Chapters 8-10 Reading Response

So, I noticed something right away when diving into these new chapters provided for us by Armstrong; she continually makes analogies to the modern era of Jerusalem and where it stands as a country and as parts, and throws us back in time to when religion converted itself into a new age for its people and their practices. As we were told by Armstrong, people in ancient Jerusalem were controlled by the Roman Empire for quite a long period of time. During this time, the Jewish population was either revered, hated, or removed from the city through out the span of about 150 years. For majority of this time, Jews were not allowed to practice Judaism within the city and especially near the Temple Mount which was destroyed and replaced with temples of gods that belonged to the Roman Empire. Of course at this time, we are told that before this era of time, it was impossible to pray to your god if your religion incoorporated them, without having a temple of worship.When the Roman army placed their Tenth LEgion withint the city walls and destroyed the Judaist Temple, it destroyed the divine world for Jewish people living wihtin Jerusalem, and then not soon after, to those who lived further away that eventually recieved the news. What I am trying to do for those of you reading my response; I am simply making a connection or an analogy that shows that with change in religion according to Armstrong, she is also metaphorically synapsing it with the present. To continue; she describes that in order for the Jews and other much smaller secular cults and religions that did not pray to Athena, Zeus and many others amongst the Roman gods, it became unfathomable to continue their religion without a temple, but this idea was radically redefined and the idealism through knowledge and persuasion of Rabbii's allowed for Jewsish people by the turn of a hundred years of prejudice and exile, to pray where they stood, at any time during the day. I must say this makes a strikingly similar resemblence to that of which the modern Israeli governemnt is showing towards Palestinians today. Now whether or not the case is true that Armstrong tried to make these similarities between, I am not sure. For Palestinians today, the removal of their homes and the "exile" from their living space is the analogy placed with ancient Jerusalem and the removal of the Jewish Temples. It's not that the Israeli Governemnt is seeking revenge and has been for 2,000 years (because that would be perposterous), but it appears as if the tides have changed and the roles have been reversed. thsi is my view from what I gathered by the chapters we read.

Weblog Journal Assignment 2

I researched more about this conflict between Israeli's and Palestinians over the weekend and found some disturbing news and history about not only the seriousness of the agenda of Israel, but also their willingness to cover up publicized information even when dealing with peaceful protests. You ask me where I see the direction of this conflict and the relations between the two parties heading. I think it can only go downhill from here. There will be little to no negotiations amongst Israeli's and Palestinians. In 2012, it was reported during a "peaceful pro-Palestinian activist event" that individuals were being dangerous and considered armed that primarily wanted equality between the two peoples and ultimately the aversion of their homes being destroyed. I found this article and with it, a song written by artists called "The Goldishack Guerrillas," that seemed to have strikingly similar connections and lyrics to the event and what occurred in the article. the song is called "Bulldozer," and I have looked and looked for lyrics that contain no vulgar language for the sake of the class and the fact that this is a school related blog, so instead of posting the video, I will give the name below for those who are interested in listening to it. It is amazing how much publicity one small event that resulted in only one Palestinian death can attract. This issue is much bigger than one life though, it is the lives of not only the Palestinians at stake, but we must also look into the past at the life style of the Jewish Israeli's involved in manipulating the present.



The article:
The song: Goldishack Guerillas-Bulldozer
Images link location: https://www.google.com/search?q=bulldozer+in+Israel&hl=en&tbo=d&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=j8IFUdjLAcH20gHTq4CwCg&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAA&biw=1680&bih=920#imgrc=5v-63Z_kymQIoM%3A%3BU-XoLLpuUMpQbM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Felectronicintifada.net%252Fsites%252Felectronicintifada.net%252Ffiles%252Fartman2%252F1%252Fstevenivawall483.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Felectronicintifada.net%252Fcontent%252Fdangerous-illusion-why-israels-barrier-will-fail-provide-security%252F5190%3B483%3B321

