Peace in Palestine

So as the title suggests yes there has been peace in Palestine. However the title is not meant to imply that there has been an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict. What I am referring to is the agreement that was reached between the leaders of Fatah (West Bank) and Hamas (Gaza), which have been separate entities since the civil war in 2007 shortly following the election of Hamas.

There have been varying reactions to this agreement, Benjamin Netanyahu (Israel's PM) has come out to say that Abbas can't expect there to reach an peace agreement with Israel while associated with Hamas, which has been classified as terrorist organization by the US, Israel, and the EU. However, the Guardian article suggests that this new agreement gives the Palestinians greater bargaining power to lobby in front of the UN in September for independent declaration of statehood.

Now those are two opinions and it is way to soon to tell what the future holds. This story was just broken today, I found out about from @MJRosenberg on twitter, and I'll continue to follow it. But my opinion is that while yes Hamas is a terrorist organization that lobs rockets at Israel, there must be some sense of hope that this new alliance can be beneficial to the peace process rather than detrimental as Netanyahu suggests. Another thing to take into consideration is funding and aid, currently the US does provide aid to the West Bank, however since Hamas took control it cut off its supply to Gaza. With this in mind will the US's policy towards Palestinian territories change at all?

Please weigh in and discuss....

Libyan Civil War

The crisis in Libya has continued now for months with seemingly no end in sight. It has grabbed the media's and US attention while unrest continues throughout the Arab world. It seems like half of Gaddafi's government has defected while at the same time his loyalist military is still decimating the Libyan rebels.

This brings to question whether the international community is doing enough and what actually can be done by other countries. The "no-fly zone" that was imposed awhile ago has seemed to help but has not done enough to turn the tide in the favor of the rebels. Recently Obama has announced that armed predator drones will be deployed over Libya in order to aid the rebels. With the military technology today it begs the question why not just find and assassinate Gaddafi? My reasoning is that killing Gaddafi would only send the country farther into Civil War. I believe that the only option would be to somehow force Gaddafi to step down and force a transfer of power to a coalition government until a permanent solution can be agreed on.

Any thoughts? Discuss....

Palestinian Statehood

According to a report I first saw on Al-Jazeera the UN stated that the Palestinian Authority (PA) is capable of governing their own state, and the only thing holding them is Israeli occupation. I do not agree with this assessment, for a few reasons. My main point of contention is that the land the PA is requesting for it's new state include the Gaza strip, which it doesn't control. And in recent events it has been the actions of Hamas in Gaza that have been disrupting the peace process. Granting statehood to the PA when they don't have control of the area they are requesting is a ridiculous proposition. According to the article, Israel occupies 62% of Gaza and if there were to be a Palestinian state Israel would withdraw and the violence would likely escalate.

As I am writing this blog post I realize that there are too many problems with certifying the PA as a government ready to assert control over an autonomous state. Other problems include borders, and economic viability etc.

Israel and Gaza

Recently there has been an uptick in cross-border violence between Hamas in Gaza and Israel. Highlighted by an anti-tank rocket fired at an Israeli school bus and the subsequent (expected) heavy retaliation by the Israeli military. As of today Ehud Barak has stated that Israel would observe a truce if Hamas stops firing into southern Israel. Now at this point it is wait and see, hopefully the violence will die down and some sort of normality and calm will take its place, but one could only hope.

Framing and Censorship

Recently I came across a video that was posted on my friends Facebook with the title, "A story you won't see in Arab media". This raised the question of what would the video contain that wouldn't be shown in the Arab media. The video's caption reads "the story of a Palestinian who was brutally attacked by Hamas and was saved by Israeli Soldiers" and was posted on Youtube by the user JewishMessiah. 

With all of this information with out even clicking on the link one can draw conclusions on the message that the video is trying to convey. It would be reasonable to conclude that the user is Pro-Israel, based on their user name and that they are attempting for the video to contribute to the ongoing debate on the Arab-Israeli conflict. 

The issue of framing and censorship come into play when considering the claim made by the user that the video would not be something viewable in the Arab media. The assumption of censorship is another thing entirely, but before watching the video the viewer is able to prejudge the content.

K'naan

In our class we talk a lot about different forms of media and how it portrays a message. One form that is personally one of my favorite is music. One of the more recent artist's that I started listening to is K'naan, many of you should recognize his song "Waving Flag", which was the song of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. However the original song, I think is much better and tells a bit of the struggle that he has gone through in his life. K'naan was born in Mogadishu, Somalia and later moved to New York and then Canada, learning English only by listening to rap music and mimicking the language.
A lot of his music is telling of the struggle of life in Somalia and truly gives a lyrical perspective what life is like in Somalia.

The video below is from the NPR Tiny Desk Concert Series and it features three of his songs along with some good commentary by K'naan and the members of NPR.

Blogging on Twitter

Twitter has been something for me that has fluctuated between being a useful academic resource and another waste of time/tool for procrastination.

What category it falls under definitely depends on what you make of it. For example last night I was using Twitter to follow a Red Wings hockey game while in the Library and I used it as an escape from doing my reading for class the next day. I had become hooked on the updates from the Red Wings Twitter feed as my team mounted a comeback, which led to overtime loss.

Than there are times like this afternoon where I opened up my twitter and looked at what Marc Lynch and Andrew Carvin were saying about what is going on in Libya. This led to me reading an article by Lynch posted by Carvin on Twitter about the war that is on going in Libya, and this page included in an extended interview that Lynch gave to NPR on the issue that provided greater detail on the issue.

These are two polarized ways in which Twitter can be used.