Sometimes one person can change the tide. A single life. A single story. A single face. Someone to whom we can relate, someone who we can imagine as a friend. Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish may now, to his own horror, fit the profile of one who can help change the course of the violence in some small measure in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Dr. Abuelaish is an unusual man, a Palestinian doctor who reports for Israeli television. Though he lives in Gaza, he was educated in Israel, speaks Hebrew, and works in an Israeli hospital. Dr. Abuelaish has been giving Israelis daily reports on the military campaign in Gaza, and he is a man who works for peace, who builds bridges between worlds. This past Friday, he witnessed three of his daughters and a niece killed by Israeli bombs (and another daughter seriously wounded). His first panicked moments of terror were broadcast live on Israeli television.
WATCH a three minute video of this television segment.
As we all know, there is often little compassion between warring people, little willingness to recognize the humanity in one another. After all, how would it be possible to kill others if we didn’t see them as less human than us? How would Palestinians find justification for launching rockets into Jewish civilian neighborhoods? How do Jews justify bombing Palestinian civilian homes in their search for their enemy?
But ironically, Dr. Abuelaish is the face of a friend to Israelis. That very simple fact is what has the power to make a difference, to crack open hearts so that enemies begin to see one another as human, as suffering, as wanting the same things for themselves and their families.
So what if we apply this to our own wars? What if we knew the faces and the stories and the pain of hundreds of thousands of grieving Iraqis as well as we are coming to know the faces of the passengers on U.S. Air Flight 1549 (the plane that landed in the Hudson River)? What if, just as we saw ourselves in the cracking composure of the father who could return home to kiss his five year old daughter after surviving a plane crash, we could see ourselves in each relationship and family that is lost and torn and broken by war? How would “our” Iraq war be different? How would we be different?
And what if we step back and apply this to the way we war with one another figuratively? How differently would we treat people who we hate from a distance if we could see ourselves in them, and if we could actually see the shared pain we all carry within?
So this story is not simply about Israelis and Palestinians; it’s about all of us.
WATCH another video that includes reactions from Dr. Abuelaish’s Jewish colleagues.
The Grief of War Comes Full Circle: The Essence of Race Relations
Countries of the world are constantly at war, whether it be over land, religion, politics, or money; wars have plagued the planet for millennia and continue to this very day, but what are we really fighting about? What is it that makes a man travel across the world in order to take away a complete strangers life? Clearly, war is an attempt to solve conflicts and/or differences in the world, an attempt to “fix” issues, but who is to say that one way is better than another, that one man’s idea is the “right” way of doing something. We go to war; we justify the killing of human beings, because we convince ourselves that these people are in some way deserving of death. In order to prevent the killing of innocent people, we, in turn, kill people. This is seemingly the paradox at hand. If we could only see ourselves in the shoes of those we fight, if we could realize that they, despite, race, religion, skin color and a million and one other variables, are people too, we might come to the realization of how backwards war actually is. People are divided into hundreds of races but when it comes down to it we are but one race, and that is the human race! We all have our differences but in actuality, they all seem rather petty in the grand scheme of things. Thus, if we had the mentality to take a moment and relate with those we are fighting, realize that we are but one and the same race, this is the first step in reasoning out issues, rather than fighting about them.
Obviously, we do not live in a fairy tale world. The chance that people will come to see their enemies as equals and eventually friends during our lifetimes is unlikely, but we can always hope for a brighter tomorrow, because only when we can walk a mile in another man’s shoes can we truly appreciate what he has experienced or has to offer. Furthermore, as absurd, as it may sound maybe it would be better if we were all blind, because if this were the case, we would have to base our entire perception of others off of what the mind had to offer as opposed to physical attributions. This would at long last take away the biases presented when one individual looks at another and perhaps at long last we would be able to put our minds together not as different races, but as people and the possibilities that would arise would surely be amazing, swift and great. If we as humans have the potential to fly to the moon or perform brain surgery, as individual nations upon putting our minds together it is almost too much to grasp the potential opportunities that may come to pass. And so when we see someone who looks different than us, when we fight with people from a country across the wide sea I would implore citizens to consider the fact that the same crimson blood runs in their veins, we are all people and although our ideals, religions and skin colors may vary if we can see past all this the windows of opportunity will surly stretch as wide and luminous as the stars span across the night sky.