Reading Response 4

In Karen Armstrong's book, through chapters 5-7 she describes and gains detail using what we had learned from the previous chapters about religion and the quest/path to riotousness which very few according to historic script were able to achieve. The mentioning of Israelites and exiles was used to create a connection between modern Israel and the era of years from 400 to 800 AD. The exiles were both metaphorically and religiously lost during this time. They were thrown from their land spiritually and Armstrong makes a good point to make this clear in the first chapter of the reading. These many exiles were spiritually disconnected from the land that they had come to call home and praised. This lead to the continuity and connection of Noah and his journey on the ark. I thought it was interesting that Karen mentioned this. And not to question any one's belief in their own religion, but it is scientifically and historically inaccurate to say that the entire world was flooded and that Noah had to make a journey to save the animals of the earth. This was an intentional metaphor that Armstrong used to make a point about the exiles and the loss that they experienced. When they made the trip to Jerusalem, they found their city in ruins religiously for their god, "Yah-Weh." This, being the center fold of society caused a lot of distress within their society. Prayer was a hard gain in these ancient times as mentioned. IT was very difficult for someone to experience their faith and live it without a temple of worship . When the temples of Yah-Weh were destroyed (everyone of them) it created that sense of loss for the exiles that resembled that of Noah and his need to "save the earth." Karen, from what I read does a great job of making all of her chapters readable for most people. This is one of many issues though that I wish to address about her full knowledge of the history of Israel and Jerusalem. She does a great job using facts and history to clarify events. But as we were told from the beginning of the course, a lot of the history of Israel has been misconstrued and is not entirely accurate. She disposes of this and continues to cite information that may be false. The religious background of the site in terms of conflict and war may be accurate, but the articles she sites and uses to create the information she used in the book is controversial and often contradicted by another author. I verified this and read articles by other seemingly credible sources pertaining to information of the time period and it creates an annoying atmosphere for someone who might be educated of the subject that has also done the same as I have. I have come to the conclusion thus so far that uses few outside sources delineating from solely conflict and war, geographic maps, and other subject areas, and sources from religion based articles and novels. This disrupts the facts on a timeline and can irritate some readers like myself and is quite annoying. This is my take, and she would be wise to incorporate other sources if redone.

Reading Response 3

Karen Armstrong chapters 1-4 After having read the first 4 chapters of the book, you learn a lot about the author and her main intentions for the reader. Though I am giving my opinion after the fact that we had class and discussed this in detail, I came to the conclusion combining others' opinions, that she devotes her novel to equality and sharing the truth in an unbiased manner from her point of view on the controversial subject of Israel/Palestine. In the first chapter we get a lay down of what to expect from the book. a description in the form of a timeline describes the conquerors and the conquered dating back to 3200 BC. One problem I immediately picked up on with the explanation that Karen gave for Jerusalem was the fact that Religion played the biggest role in the occupation of the city from the beginning of time until now. The mentioning of geographic location was only vaguely touched on by Armstrong a little at the beginning. The highlands were described as being an unusual place for a city to develop in the first place, when in reality if you look at what she said, it wasn't until after 1200 BC when the "village/town" transformed into a city in itself. The reason for the religious influence though is from what was said mainly in chapter one of "One City, Three Faiths." repeatedly at the end of the chapter she mentioned the Israelites journey to Jerusalem from the hardship of Egyptian slave masters. It was said that they conquered the holy land by force which is the issue I would like to bring up. Armstrong mentions that it was probably a false statement to say that they conquered instead of convert. People flocked from all around according to Karen because of their desire to avert slavery and hardship from other regions and cities surrounding Jerusalem. I don't believe that religion even played a role in this process. freedom can be gained without moral intensity and desire of divinity to accomplish a goal. People migrated to Jerusalem for safety and protection, and whether or not religion was used as a vice to control and convert the immigrants I believe personally, to be untrue, though Armstrong puts a great influence and majority of her first four chapters convincing us it is so.

