Second Blog Post

This week on March 24th, The Jerusalem Post published an article titled "What's Happening in Gaza?" by author Khaled Abu Toameh. This investigative piece explores the motives behind the recent Palestinian-led protests in the Gaza Strip. Earlier this week, protests erupted in Gaza about economic hardships experienced by the Palestinians living there, under Hamas controlled territory. Initially, apparently Hamas had ignored these protests as they believed they were similar to protests from 2018 against Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) where Hamas sent out supporters to protest economic hardship but instead blamed Abbas, who is the current President of the PA. However, these protests were different since they appeared to be partially pro-Fatah protestors who were demonstrating against the corruption within Hamas that has led to the economic hardships currently being experienced in the Gaza Strip. After the first day of protests revealed this, Hamas sent out its security forces to apprehend, arrest, and put a stop to these protests and protestors. Several Palestinians were observed being beaten harshly by these forces and had to be hospitalized for their injuries. Hamas maintains that these protests are inauthentic and a conspiracy led by both Fatah and the PA to ceed Hamas from power as well as stop future planned authentic protests, mainly against Israel, from the region. Fatah denied these allegations and asserted that these protests are real. Since then, both Fatah and the PA have been trying to portray this as an intifada against Hamas on social media by various posts showing people being beaten by Hamas as well as being recorded stating that they were beaten by Hamas. However, it soon emerged that some of the photos used were actually taken from Iraq and Egypt, and therefore people not wounded by Hamas. Fatah got hate for spreading false information and people fired back by saying that Fatah also uses security forces with the same objectives in West Bank. In Gaza, representatives making up 12 Palestinian factions met up during the protests and demanded that Hamas remove their police forces from the streets and to release the people they arrested. Hamas, for their part, was condemned domestically in Israel as well as by many international groups which led to the organization releasing a rare lengthy apology. It is also reported that last week one of Fatah's primary spokesmen Alef Abu Seif was kidnapped, beaten, and wounded in Gaza and has since been sent to a hospital in Ramallah to recover. Since this, Fatah, the PA, and the PLO have accused Hamas of war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza.

The facts presented in this article appear to be reliable for several reasons. Primarily, the Jerusalem Post is known to be a valid news company in the first place. Second, the author Toameh is linked by name to this article and with a single click on his name one can access other articles he has written for the Jerusalem Post. While the website does not give a brief biography of him to see where he has studied, specialized in, or how long he has worked for the JP, it does allow one to view the other articles he has worked on. His earliest work is from September of 2018 and the majority of his articles focus on Gaza, Hamas, and Arabs in Israel which show that he does have some experience researching the topic of this article and reporting on it. As for the specific information reported on in this article, given that it was noted that internationally Hamas was condemned for their use of force in suppressing protests in Gaza, I began to look for these international condemnations. The UN released a statement condemning Hamas's actions in Gaza as well as the New York Times. These two notable sources supported this article's assertion that first, protests were taking place in Gaza against Hamas and second, that Hamas sought to undermine and disrupt protestors by using violent methods from their private police force and lastly, that the international community condemned these actions that led to the harm of Palestinian civilians. It was interesting to me that this reporter made a special distinction that Hamas does not usually apologize and that their lengthy statement was notable so I looked up Hamas's statement. They did in fact write a lengthy apology which I was surprisingly able to access on my device. Their apology in both length and that toward the end they blame the PA for what they believe was a PA-led and funded protest against Hamas to oust them from power. Therefore, given that this article appears to be properly researched and reported, it can be concluded this article is reliable.

This article seems reliable with the information it contains as it seeks to explore the perspective of Hamas, Fatah, and the PLO from relatively unbiased reporting.The reporter does give their opinion and future predictions from the evidence they gathered toward the end of the article. They postulate that the goal of both Fatah and Hamas is to oust of the other form their respective controlled territory so that the other can then go in and take control of the other's former area. This is not an unusual conclusion to draw considering that the PA used to control Gaza prior and would likely like to control it again. Taomeh also appears to be fond of making future predictions about the situation in Gaza, saying toward the end of the article that he believes that should more protests return to the Gaza strip that it would only widen the divide already present between Palestinian civilians who prefer the authority of Hamas versus the authority of the PA. In regards to the bias of the newspaper publishing this article in the first place, the Jerusalem Post is known to be a slightly more conservative paper. It should be acknowledged that this meaning of conservative is in regards to the term being used in the context of what conservative means in the state of Israel as opposed to what conservative means for the United States of America. Lastly, toward the end of the article when Taomeh notes that Fatah, the PA and the PLO accesses Hamas of war crimes he quotes a Fatah official who calls Hamas terrorists and then quotes a PLO official who compares Hamas to the Gestapo. Due to him deliberately choosing to include these specific quotes as opposed to just noting that they accused Hamas of war crimes suggests that he does not favor Hamas and their methods, at least for this particular occasion and is on the "side" of Fatah, the PLO, and the PA in not supporting Hamas's action in Gaza.