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I think it’s great that Obama is including people that are different into the table so to speak, but I think it’s a little too soon to tell if that is in fact his plan or if invite to Rick Warren to the inauguration was just a one time show of good faith to keep good on a promise. I that he has a few Republicans in his cabinet, but I’ll be interested to see if he really does use those people to their full potential. I know that may seem that I’m being pessimistic to people but in truth I’m just a bit skeptical. As was stated many politicians have stated in the past that they would bring in other people to the table and they never did. I’ll be interested to see that if a year, three years into his term, or if Obama gets elected for a second term if he still feels that way.
However, with that said I give a lot of credit to both Obama and Warren for leaving their minds open and trying to work together. This country is so divided right now that we as a people we are a divide nation. I did not support Obama myself during the campaign and I never felt like I could freely express my views especially to friends or in class discussions for fear of ridicule. We as a people and a country should never have to defend our beliefs or views in this country, we should able to respectful disagree with each other, yet lately that seems to be a power that we have lost in this country no matter what side of the table you happen to be on. I think that is partly why this country is in the state that it is in. Problems were never addressed because people felt they didn’t have a voice and that will just continue to happen if things don’t change. I think if Obama really does mean what he says about bringing everyone to the table then this country can only get better and we will once again become a place where people can say what they want to say and voice their concerns without fear. By bring Rick Warren it shows that the president is trying to heal this country and make it and it’s people whole again and I respect that. However, I think we still have a long before this country is back to the way it use to be and I think it take more then one invite of a conservative preacher and a few cabinets members to prove, at least to me that Obama is serious about bringing everyone to the table and listening to their ideas.
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We honestly think that people should calm down. Rick Warren is Rick Warren and President Barack Obama is President Barack Obama. They have similar ideas on things and then they have different ideas on other things. President Barack Obama is not having Rick Warren come deliver a speech about his own personal opinions and thoughts on the lgbta community. Barack Obama just invited him to come give an opening prayer at the presidential inauguration, nothing more or less. Just because Barack Obama is friends with Rick Warren, doesn’t mean that he agree with all his views on things. I am sure everyone has at least one or two friends who they have so much in common with, but there are still one or two things that your friend does, believes, or says that you hardly agree with. It is inevitable, no one agrees with another person on everything.
I personally think all people are created equally no matter what.
No matter there choices in life, or sexual preferences, everyone should be treated equally. People are so afraid of change. The world would be so boring if everything stayed the same and if we were all the same. We want to say that we are a diverse country, but at the same time we don’t embrace change and other people’s differences and preferences. I think that homosexuals should have the same benefit of getting married as heterosexuals do. I also think they should reap the same benefits also. Marriage should not be based on the gender of the individuals getting married; it should be based on the love between the individuals which only they can measure. Change is a great thing and we need to embrace change in all ways possible. Everyone will not have the same ideas, opinions, beliefs, skin color, etc. and this is one of things that makes us the greatest nation around.
I totally agree that President Barack Obama is doing what he said he would by bringing everyone to the table. It takes a president to be in the same presence and be so close with some one whom you disagree with on some things. The reason I say president is because a president has so much power that he does not have to allow or speak to anyone who doesn’t have the same views as he does to be in his presence, let alone be at his inauguration.
President Barack Obama is a great person and will be an even better president. He is going to make great changes to this country and eventually I think everyone will have to respect him. By Barack Obama being president the Americans will not be the only people that will have a chance to grow, but Barack Obama will also have a chance to grow.
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This story about Dr. Abuelaish is so compelling because it puts a face to the conflict in Gaza. When we are across the ocean from all of these wars and bombings, it is easy to just put them out of our minds, but when you see things such as those news reports about Dr. Abuelaish and his family, it reminds you that these are real people– people with lives and family and friends just like us. If anyone I knew lost four family memebers at once, as Dr. Abuelaish did, the mourning would be long and terrible. Many families in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Gaza are experiencing similar tragedies while we sit on our couches and watch our sitcoms without a second thought of the life loss across the Atlantic.
After September 11th, I heard many people say “we should just bomb them all,” refering to many of the countries in the Middle East. The deaths that occured on 9/11 were horrific, but going across the world and just retaliating in the same manner is ridiculous. Will it really alleviate our suffering by massively killing the loved ones of others? Sure, the terrorists from 9/11 may have been born in some Middle Eastern countries, but if we throw a bomb over there, it will destroy thousands of innocent people. Can we fault them just because they were born into a country which produced a few radicals who participated in terrible acts on American soil? It is not their fault, and they should not be slayed because of it. That logic is like saying if someone from your hometown shoots up a convenience store in a nearby city that the people of that city should exterminate your town, despite the fact that most of the population probably never met that man or had any influence on his life. These ideas just create more violence and more sorrow.