Weblog Journal Assignment 1

I have personally found this course so far to be very inrigueing and different from the typical course offered at IU. If I could give any corrections thus so far, it would be the ease at which we set up personal blogs or profiles. It is slightly difficult to use this new format and I am not necesarily someone you would describe as technology savy, but none-the-less, figured it out and have enjoyed the course so far. MY expectations for the near future include getting more in depth conversation with not just one class, but with individuals from across theworld that would be willing to put in the time out of their busy days to have a conference call-in with us. I liek the diversity of opinions in the classroom. It really shows, especially when we have people from different nationalities coming together in one group to percieve the same issue and potentially solve it in a different way. I am looking forward to teh next week and enxt class and what this course holds for me and the potential future of the State of Israel.

Week two Response

Dumper, Mick, suggests a strong argument supporting International involvement in Jerusalem. What he believed to be a good approach of using a timeline to represent the history and conflict/fighting and recapturing of the old and new city, was a useless attempt to ask for UN or International accommodation in support of Palestinians. Though he makes little notion or mention at the beginning of Palestine and its slow removal of residents from Jerusalem, it makes it hard and barely credible for someone to make an argument when close to no correlations exist between Ottoman, British and especially, Roman culture. 5 pages were wasted in this aspect for his argument in the article. a different approach must be taken if his goal is to be accomplished. As for Rashid, immediately, he sets a tone for being biased against the Israeli dominant control over Jerusalem. This is not a bad thing necessarily. He makes a point that religion is misconstrued and commonly historically inaccurate, such as the beginning of time in the holy bible 6,000 years ago. I agree a lot with Rashidi in the sense that religious example in the form of monumental structures sets a foundation for occupying regions of Jerusalem in order to gain control as a side excuse to their Israeli beliefs. The point he is trying to make is that modern occupation of Jerusalem is contradicted by the Israeli Government because history of non-religious uses of monuments were set in stone long before Jewish authority. The problem I have with Rubin's article,is that he expresses a sense of peace at the end that denies going any further into the future past the mid-twentieth century. He makes extremely accurate claims to history and revival of each religious group, Muslims, Christians, and Jews, but does not fully enter the realm of the modern problems faced with Israel today. Whether or not he wants to argue a point or not in the future of Israel is unknown to the reader, but it would have been wise for him to do so. What is confusing is the lack of connecting history of Jerusalem to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict it consumes today.

Galit Response

Jacques Poirier 01/08/13 Galit-Hasan Article Response In order to make my point, I will skip half way through the article to where I found a mention of “The declaration of the state of Israel.” On page 7 in the top paragraph, an explanation describing in what is simpler terms, says in my interpretation, that Israel is the basis of the history and culture of what was once Palestine solely. At the festival, which was cancelled in Washington DC, I believe it was due to heated debate and arguments between the three religious groups composed between Palestinians and Israelis. Israel claims religious dominance over Palestine which embodies the state of Israel. “Seven species of produce” were described as being defined by the Israeli culture. Also, much later in the article, representation of neighborhoods being in sect with the “Mall” in Washington DC to stem from the borders within Israel give us a hint to how cultural and significant religious values are misconstrued between the two groups (Palestinians and Israelis). Of course financing was the excuse given for not hosting majority of what would be the festival, but inner lying evidence suggests that it was not necessarily the case. The excuse that it was also postponed to a future date definitely clarifies in a non-absolute sense that it was cancelled for reasons within the program responsible for setting up the festival, no particular individual. In the article, the mention of not fully educated 5 star individuals were chosen for participating in certain fields of the event to represent both nations of Israel and Palestine. The event meaning to bring together the two groups was separated by the confusion of falsified facts on both sides claiming religious, cultural and agricultural references to history of Jerusalem and surrounding areas. There were not a lot of historians chosen in the first place that could verify or deny the existence of such facts due to costs of bringing these high paid people over to DC for partaking in the festival. What do we need to do? We need to find better avenues of approach that involve funding for the festival and establishing better connections with respectable figures in future festivals managed by highly non-secular, even slightly prejudice accounted peoples. This is what I believe. Let’s not confuse this with all individuals involved with the festival though. Many did their jobs perfectly, but were not given the right funding and time to perfect it.