Is Israel Abusing Its Power?

The Israeli conflict between Palestine is a seemingly complex situation that many people do not understand what the actual conflict is. I two fall under that category. Our main sources of news often portray a pro- Israeli biased headline. I as well as many other people often saw Israeli as the victimized country. As I have continued to research and watch other documentaries from the internet, I have begun to discover the other side.

I had the unique opportunity to live with a student whose family was from Palestine. His name was Samer Sulieman, he described the situation with a completely different viewpoint on the subject. What I was told was the exact opposite of what I heard on the news. I then did some research on the subject and found a documentary by journyman.tv that showed how life was in the Gaza strip. The details of that documentary matched what Mr. Suleiman had described to me. They both described the situation as an imprisonment and torture of innocent people. With Israel having full siege over the Gaza strip, they are completely surrounded by Israeli forces and the refugees being held there are not allowed to go in and out of the area. The refugees are Palestinians who were forced out of their homes when The United Nations cleared the land to create Israel.

The people live in an impoverished environment and have virtually no jobs. Israel closed its borders which handicapped the workers who would go there to work. Israel has a more modern development of markets and would make it virtually impossible for the people stuck in Gaza to have any form of economic development. They are not allowed to fish more than one and half kilometers off the shore of the Mediterranean Sea which inhibits mass quantity and quality of fish. Many of the houses are underdeveloped and the children do not have many clothes.

This creates a more hostile environment for the people who are constantly under fire by Israeli forces. The children and men protest the Israeli army by throwing rocks and certain posts. The soldiers fire back with heavy gunfire and shoot the children. Mr. Suleiman had described this too me as an unfair fight before. He said "it's the poor fighting with sticks and stones against the big army tanks with big guns". I was always under the impression that they were better developed with weapons but the documentary reiterated his point by showing them with no weapons.

My opinion has been completely transformed hearing it first hand from someone who had better insight than I did. I do believe that Israel is abusing its power with relentless war violence and siege control over Palestinians. It is hard for me to side with them. Also, the fact that the weapons used are American made make it hard for Palestinians to believe that we can help them. It makes it seem to them that Americans support Israel's behavior. I personally believe that the American government needs to stop supplying Israel with war equipment. Also, I believe America can go in there and put restrictions on Israel to help release their stronghold on the Gaza strip. Minimizing Israel's power, in my opinion, would pave the way to a more peaceful situation.

American coverage of Isreali-Palestinian conflict

For a long while, I have had the perception that Israel was the country that was being antagonized. However, and many news sources through the years I felt have portrayed Israel in this light. When I here Palestine, I think of the protagonist in this conflict. I know question if my perception was molded by what I saw on television. I am now starting to think yes it was.

I just read an article from the Washington Post describing why we do not hear too much about talks with Palestine. They describe Hamas as being the majority in Palestine. The article says that President Bush declared Hamas a terrorist network and therefore has no room for any negotiating. This leads me to believe that once that announcement was made, the American media would then show Hamas in that light. Since we do not get a broader selection of sources here for our printed and televised media, we do not have many sources to oppose this portrayal.

I have noticed that many articles make Israel the more dominant of the two. I come to this conclusion because while doing my research, I noticed all the negotiating goes directly to Israel. It has been cited in many sources that America has close ties to Israel. It is fact that America aids Israel with military weapons. Recently, in an article in the New York Times, Greece puts a stop to America giving an extraordinarily huge amount of weapons to Israel. So that leads me to this question. Is it our war or Israel’s?