Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Big_Bird]

Lately there's been a lot of whinging here about how there is so much focus on the I/P conflict compared to other conflicts. This thread invites people to describe why they find the I/P conflict interesting.

I'll go first:

When I was in my late teens, as I was waiting for my friend to collect me, I turned on the telly and caught part of a documentary that interviewed a Palestinian woman (who I now know to be Hanan Ashrawi) and she was describing the difficulties and daily misery of the occupation. Up until then, I had never paid it any attention, and I guess I always kind of absorbed that the Palestinians were just being arseholes or something. I listened to her, and suddenly thought "Bloody Hell - No wonder the Palestinians keep making trouble..." and I guess that was the first time I'd ever considered the Palestinian view.

But I didn't pay it much attention, until a few years later when I spent a few weeks in the library stacks, researching the Lebanon War. I had always assumed the war was mostly a fight between Christians and Muslim Lebanese, but of course it was much much more complicated than that, as I soon learnt, with various outside actors such as Syria and the US. Israel was a major actor in that war, as were the Palestinians, and in learning about that conflict I also began to learn much about the wider Israeli/Palestinian conflict. My swotting up about the war in Lebanon then led to several weeks of further reading about the I/P conflict - for pure interest.

I got interested in it again not that long after, as the second intifada unfolded, and much of 2001 I spent in China, often with no reading material (was very difficult to buy English language books back in those days) but the internet, so I followed the intifada practically every day. I also spent a great deal of time in the company of Israelis that year, and had several Israeli travelling companions, including one who remained with me for several months who regularly liked to argue with me about the conflict as we travelled from place to place. Listening to him and other Israelis we befriended along the way, I was always struck by how extraordinarily ignorant most were of the Palestinian narrative. By about mid 2002 I found it all so depressing that I couldn't stomach reading another article about it, until the 2006 war in Lebanon, at which point I began to follow Middle Eastern politics once again.

In my adult life I have made both jewish and muslim friends, lived with both Jews and muslims, worked with both jews and muslims, studied with both jews and muslims, and travelled with both Israelis and Arabs. In my extended family, we have both a couple of Jewish branches and one muslim branch. I've heard so many different perspectives, and often a lot of bullshit, from both muslims and jews. Often these conversations (generally quite one-sided where I mostly just listen and give away little of my own thoughts on the subject) have lead me to go and do more reading and research.

But what really really fascinates me about this conflict, ever since I first saw that interview with Ashwari, and what has always found me returning to conflict is this: the extraordinary double standard, and the undismissable bias against the Palestinians (who are the occupied and not the occupiers). Posters here whinge "why does no-one want to discuss the Tibet/China conflict, or the Congo etc etc..?" But the fact is there is not much to debate. With very few exceptions, no-one disagrees that the mass raping and mutilations of women in the Congo are unjustifiable attrocities. Very few people argue the Tibetans deserve what was coming to them, and the Chinese are quite right in their actions there. Nobody argues that the expulsion of so many in Darfur from their homes is justified, and that the Janjaweed are noble and good. In other conflicts like that in Sri Lanka, there are not regular op-eds in the papers apologising for one side, and berating the other for stuff the other side is also doing (but getting a free pass). I don't see any one side demonised when I read about the Sri Lanken conflict. For years both jews and non-jews have tried to persuade me of the righteousness of the Israeli cause against the Palestinians. Yet with every attempt to persuade me, they only succeed in further convincing me otherwise. Any other conflict, and we would generally have sympathy for those that had been expelled from their land, or who lived under a miserable and brutal occupation. Yet, in this particular case, mainstream sympathy has (at least until recent years) been with the administrators of this occupation. It's that double standard that continues to fascinate me.

[mises]

[Big_Bird]

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

Selective one sided criticism in the guise of objective analysis is never a good thing. Nor is it a good thing to see the facts , borders , history and numbers distorted to make something appear different than it is and was. Why the wrongs of one side count and the wrongs of the other side don't count is beyond me.

Israel's enemies ought to accept Israel or accept liberal democracy as the way things work in the mideast. . If the answer is no to both then they are at fault.

[megandadam]

the most interesting/outrageous thing about the i/p affair in my opinion is the fact that somehow, the UN (the US) was able to place israel on top of another whole people (the palestinians).

now to be clear, the palestinians do get a lot of sympathy from lefties whereas the israelis get a lot of sympathy (guilt filled, no doubt) from righties and the religious minded. i am pretty pissed that the palestinians can't seem to shake hamas and get down to business with the israelis. and i hate that the israelis seem to believe it was ok to place their country on top of the palestinians and then wonder why their people support a militant group like hamas.

it was a mistake to create israel in the first place, but undeniably an act of us imperialism - otherwise, why would israel have the full backing of the us on almost every issue?

anyways, OP, i understand your frustration. the congo, rwanda, darfur - all of these places that undergo atrocities of the first order and no one is acting. read: the us isn't doing shit so the perception is that it's not important. the rest of the world needs to step up and stop relying on the us to act. or, more importantly, someone needs to find an abundant supply of valuable natural resources (sorry people don't count) in africa and then we'll see some action.

edward said once wrote that when people start believing that 'suffering somewhere is suffering everywhere' then we'll start seeing some action. i tend to believe that but, similar to marxism and the socialist consciousness, it seems people can't put down their magazines and lattes long enough to take notice tht 85% of the world seems to be suffering greatly.

anyways, that's my 2 cents

[caniff]

[megandadam]

edward said (last name = said = say'eed)
i knew when i was typing that that would throw some people off.

[mithridates]

[Capo]

You might be interested in a thread i made on another forum which created a debate with an Israeli, who used to be an ultra zionist, but has sinced changed his ways, when i mean untra zionist he once said criticising Israeli in any circumstance is anti-semetic....

[Capo]

unfortunately most Israelis are not as level headed as this guy

[Kuros]

BigBird,

You never have to justify your interest in a legitimate subject (almost all subjects are legitimate) ever. I'm not going to pillory you for a) being interested in the conflict or b) providing links and facts to it. I'd ignore people who do.

[RJjr]

I wouldn't care about it, except for the morbid curiosity of how my tax dollars are being wasted.

[CyberGuy]

What interests me? Here is it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-brkmfrxrQY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziSTY408h6k


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVeeanP5Jto
(see? he is atheist liberalist, and I do respect him for his voice of conscience for social and legal justice)


Regards,
CG

[Ya-ta Boy]

A couple of days after I graduated from high school in 1967 that particular war broke out. Then followed a media feeding frenzy and I learned something about the situation and was pretty interested. By the time the next war came about in '73 (?) I was already tired of hearing about it. It had become clear that there was right and wrong on each side and that no progress toward a solution was in sight.

When (if?) it seems like things are moving toward a resolution, I'll get interested again. Until then, I will remain fairly apathetic about a situation that doesn't really concern me, while being vaguely saddened that people's lives are being wasted. I don't like it that people are getting killed almost every day, but people are getting killed every day in many areas of the world. Only rarely can outsiders do much about it until the local people begin to search for a solution they can live with.

[TheUrbanMyth]