What makes Dr. Abuelaish’s story even more tragic is that he spent his life helping Israelis and working toward peace in the region. If even the guards at the border between Israel and Gaza can accept Dr. Abuelaish, then why is it so hard to believe that the people of these places can get along; we are all just people who hold our friends and family close to our hearts and want to prosper in life. Wouldn’t it be easier to maintain these relationships and attain life goals if we could work together as a world people, unconcerned about land, religion, or ethnicity? There will always be violence, so these ideas are fairly unrealistic, but if we take a step back and look at our so-called enemy as a person just like us, as our neighbor or brother, then I think that there would be some more compassion and maybe a greater consideration for the lives we are destroying.
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So here is the deal. Individuality is an accepted idea, as it should be. Everyone is different and race justifies that, as does brown eyes, green eyes, blue eyes, blonde hair, black hair, and even no hair! We are all human, a fact that most of the time people tend to forget, because people are fickle and without meaning to, they can also be hypocritical. For example, there are avid supporters of equal rights for all, yet when they get in small arguments with their friends they can struggle with looking at it from both sides, a necessary course of action. They see the argument from their point of view, regardless of whether it’s about who lost the remote or issues within gay rights or desegregation. They may fight for equal rights, but they can lose sight of the same equality on a smaller scale.
We all know what disappointment feels like, what it feels like to be surprised, how being happy and knowing it is one of the best feelings in the world. Therefore, we all have the capability of being hurt, and we all are guilty of inflicting that feeling on others.
However, this can be cut down significantly. Almost like the “golden rule” or the rule of reciprocity, if people think about a situation from the opposite or different point of views, most of the time problems can be avoided. Granted, that is not saying that every problem between every different group can be easily solved because there are ethical dilemmas out there with no right answer. However, on a smaller scale than say the Israeli and Palestinian war, it takes strength of character for someone to stop and pull themselves out of the narrow-based thinking that is creating the conflict they are involved with, and think “ok this is how I am feeling because X did this, but how and/or why did X do that? How are they feeling?” By being able to overcome your anger, hurt or any negative emotion to think about the situation is a difficult thing to do. In fact, it’s a lot easier said than done. I know growing up I was that friend who always played devil’s advocate when my friends were fighting. It drove all of my friends crazy, but eventually though they still grew angry at me for it, a lot of them admitted that really by looking at it from the other side, the only reason they were still angry was because they felt like they were supposed to be.
The point is, yes, we are all different, and not only on the outside. We have different styles, personalities, and beliefs. Yet, we all share the same emotions. That is one of the common grounds on which every human can relate. In the blog, you said “How differently would we treat people…if we could actually see the shared pain we all carry within?” It is the simple matter of taking a step back and thinking “well if I was in their shoes…”
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It is truly hard t put your self into someone else’s situations. After watching the videos about Dr. Abuelaish it is hard to picture us living in a world like that. I feel that as we all sit in our dorm rooms or apartments in the small town of State College we don’t always realize what is going on around us. I think it is hard for us to see what others have to deal with everyday and the terror that goes on around the world.
I think also that we do not look at others in the world fairly or in the right light. We are all living our own lives and its not fair that other come into ones life and take away something so special like children for no reason. Having our troops in Iraq I feel is wrong. We should want to help them and make their country better for them to live in and a safer world for us all to live in. However I do not think that we should have to be there fighting and killing humans and having our troops be killed. We should be able to do things in a more peaceful manor.
This question, “And what if we step back and apply this to the way we war with one another figuratively? How differently would we treat people who we hate from a distance if we could see ourselves in them, and if we could actually see the shared pain we all carry within?” really make me think about what we are doing and how was treat others. It is truly hard to put yourself in someone else’s situations. To make one think about others than themselves it really making people think hard because no one wants to be anyone else. If you could get everyone in countries to think about others that they “hate” I think it could make a big difference. No one wants to think about their own family and friends being hurt and killed and that’s what some people do to each other.
