve their problems. I would say that this story not only provides a counter-narrative, but it also plays effectively on the historical memory of Western audiences by using common imagery to unite two places separated by time and space. Seeing this huge graffiti-covered wall splitting a once-united territory, I could not help but think of the Berlin Wall and all of its troubling connotations (e.g. artificial/arbitrary division, brutal enforcement of separation/containment, inequality of living conditions)...although specific political circumstances may vary, the nature and aftereffects of "wall-building" seem unfortunately universal.

Israeli Kids Get Rocket-Proofed Indoor Playground

I found this story on the website of Newsweek-International Edition.

There are a couple of things I found interesting about this article. I couldn't help but notice that the playground is located in the same town that received a visit from Joe the Plumber/Reporter.
I also noticed how the story focused on the physical and emotional toll of the children of Sderot and the extra precautions they have to take. The lede of this story was set up in a way with the goal to bring shock-value to the reader.

"(SDEROT, Israel) Brightly painted walls surround a mini-soccer field, video games, a climbing wall and play areas. The converted warehouse also has a new thick concrete roof, a half dozen shelters and an alert system to give a 15-second warning of incoming rockets. The children of Sderot finally have a safe place to play."

By juxtaposing the fun aspect of the playground with the security measures, the writer forces the reader to envision a sort of military base(obviously without weapons training) for children, and then unveiling in the last sentence that this is a playground, the writer tries to engage the reader's emotions.
The writer then goes on to tell of the tramatization of almost everyone in the village of Sderot after suffering many Palestinian rocket attacks.

"Eight Sderot residents have been killed, hundreds wounded and nearly everyone in the working-class town of 24,000 has been traumatized by the frequent wail of sirens and explosions of the thousands of rockets that have hit over the past eight years.

Dozens of rockets have come down just since Israel's January offensive in Gaza ended. On Tuesday, Israeli aircraft hit a militant rocket squad in northern Gaza, wounding three, just after they fired rockets at Israel."

Even without any statistics, the reader can easily get the impression that Palestinians are the main agressors. It is easy to miss that an Israeli aircraft wounded three in just one day. The toll on Israel is lumped together into eight years. I also found it intresting that the writer felt it was important to mention that this Israeli airstrike was in response of rockets that were fired into Israel.
The article goes on to say that the playground, which cost $5 million, was funded by the US branch of Jewish National Fund.
While I am glad that the Israeli children of Sderot now have a safe place to play, it concerns me how one-sided this article was. I understand that this is not a "hard-hitting" news piece- it is more like a feature. However, the writer failed to mention if there was anything being done for Palestinian children, and barely mentioned Palestinian losses.
The article achieved it's goal of showing something most people take for granted- a playground- a luxury in war-torn Israel. However, by not including anything about Palestinian children, one can assume that Palestinian children do not even have this luxury. While it is nice to know that now the children in Sderot can play in safety, the more important part of this story, in my opinion, is neglected- that the Palestinian children cannot.

Closed Zone

Looking through Le Monde for a french, sympathetic view, I found this video. It was made recently due to the war by a nonprofit peace group. I wanted to note closures and borders from the symbolism of the video.

They made the closures of hands, that of a distinct strong male hand that is hampering the character of getting out of Gaza. It is perhaps saying that the IDF and/or the Israeli government, the male power symbols, are not letting them out. No matter where he is trying to go to, the sea, Israel, the Rafah (Eygptian-Palestinian border) crossing, he is stopped. He tries to tussle with the hands but they are firmly not letting him pass. It is a human border imposing on a preceived sub-human (animated). The jarring 3D image of the hands allowed the viewer to think about reality and the strength of the borders that one wouldn't of seen on a 2D line on a map. In one images, there are the colors of the Egpytian flag putting a border at the Rafah crossing then the Israeli hand also stops him again. This represents more than one nation affecting the borders of Gaza.

Another thing one should note is the cookie cutter shape that Gaza took. It seems to say that the authoratative hand made it without any reason or rhyme. The land's shape has nothing to do with those who live there.

All of these symbols seems to point a helpless Gazan at the hands of others. Is this true or is this just one representation?

