The Gaza War has been over for about three weeks, and is almost entirely gone from the U.S. media. After the tenuous ceasefire came into effect the Western World has seemingly forgot there was a conflict to begin with. According to an article in the Washington Post, however, (the article can be accessed at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2009/02/07/ST2009020702246.html ) the problem is far from solved.
Something that seems strange to me is that the article did not mention there being any aid to Palestine coming from the Muslim world. From what I know understand about Islam from the Esposito reading, Muslims tend to feel a certain sense of solidarity with eachother (as evidenced from the Koran forbidding a Muslim from killing another born Muslim). This most recent bloody conflict between Israel and Palestine appeared to be the final incident that would get the Western World to intervene. Now the U.S. is sending relief money, the European Union is considering what to do next, but Palestine's neighboring countries are doing next to nothing--seems odd.
I want to note, however, that I was very impressed with the reaction of the Manhattanville Community after the Gaza War. A Seeds of Peace presentation by two students from Palestine drew a large audience, and served as an effective platform to inform students ignorant of the news about what occured on the West Bank. Throughout the week, I also noticed several students asking for donations to send to Gaza for relief work--those who could not donate money often took black arm bands to show their support for the cause. One can tell from these demonstrations that the War in Gaza affected and matters to many people on campus, as Manhattanville is not usually a stage for much open political activity.
I hope that grassroots efforts like the ones practiced by the Manhattanville Community this previous week can help to alleviate some of the suffering of displaced Palestinians, since large scale relief efforts (according to Witte at least) are doomed to failure.
I totally agree with you, as a palestinian, it was very odd to see the arab / muslim countries reactions towards the crisis comparing to other countries'. for example, the israeli minister was kicked out of vinazuela, but israeli ministers still remain in jordan and egypt, the closest countries to palestine -geografically, that is.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to here that you attended the presentation and were informed. I was one of those two students speaking about gaza, and i was really happy about the people attending and the questions asked afterwards.
I was also the key-person and the supervisor for the donations for gaza, and I was very surprised about the mville community response to that.
we raised much more money than I expected.. and I'm happy to tell you that the amount was $500, in three days only.
I wonder whether or not countries in the Muslim world fear getting too politically involved with the conflict because of Israel's strong military strength. I'm not sure this is 100% accurate, but I recall hearing in "Peace, Propoganda, and the Promise Land" that Israel (although only the size of New Jersey) has the third strongest military in the entire world. It seems fairly safe to send humanitarian aid to Palestine after the fact, but perhaps incediary to kick out ministers and diplomats. Perhaps this explains why Venezuela (a country very far away from Israel) is willing to take blatent political action, whereas neighboring countries are a little more reluctant.
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