Reading Response # 14

The first news article I came across was written just four days ago by Larry Abramson. It is titled, "A West Bank Story, Told Through Palestinian Eyes." Before I started reading the article I took into account that the article was most likely written with a biased tone (obviously in favor of the Palestinian side). It reminded me of our discussions regarding Karen Armstrong and how hard it is to write without any biases.

Anyways, the article portrays the West Bank separation barrier as favoring the Israelis. According to Abramson, the Israelis say that the barrier has helped prevent attacks by the Palestinians. On the contrary, the Palestinians are complaining that the barrier separates them from obtaining key agricultural land. The article specifically focuses on the Palestinian village, Bil'in (located extremely near an Israeli settlement). Even further, it narrowly focuses on Emad Burnat, a resident of Bil'in. Emad created an Oscar-nominated documentary titled "5 Broken Cameras."Ironically, Burnat and Israeli filmmaker Guy Davidi are co-directors of the film. You may be wondering why the film is called "5 Broken Cameras." While filming the protests, Israeli settlers smashed/shot not one, not two, not three, not four, but five of his cameras. How Burnat escaped injury and/or death in these encounters will continue to perplex me.

I also found it interesting that Burnat has become a main target of Israeli settlers and soldiers. Israelis have targeted him because his film has inspired courts to take action. The Israeli government was forced to move the fence off of the agricultural land. The film has sparked a so-called "camera war." Israelis have countered by attempting to document their own footage that depicts Palestinians mistreating the Israeli settlers. I thought this article was good for this response because it's informative, amusing, and symbolic of what is going on between Israelis and Palestinians.

While this article was the main focus of this response, I also found some other news/articles that I think are worth taking a look at. Here are the links to those articles:

http://www.vtjp.org/background/Separation_Wall_Report.htm

http://electronicintifada.net/content/it-fence-it-wall-no-its-separation-barrier/4715

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/fence.html