In case anyone is interested...

From the BBC... pretty interesting about cartoons in the Middle East

here

Palestinian Opinion

Here is a poll I found about Palestinian opinion after the Gaza War. I thought this would be interesting to look at in comparison with the Gallup Poll about American opinions. I've been searching all day for a poll about Israeli opinions, but I can't seem to find one that's current. If anyone knows of one, I'd be really interested to see it. According to the poll, which can be seen in full at: http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-223839, a large majority of Palestinians still prefers resistance to negotiations. What do you guys think of this? At this point, it seems inevitable that the Israeli's will completely leave and the Palestinian state will return to its pre- 1948 configuration. What will be the result of continued resistance other than more fighting? This is why I really wanted to find an Israeli public opinion poll, because I would be really interested to see what percentage of Israeli's favor continued force over negotiations. Also, real quick, sorry for the late posts, I could not figure out for the life of me how to make this work until last night, so I understand if you don't have time to respond, but if you do happen to know of an Israeli opinion poll even after the blog ends Thursday night, I would be really interested to know. Anyways, Here is a summary of the report:





Poll no. 67_January 2009

Press Release
A public opinion poll conducted by Jerusalem Media & Communications Center

**
Rise in popularity of Hamas' leaders and government with decline in popularity of Fatah
The Palestinian public prefers resistance over negotiations
The majority believes that US President Obama won't bring change; however, a small
ratio still feels optimistic
Turkey, Venezuela, Iran and Hezbollah are the most popular regional parties
A majority supports international supervision over the process of Gaza reconstruction

More Cartoons

This cartoon was entered in the Gaza Cartoon of the Year Contest and won an honorable mention. I was particularly drawn to this one because it seems to voice conflicting views. On the one hand, you have the Palestinian perspective: barren land, destroyed villages, IDF tanks entering the village aimed for destruction (despite the fact that it is already destroyed). The women using herself as a rocket, however, throws this image off. It admits that suicide bombing is a reality, which is not something I found in a lot of the Palestinian media sources. Ultimately, though it shows the disproportion of the forces, because how much harm can one women do compared to IDF tanks? This is misleading, though, because suicide bombings can do a lot of damage to a lot of innocent people. I would be interesting to know what your guys's take on this cartoon is, and what you think it's trying to say. Also, I uploaded some other cartoons as well that I thought were particularly striking.

Facebook's Take On The Conflict

These are two links to facebook groups entitled:

"Israel is not a country - Delist it from facebook as one"

and

"Palestine is not a country - Delist it from facebook as one"

I thought these were interesting because each group tries to legitimate their claim to space by negating the others claim. Both groups continually reference time as the reason the land is theirs. In the "Palestine is not a country" group the members claim that Israel has claim to the land because it owned the land so long ago, while in the "Israel is not a country" group the members claim that Palestine has claim to the land because it owned the land so recently. It raises some interesting questions about whether recent or ancient ownership is more legitimate, or if they're even comparable.

Another interesting part about these groups is that you get to see the views of everyday people, not just politicians and reporters. There are also hundreds of groups that advocate peace between the two groups.





http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2366623903
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?sid=125865a3f54a141a4f6e31172d0156a7&gid=55153379953

Inheriting the conflict

http://blogs.newsobserver.com/sites/drupalblogs.newsobserver.com/files/images/babingaza.jpg

I found this cartoon on another blog called “The Opinion Shop,” which is part of the larger periodical “The News & Observer.”

This cartoon makes us question how not only the actions of the Israelis and the Palestinians but also all of our decisions today will shape the world for future generations. Our generation has already inherited an economy on its knees and an unstable future, full of conflict and its aftermath. It is imperative to recognize that how we handle our own situation that we have come into will likewise be passed on again.

Furthermore, I immediately was reminded of the ending of The Lemon Tree when I saw this cartoon. When she replants the lemon tree with the children, Dalia examines the new sapling’s representation of the future of the struggle. She reflects that, “it meant moving on. It meant it’s te next generation now that’s going to create a reality. That we are entrusting something in their hands. We are entrusting both the old and the new” (264). Of course, as opposed to the cartoon, this passage relays much more of a sense of hope about the power of responsibility that the youth will hold in resolving (or not resolving) this conflict. They both, however, emphasize the reality that this conflict will indeed pass through more generations and each of these generations will greatly influence the outcome of the struggle.

Push for Peace to Avert Violence

Article: "Push for Peace to Avert Violence, Gaza Donors Told" by Alastair Sharp and Will Rasmussen, Reuters

This article addresses some interesting issues. Donors gather and give billions of dollars to rebuild areas of the west bank that, withing a year or two, promptly get destroyed and then need to be rebuilt again. It seems as though many donors are asking the question, "Will we once again reconstruct something we built a few years ago and now has been hammered and flattened?" I think that this is a very interesting question. Of coarse if a was a donor I would want to see that there was some political progress before I dumped millions into the area.

I can also see why it would be hard to just no longer give any aid to the area even if there was no political progress. I feel like it is the responsibility of these third party's continue donating to the reconstruction of these areas even if there is not any political progress. Even if it is just for humanitarian reasons alone.

On the flip side of that is the fact that it is not worth donating any money if it is not allocated effectively to serve its desired purpose. The article states that "The United Nations and aid agencies say reconstruction will probably be hampered by the inability to deliver essential material such as cement and steel to the coastal strip because of an Israeli-led blockade. The Jewish state refuses to allow in material that militants could use to build rockets."

In the article the refusal of the west to recognize the "democratically elected" Hamas is also an issue. Should the West recognize Hamas as a lagitimate or continue to label it as a terrorist orgnization? Do you think that these donors and foreign countries should continue to give aid abd money? Should they make donations contingent on political change first?

Palestinian PM Resigns

Article 1
Article 2
Article 3

Here are three articles from the Jerusalem Post about the Palestinian PM who just resigned a few days back so the PNA (Palestinian National Authority) could have some sort of unity going into the Fatah/Hamas talks coming up soon in Cairo. I found it interesting how from the searches I performed on LexisNexis and GoogleNews for "Fayad AND Fatah" and "Fayyad AND Fatah", the sources with the most articles on this were Israeli or Jewish. I found very few sources from the Middle East and an overall surprisingly lack of publicity from all sources. Is there a reason why it is on the Israeli and Jewish sites and not showing up at all on Palestinian and (most) Arab sites? Could this be that the Israelis and Jews are trying to show a division in the PNA and undermine the legitimacy of this organization? Are the Palestinians ignoring this so they appear to be more organized? I was able to find a short article on Al Jazeera English but surprisingly there were no comments like there oftentimes are for articles involving Israel/Palestine.