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I agree that we tend to view those we are at war with simply as “enemies” rather than actual human beings like ourselves. Most cultures and societies believe that their way of life is the correct one, and that all others are immoral or unjust. I think that part of the reason that we feel this way is due to the portrayal of other cultures in the media. Most war movies glorify the American side of war and depict our enemies as savage animals. According to these movies, the other side is unjust in their reasons for killing and fighting, while America has decent, ethical reasons to kill. One must admit that he or she feels satisfaction when on of our own takes down an enemy plane or shoots a soldier and this is not entirely our fault. We are trained to feel this way. The victorious music, the slow motion, the development of the characters we are following – all of these elements contribute to how we feel towards the enemy.
Although one may argue that we are supposed to feel pride towards our country, and support soldiers fighting for democracy, I feel as though it is wrong to root for the death of our enemies. It is unfair because as you said, our enemies are people just like us, with families and friends waiting for them to return home. They are frightened and young, and may not know exactly what they are fighting for. What they know is that they have a duty to support their country in times of war.
Very few movies and television shows portray the other side with a sense of humanity. They are not given a voice, their characters are not introduced to us, and we can not sympathize with them. Movies such as “Saving Private Ryan,” “We Were Soldiers,” and “Behind Enemy Lines” force us to identify with our heroes, the Americans. There are a few exceptions, however, such as the recent “Letters From Iwo Jima” and “Apocalypse Now.” “Letters from Iwo Jima” is told to us in subtitles, from the Japanese point of view. We see the Second World War through the eyes of the Japanese rather than the Americans for once in cinema history. By the end of the movie, I found myself feeling sympathy and sorrow for the Japanese who lost their lives or their friends in the war. The characters were presented as actual human beings, many of whom were forced into war against their will.
It felt a little strange to identify with these people and hope for them to live, but at the same time it was an eye opening experience. It revealed to me that we have been extremely biased in our perception of who is heroic and who is evil. It showed me that we must recognize that our enemies are just like us, with the same desires and motivations, and the same fear of dying.
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People should all be treated equal no matter what they look like or how smart they are or who they know. Although this sounds great it is not the way the world works. People get father in life and gain more fame because they look a certain way or because they have a father who was a Hollywood actor. People are not given the same chances as someone else because maybe they do not look the part or someone doing the hiring does not like someone in their family. People are not treated equal in the world and it will never change.
Although people can say change is happening, the movement of an African American President in the United States has brought many black youth hope for a better future it does not change the fact that they are still looked as differently a different race other than white. I think changes can be made and great strides are working towards bringing all races together to be one unit but it will never be fully treated equal or not judged based on race.
The clip of the doctor is very, very sad. A doctor lost three of his children due to war. To become a doctor it is not easy, you have to put in hard work and have a passion to want to help people. That passion has lead him to want to help and unite people, this same passion is what could be said to bring about his death. I think the cell phone call is very sad, you can see the news person react and not know what to do to help his friend. Once a face is put to the person behind the call it really hits and you understand that it is just not an empty voice but a father, a leader, a person trying to change and do well that is being under attack.
War will always go on. You can not stop war, people will always fight. You can talk and agree on policy but war will break out at some point in time. It is a shame that the fighting has cost this man pain and his daughters. The war we are fighting and having a plane crash brings about fear of leaving your loved ones. You can never live in fear but you have to be able to react and think when a time of need comes about. The pilot of the plane that landed in the river stayed his path and reacted and because he was cool under pressure he saved lives and will forever be looked at as a hero. Just like the people fighting in the war for America they might not agree with the cause but they will always be looked at as a hero just like the doctor, standing up for what they believe in and fighting for a cause.
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I agree with the fact that the grief of war does come full circle. While watching the video I was truly inspired by the doctor and his strong belief, but I was also discourage by the atrocity witch plagued his family. This is a Palestinian doctor working in an Israeli hospital, a man who believes in peace and breaking barriers, but he had to see his three daughters and niece killed, plus one daughter and another niece seriously injured by an Israeli bomb, the people he was trying to help. While watching the broadcast and looking at the performance of an enraged man who stood for peace, made me think about the concept, bad things really does happen to good people and why. Many times things like this happen to test how strong a person faith is or is it to just push them toward the path of wrong doing? I know if my wife passed away and my three kids plus niece were killed in a bomb blast by the people that I am supposedly trying to help, I would go crazy and maybe pick up arms. Some people rely on events like this to keep their faith while others might just go crazy thinking about the situation.
