Reading Response 17

When we think of the Israeli/Palestinian issue, I believe that most people would not even let transgender, gay, lesbian or bisexual issues cross their mind in terms of the role it plays as both a solution and as part of the conflict. We so far have covered the viewpoints that the conflict takes on music, partially on politics, security, a little geography and of course, religion. I can see so many parallels that these websites present that greatly resemble and resonate with similarities between that of Palestinians being treated as unequal, and that of gays and lesbians, etc... being treated in a prejudice manner. One thing bugs me though. There is a gay pride parade every year in New York City where the population is well over 13 million people. In Jerusalem, the population is over 700,000 people, less than 1/20 the population of New York City. Yet violence emerged in an extremely quick and volatile manner against these people like the example of the ultra-orthodox man in the shortened documentary video who tried to stab and kill several people. It shows how singular minded some people can be when it comes to differences in sexuality and even gender. I posted earlier before break a picture of the wall in Jerusalem, where men are separated from the women, and it shows that not only that extreme prejudice against sexuality occurs, but between men and women.

Amiry Suad and Hasan-Rokem Response

Anyone can look at a map of current or old geography and see that Jordan is and has for a long time, been a neighbor of Israel. the chapter of the book that Amiry Suad wrote brought up a good point. An ongoing struggle between Jordan and Israel when it comes to displacement of Palestinians has become ever clear to me especially after reading this chapter of the novel. Jordan itself has displaced well over 700 Palestinians from their homes near the border touching Israel. Its disturbing to me that both governments are easily and strategically removing Palestinian residents from their countries. It is literally true when Palestinians claim that they are removed from homes to be displaced else where and not allowed to return because they are denied permits or passports of state recognition by both governments. What happens is Israel will remove Palestinians, trick them using excuses and lies to give them permits or in this case, "gas masks," and send them through Jordan's border when it sees a weakness in their border security. Also perhaps and not confirmed, but maybe border patrol officers and soldiers in Jordan were payed off by the Israeli government to let Palestinians in considerable numbers be allowed through the border during times of crisis like during the Iraq War.  The same goes for Jordan, they do the exact same thing sometimes. And this cycle repeats and Palestinians get shoved back and forth between Jordan and Israel. As for the Iraq War, sure, Israel told Palestinian residents near the border that they needed gas masks because of a potential chemical weapons threat. But now that we know that Iraq never had WMD's (weapons of mass destruction), we know that they never had large scale capability of chemical warfare to expense on Israel or other countries. The fact is, the Bush Administration lied to the media and American citizens when they said that Saddam had chemical weapons and WMD's. The Israeli government was clearly informed of this lie as well and exploited it, using it as an excuse to remove Palestinians in the example given to us by Amiry Suad. It's disturbing, the ability of Israel to pacify a portion of its country with false information in desired areas to remove or get rid of Palestinians. And at the end of the day, I'm sure their government passed it off as a removal of Hamas involved individuals in that region, not of regular and innocent Palestinian citizens. Better media platforms with honest reporters need to rise and face this challenge, but I fear it won't be anytime soon.

My Father's trip to Israel

I have taken the liberty of asking for photos by my father that has recently visited Jerusalem and other parts of Israel such as the West Bank. One thing I found to be very interesting about the wall in Jerusalem, is that when families come together to pray, the women are separated from the men.But  he has given me the following photos from his business trip.

Homeland Redefined-Noura Dabdoub

We constantly see in the article "Homeland Redefined," that a two-state solution is emphasized as the major and most widely accepted political position to hold according to Noura Dabdoub. It might seem like a great idea up front to suggest the idea that the conflict will end when both the Palestinians and the Israelis have their own land to call home, but realistically, would it stop here, and is this the best option? I see the idea that Noura is trying to get across, but I don't believe it will help emotionally and physically, the suffering that Palestinians have gone through in any category except for identity. They would have a place to call home, but would this ultimately satisfy the needs of most of their people. One has to take into consideration other examples where similar situations have been carried out. One example of this would be Sudan. Sudan just recently was split into two different countries, one in the north, and one in the south. Where problems come into play, and I might be wrong, is that in Sudan, both governments fought over pipe lines for oil distribution, agricultural farms, and many other resource related issues. This caused a war for a short period of time between the two countries. Of course Israel's situation is different in many aspects, but do you believe that where there is resource such as oil that Israel is interested in, that after the separation of Israel into two states, they wouldn't try to sanction those resources and fight for them? Also, the US would never allow for a two state solution that separated Israel from any oil source within its boundaries. the reason for this is that the US would stop all military funding to Israel if they cut off a major source of oil supply for our economy. I love the idea of a homeland for Palestinians, but the main issue we face is figuring a way around resource distribution between the two states when formed that would not conflict with the US agenda.