Current Events Blog Post #1: Wonder Woman vs. Bibi

This week on March 11th, Haaretz posted an article titled "Wonder Woman vs. Bibi: Gal Gadot Takes Stand in Row Over Jewish-Arab Equality" by author Itay Stern. The article describes the recent social media exchange between Wonder Woman's leading Israeli actress Gal Gadot and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Gal's personal friend and fellow actress Rotem Sela went on Instagram responded to comments made by the Culture Minister of Israel, Miri Regev. Regev wrote a "warning" about certain Israeli political parties potentially cooperating with Arab political parties. Sela responded essentially saying his comments were ridiculous and there was no need for any sort of warning because she did not believe it mattered that the two parties were of different races. Sela's Instagram post soon became flooded in a wave of polarizing comments and Gadot came to her support by posting a photo herself with the phrase "Love thy neighbor as thyself" and spoke of peace talks between Jews and Arabs in Israel. Several other Israeli female models and actresses chimed in with their support as well. However, the very next day, Netanyahu fired back with a social media post of his own where he stood in front of the Israeli flag and declared that Israel is the state of the Jewish people alone.

This article seems reliable with the information it conveys overall. Since it does not link to the actual social media accounts and posts in question, I decided to look for them myself. From Gal's official Instagram, mysteriously the post in question has gone missing. As if it had, perhaps, been deleted by her social media management team. Various other news articles such as the Washington Post, NBC, and AP News  all reported on the incident in question but none of them had any physical evidence such as a screenshot of the post on their pages. However, given that multiple reputable news outlets reported on this, it can be reasonable concluded that it actually occurred. Interestingly, I could not find the post from Netanyahu either. Various news agencies discussed it, but none provided any sort of link or screenshot of the incident. However, again, it can reasonably be concluded that the event in questions actually occurred. Since the event described is very detailed with dates of when each post was made and when each response was posted, I think the reporter did research into this event so as to best report on it. Similarly, whenever Stern wrote about what an individual posted on social media he directly quoted them for what appears to be their full statement, if not most of their statement. This is observed given that Stern did not stop a quotation, leave three ellipsis, and then resume quoting which could potentially allow for a statement to be misunderstood or deliberately altered so as to convey a meaning different that it was intended too.

First, it should be noted and acknowledged that the newspaper company who posted this, Haaretz, tends to have a more liberal viewpoint on sociopolitical issues such as the ones presented by Sela, Gadot, and Netanyahu. This is actually very apparent by the quotes that Stern decided to include toward the end of the article. After quoting Bibi's response, Stern makes the decision to quote the current Israeli Minister of Education Naftali Bennett who responded to PM Netanyahu's comments by essentially saying it was ridiculous of him to focus on the social media comments of celebrities rather than paying attention to the real, physical threat of looming terrorists. Immediately proceeding Stern quotes Ahmad Tibi, a famous Arab Muslim politician in Israel who notes sarcastically that Bibi would be surprised to know that Arabs are people who want to be equal citizens to other people living within Israel. Lastly, Stern quotes Israeli lawyer Ayman Odeh who also supports the initial comments Sela posted. I think that the combination of Stern choosing to include these three specific responses as well as writing them one after the other and choosing to not include what I presume are positive statements supporting Bibi shows that Stern as an author doesn't like Bibi. Not only does he appear to not favor Bibi, he always appears to support the same viewpoint that Sela had where he believes that the Arab citizens of Israel should be allowed to have just as free of a voice in government as the Jewish citizens.

This is a link I'll be reporting on!

About me!

The process of moving a beehive over to a one of our hives. 

Hello! I figured I would upload a brief about me so you can get to know the person behind this blog. Like my username suggests my name is Michelle and I'm currently a senior in undergraduate studying Biology. This blog is a project for my Israel's history and People class. As the photo and previous post suggests, my two favorite animals are cats and bees! I currently work in studying honeybee nectar and honey from their hive! I hope you enjoy my blog! uwu

First Post! Meet my cat Raven!

Hello world! This is my cat, Raven! She's currently 13 years old as her birthday is on Thanksgiving! She loves fish but she has a particular fondness for salmon! She loves when we bring her a little bit of salmon sashimi from when we go out to our favorite sushi restaurant!