For someone who have witnessed firsthand the emotionally and physically damages witch a war can cause, I can relate to the Palestinian doctor and the emotions that enrage him. I have lost very close people to the violence of war. I try not to think about it because I know its God’s will, and dwelling on the past will only hurt you in the long run. Even though the Palestinian doctor is very hurt he seems like a man with a very big heart and I know he will still push for what he believes in witch is peace. People would now listen to him more attentively when he talks about peace between Gaza and Israel because he has lived through a very devastating event. People would understand him and see where he is coming from. I really don’t think he should give up his campaign for peace in that area because he now has an upper hand and a more sympatric approach which states that “yes this situation has affected me, and I know the pain that exist every day this war continues.”
I for one definitely see myself in the doctor place, and I think this whole situation with the war and bloodshed would have been avoided if America would have intervened. If the Bush administrator would have intervened, instead of supporting the Israelites and giving them the say so to destroy innocence people then massive lives would not have been lost. Now that Bush is out of power let’s see where Israel is going to get their weapons from or if they would have that much power in the Middle East.
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Having an emotional connection can definitely have an impact on a war. But how big an effect does it have? It makes it harder, but does it stop the war? Civil wars have gone on forever, pitting families and friends against each other. These connections make the wars more gruesome, but they don’t stop the wars. In a way, this makes wars worse. When wars are so split and have no connection at all, the only hard part is when one side loses someone. But how much harder is it if you cant stop the war and you lose when someone from either side is taken? Wars are strange creatures. While we often know the reason why they start, many times we lose track and don’t understand why they continue. They just go on and we expect them to. It becomes a part of normal life and no one does anything to stop it. It why wars last for so long. How often does a war start and stop within a year or two? By the first or second year a goal could be reached or a deal could be made. Enough damage is done to realize the magnitude of the problem. Yet, wars go on.
This is a very sad story that anyone can sympathize for. You tear up just hearing this man’s agony. Whether he was known in Israel or not, people would have connected with this man if his experience was caught on live TV. Unfortunately, even if 80% of the people involved in the war would like it to stop, the other 20% could do enough damage to not only continue the war, but to bring the 80% into it by involving them personally. Israelis and Palestinians have been fighting forever. This story my change the feelings of some people, but is it enough to start the end of the war? I don’t think so. Because of the nature of their feud, there may not be a way to stop the fighting. It isn’t just personal, it’s religious and because of the religious factor of this war, there just isn’t an easy answer. Maybe a story like this that both sides mourn will make a dent, but it simply can’t be enough to stop it. But what if more personal stories were to come about? What if more people were connected by both sides? Then, I believe, a difference could be made. Unfortunately, there aren’t many men out there like this one who have a true connection to both sides.
Sadly, a story like this only continues to show the magnitude of the feud going on between Palestine and Israel. Yet, when the war continues, this story will only be a sad chapter in a long book.
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The tragedy that occurred with Dr. Abuelaish and his family is one that should wake up the world. It goes to show us that even a person who devotes his whole life to trying to promote peace cannot even escape the wrath of war. Because of the bombing that “mistakenly” was aimed directly at his house, the Doctor questions what he has lived his entire life for. The bombing must have made him feel like everything he has done for his society has had no effect of the people around him, and it was all a waste of time. It is sad to think that people of a “civilized” society can only revert to archaic forms of war to settle their differences. I wish there could soon be a time where people of different cultures and societies can learn to cope with their differences in ways other than bombs and guns. I feel like the people who organize these “terroristic” events neglect to think about the consequences of their actions. They forget to think about the children now without parents, the parents who lost their child, and uncles and cousins being lost to a war in which they are not a participant. The pursuers of war do not take into consideration how it would feel if it were their families and friends that were feeling the effects of unneeded violence, or maybe they are committing the “crimes” to get back at someone(s) who already hurt their family. If the circle of violence never stops, eventually all people of the world will fall victim to the violence of war.