Chinese Empathy for Gaza

Coming from first generation Chinese background, my parents have very different views of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict that I do. They side mostly completely with Gaza and refer to the conflict as America AND Israel against Palestine. They are mostly influenced by the Chinese satellite TV (CCTV and Hong Kong TVB) due to their wariness of American media. This, in my view, has influenced their views about the latest Gaza war. Likes the Irish Protestants/Catholics, my parents and therefore the Chinese identify with the "Other" and the Americans (puppeting Israel) are the mighty, unjust giants.

I tried to find media sources by first seaching CCTV in English but none of the video links worked on multiple computers on campus. Trying Chinese news in English, I found an interesting news article titled "Elderly woman dies of heart attack as Israel strikes S Gaza" It was interesting to see this was made news given everything else going on at the time. Yet, at the same time, it says quite a bit about the personal experience and how to get people to empathize with people just like them. Elders are given a lot of respect in Chinese culture, to have some white, aggressive place attack your home and indirectly killing someone of importance is going to raise Chinese emotions. They say nothing about Israeli elderly women, as if they are doing well.

The sensationalism is noteworthy because it also indirectly "others" the Americans. By demonstrating the might of the Israelis on an 70 year old woman, they are showing a ruthless America soon to be after any country unlike them. Much like we characterize a homogenous Middle East and every country (except for Israel) there is out to get us and our space.

Boycotts Mar UN Racism Conference

When this story ran about a week ago, the US, Canada, and Israel boycotted the UN conference on racism, called Durban II, over wording in a draft resolution. The US claims that the text in the draft unfairly singles out Israel. The US walked out of a UN racism conference in 2001 in Durban because the resolution linked Zionism to racism . Since this story ran, Italy has also declare that they, too, will boycott the conference.
The guests on the video discuss whether the conference has become "politically hijacked." I do not believe that the language of the draft resolution was the only reason the US boycotted the conference. I have a hard time envisioning the US boycotting the conference on behalf of a nation it did not have strong ties to. While I agree that if the document was anti-Semetic, like the US says it was, it should be revised, I do not think that was the only reason the US is boycotting. I think the US is also boycotting to remain political allies with Israel.

An Irish Perspective

Just recently, I completed an undergrad dissertation on the "Peoples Perception of the Arab-Israeli Conflict" here at National University Of Ireland Galway. This work entailed the research of a select student body on how their perception of the conflict was influenced by the media and specifically images that are readily available throughout the web. What became known was not surprising, the main themes were Identity Placement, Law and Order, Resonance with Northern Ireland and the Threat of Violence.
Where I think this fits into the dialogue of this blog is that from an Irish perspective, the respondents always located themselves to the Israel/Palestine debate. The focus group commented on the images of the conflict and what they meant to them, the consensus was such that tagging the inhabitants of the photo's with an identity/ethnicity was more important than looking objectively at the image. This is akin with our history of Northern Ireland and the formation of our present state, being premised as either Nationalist or Unionist, Catholic or Protestant, Irish or British. The perspective of my group was shaped by there local understanding of conflict.
The correlations of Israel/Palestine's plight and such with Ireland is significant. One such example today is a contentious soccer match played perennially in the Scottish soccer league between Rangers (Protestant/British Identity) and Celtic (Catholic/Irish identity). Both are Glasgow club's where during derby matches, the Celtic supporters sometimes hold up Palestininan flags in solidarity as they feel a connection with the struggle and quest of Palestinian self determination just like the war of independence quest here throughou the 700 hundred years of external rule. There is an Irish predisposition to support the Palestinian cause evidenced by a very active and well known organisation known as the Irish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign (www.ipsc.ie), while an Israeli one either does not exist or is not known among popular knowledge. See blog link in relation to Irish Trade Union stance (http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9586.shtml). This is a sentiment very much evident among an Irish perspective even if its not known or invoked consciously.
Of course there are exceptions to prove the rule and I am not advocating this as a blanket consensus of the Irish corpus of society. Its just an observation, Indeed a quick database search for the last year of the leading Irish broad sheet paper the Irish Times priorotised Israel headline coverage over Palestine headline coverage by 166 to 1 mention. However in the Irish case its emotions, sentiments and knowledge of conflict connection which I believe are more important than the descriptive discourse the media use in the portrayal of the saga. The picture of injured children in war torn area's always receive's precedence for which I think is linked to the believed conscience of the people.
There is no doubt that instance's of perspective differ depending on the geographical location of the person. Here among the student body of our small university it is clear there is a more concerted effort to proposition the cause of the Palestinian perspective, from the media analysis, I do not think they are the defining feature as to why.