In such an advanced society, people should learn to deal with each other’s differences, and learn to embrace them. Hypothetically, just because my roommate may be Christian and I’m an Atheist does not mean that I should hate her with every ounce of my being. It would be completely ridiculous to perform acts of crime against her because our views on life our different. It is the same with terrorist attacks. Yes, the people who actually committed the crimes of 9/11 are completely in the wrong, but is the President right to send the US armed forces to invade a country that had nothing to do with it. Is it right that after September 11th, people would refuse to see the Arab Americans for who they were instead of what they looked like. I’m not going to deny that when getting on an airplane after the tragedy, I would be semi-scared when an Arab man would come onto the same plane. I should not have been, the security is tight enough to catch any weapons, but I was scared. I know I was being completely naïve, but I’m sure most people were thinking the same thing deep down inside. Now, I have lost that feeling, but it is sad the media had such a strong influence over what I was feeling.
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Dr. Abuelaish is a living testament to the fundamental message of love. Through is selfless actions, personal suffering and courage, he exhibits a form of love that can be seen as the compassion inherent in all human hearts.
The fact that Dr. Abeulaish has the ability to look beyond his own ethnic background and see an ultimate tie, our common humanity, is astounding. He is able to see the Israelis, effectively the usurping enemy to most Palestinians, as humans. He sees them as people—mothers, fathers, children—and not as the enemy, not as different or innately evil from birth, or as an inhuman species worthy only of eradication. This may sound extreme, but the seeds harrowed by nationalist and ethnic ideas are deeply rooted; once sown, it is often impossible to remove entirely. And most often, people do not want to remove them, because they often become as ingrained in the human mindset as seeds become a part of the Earth—seemingly inextricable and a natural, “truth” of existence. The Palestinian and Israeli conflict is one manifestation of such roots that lead to conflict, lead to hatred, lead to violence, lead to war. And, the fact that one man can see through these binds is truly remarkable.
Perhaps to some people this isn’t such a difficult task. However, I doubt it. Think about it—how difficult is it for us to forgive someone who hurts us? Not to downplay our own lives, but on the grand scheme of things, our heartbreaks and fights with roommates are minor. Yet, to us, they are the world and our differences are so that we cannot overcome them. We won’t get over it, we hold on to them for years. We move out of apartments and hate our “old” roommates. Ex-boyfriends or girlfriends take on all the evil of the world. If we are able to rationalize that they are lacking some fundamental human trait crucial for existing with other people, then they become the “other.” They are just too different. We are just too different to get along.
How are these situations different from rationalizing an outsider as inhuman? Furthermore, would you or I be strong enough to not direct hatred toward a general population, as in Dr. Abuelaish’s case, when the “others” were responsible for the deaths of your own children?
Dr. Abuelaish is hope that one day the conflict in Israel will end. But he is so much more than that. He is a living example that we, as human beings, are capable of love and peace. I cannot think of a brighter future.
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The story of Palestinian Doctor Izzeldin Abuelaish is an extremely effective example of just how important every single person’s life is in this world. I know that sounds like a generalize sentence, so that is why I’ll say it again to stress the gravity of the situation. Every single person’s life in this world.
This is one of those rare situations in which one person’s story is heard by a larger-than-normal population. If this were an average man who had just a handful of close friends, only this handful of friends would ever learn of the agonizing pain this man has experienced. Furthermore, only this handful would truly feel the loss of the young children who lost their lives in this tragedy. And yet due to a number of circumstances, a much larger part of the world has learned of the pain and sadness that Dr. Abuelaish has experienced that day.
Even then, not even the whole world has learned about this tragedy.
This was one story from one man in one country on one continent. We don’t even learn the stories of the young children whose lives were cut short. And beyond this, there are still a number of people experiencing these types of tragedies every single day, and yet many of their stories are never heard.
This type of idea comes to me every single time I am travelling. Walking, by car, especially in airports – every single time I pass so many people where I only see their face, maybe a few seconds of their habits and tendencies. Maybe I will hear them say a few words to yet another face in the crowd. But the reality of it is, every single person has their own life. Their own history, their own emotions, their own trials, their own joys, their own despairs. Unfortunately, in this world of more than 6 billion people, one will never learn even a sizeable fraction of the many stories people could share about themselves. So many lives’ experiences go untold just due to the sheer number of people on this planet.
Sometimes when I think about the enormous amount of lives and experiences that I personally will never learn about in my lifetime, it starts to hurt my head a bit. I know that just have the heart-to-hearts with my very close friends, learning about their histories and futures, has been enough to keep me thinking for days. These are people who can be so different from one another based on personalities, looks, and backgrounds, and yet we are all still part of the same species: homo sapiens.
In the most macro sense, we are just six billion creatures living on a rock. But also, we are six billion unique stories.
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The grief of war does come full circle and no I’m not talking about warring countries or nations, or warring politicians, but of the race war, that after thousands of years, still has yet to end. Even now, as America has been blessed to be presided over by a black president, there is still a war among the races. It amazes me how so people, even after so much has changed, still maintain their racial ignorance and bigotry. The biggest problem is the lack of knowledge that many people have. Many people remain racially ignorant because they are never really presented with the opportunity to relate with people of other races. This is where the concept of race relations comes in to play when it comes to helping people to be less ignorant about race. Race relations present people with the opportunity to talk about racial issues in a setting that they may not be able to obtain under any other circumstances. Race relations allow people to discuss racial issues such as stereotypes, racial questions, family issues, issues in the media, or any other racial issues that they may have wanted to know about but that they never head the opportunity or the heart to truly ask. Many people have racial questions but they are fearful of what people may say should they ask that question. The media has made it so that people are fearful of racial issues, when they should be embracing the racial issues instead. This is why race relations is becoming such a viable resource. It allows people, especially students at the university level, the opportunity to express their feelings about issues that affect them everyday at that level. It has truly become a venue in which many students have expresses interest and it is quickly becoming one of the most popular venues at the college level. But until everyone is allowed to experience the opportunity to relate about race, there will always be those who are ignorant about race.
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I’m writing this week’s journal about my reactions to the wars going on and how race relations play an important role in the world. Ever since the war on terror, more Americans have become involved in either supporting or going against the war. It was controversial entering the war in Iraq, and has remained that way to this day. There are still people who believe we should be fighting in Iraq, and there are still people who think we should pull out. However, in the recent years, there has been an increasing amount of people who believe we should vacate Iraq as soon as possible. With Obama in power now, we should see something happening within the year. I believe under his power we will finally vacate Iraq and continue to protect ourselves on our own surface. I believe with the money we save from being overseas, we can use that money on Home Security and beefing up our security system in America, rather tan ineffectively “protect” ourselves overseas. The biggest problem the government faces is the political stances they face when they support or go against the war. Many do not want to lose their seat over how the people will react to their decisions. If only they could spend a day with families who have lost loved ones in the war on terror, then they would change their mind. I believe that the harm caused to families is not worth fighting over. Even in Iraq we cannot comprehend the pain and suffering we are causing the native families. With bombing everywhere and stray bullets it is unimaginable how many families we are affecting on a daily basis. Over in Israel and Palestine another war is being fought. The main topic of the blog is about Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish. The main deal with this is about how he is one of the most respected people in Israel and is a doctor. He has done tremendous work for Israel, and recently has talked about how there should be peace between the two countries. However, just the other day he lost three of his own daughters and a niece to the fighting. It is so tragic that the man who wants peace between the countries lost so many loved ones at one time. A couple other of his relatives are in the hospital being treated as well. I think it is impossible for one man to change the entire world, but I think it is very feasible for one man to have a great impact in one country, preferably two. Since he is so respected by his people I feel that their government will in some way realize what is happening between the two countries and try to stop the fighting. It sounds so juvenile to ask for world peace, but I honestly think that world peace would better the country. Yes it would have its economic effects, but just socially I believe the world would be so much better off. It’s ridiculous how many families are being torn over fighting and wars.
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In the past, there have been many wars, from World War II to our current war with Iraq. There have been wars within our own country, the revolution and the Civil War. All of these conflicts have a similarity relating to the blog about Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish: casualties of war. According to the videos and the statements from the blog, Dr. Abuelaish has lost three of his daughters and a niece to the bombing in Gaza. Wanting nothing but to help people and peace for all, Dr. Abuelaish has become another victim, indirectly, of the casualties of war. Though he was a man of good intentions and tried to see everyone as human, his view has drastically changed. But who can blame him? Personally, I think many people may ignore the fact that a war is going on or try to stay as far away from being a part of it as possible. They do not realize that lives are being lost until it happens to someone they know, to a friend or family member in the service.
Taking a look at the movie “The Patriot,” starring Mel Gibson, he plays a farmer with a family of about seven children in the Revolutionary era. He tries to keep his family out of the war and his boys from enlisting in the army. He makes a bold statement in a courthouse meeting with many of his fellow countrymen, explaining how the war isn’t going to be fought overseas or in a far away country. It will be fought on their own land, on their farms and properties, amongst them. Later in the movie, however, he is challenged when the fight is brought upon his family and his son is killed. Mel’s character changes his perspective of the situation rather quickly and actively goes against his initial statement that he will leave his family and himself out of it, and wait for it to pass over. This example is quite similar to Dr. Abuelaish’s situation, and helps to show the ignorance or isolation of some people to the war at hand.
Recently, I attended the lecture by Arun Gandhi during Martin Luther King, Jr. Week. His lecture was about his “Lessons from Grandfather,” since his grandfather was the great Mahatma Gandhi, who was one of the greatest leaders to demonstrate non-violent means of protest. The key ideas were to find ways of solving conflicts through peaceful means, while getting your point across. I think that when people realize that our enemies may have families and children just like us, and once we try to stop judging people by race, we will have a world as Gandhi had wanted, with peace. Great examples from Arun Gandhi during his lecture were his statements about how the Israeli/Palestine conflict has been going on for countless years without resolution, with a history of violence. On the other hand, we now have an “African American” president and the struggle from slavery to now have been slow but there have been numerous protests using non-violence. The main idea I am trying to impose is that I feel a deeper look into the lives of our enemies and seeing that they are people like you and me may help restore peace in the world.
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Ross Carpenter
Response to “The Greif of War Comes Full Circle”
This is such a terrible story, and reading the story itself actually answers the questions that Sam poses to us at the end of the article. What I mean by this is that there are tons of people dieing in Iraq and in the middle east; soldiers, men, women, children, everyone. However, most of us probably do not take this idea all that seriously until these statistics have a face. That is what is happening here: Dr. Abuelaish’s daughter is the face that many of us haven’t had until now. Watching that video and hearing him rage in sadness in horror really puts things into perspective. We tend to not worry about things until they are in our face; that is when they hit home. It is a sad truth that for most of us it’s difficult to really face problems when they don’t have personal references to us or see a story or an article on a problem that really touches us.
Let me share a related example: everyone is familiar with Thon. It is a big deal, it raises tremendous amounts of money for such a good cause. However I have a friend in my fraternity who I’ll call Joe and Joe spent the first two years of college hating Thon (as many people do). Critics of Thon and Joe alike say many things like it’s a competition, people don’t really care about the cause, and they just want to win. In my opinion people can look at it whatever way they would like because in the end we go out and raise over 6 million dollars for cancer research, so if it has to be competitive, so be it! Anyway, Joe never liked Thon and thought it was stupid until one life changing moment. We made Joe go to an event where he would meet our Thon child face to face. Let me just say he fell in love… seeing the poor little girl with cancer really touched him and turned him 180 degrees. Ever since then, he goes on every canning trip, he goes to Thon events, and I would not even be surprised if he ended up dancing his senior year.
If we could all be exposed to faces and situations that could suck us in to all aspects of life, the world would be so much different. No sane human could kill another if they had seen them kiss their children goodbye before they went off to war. The unfortunate truth is that this is an impossibility, we will never get to this point. People will always remain blind to problems in the world and there is nothing we can do to change this dilemma.
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Dr. Abuelaish’s story is a tragedy. His story is like many. So many others have the same story: Isrealis and Palestines. I am Jewish and am a strong supporter of Isreal and their actions. But when I hear stories like Dr. Abuelaish’s it pains me. No one likes war. The tragedies of war should never happen. War should be a last resort for any country. This story is like so many from any war. As the United State we do not have many of these stories hit home. We do not have war on our soil so personally we do not experience war tragedies like this. Israel on the other hand their war is being fought on their soil. They feel the pain of these tragedies everyday.
We as a country have become so desensitized to death and war solely because it is not fought on our soil. So many countries are completely different. My roommate is from South Korea and he experiences war all the time at home. It is not popularized by the media but North Korea tries to invade South Korea all the time. All of his best friends are in the military because of South Korea has mandatory 2 years military service. He will be going to the military next year and will not be returning to Penn State until 2011. He said, “I will be back in 2011 unless I get killed or something.” That was such a sad statement. He said he has had friends killed and family members killed too. We as Americans do not usually feel this pain because we do not have mandatory conscription. Israel has the same type of mandatory conscription for men and women. Israelis feel the pain that the South Koreans feel. Fighting on your on soil is something that Americans haven’t seen since the Civil War. Most likely we are one of the only countries that haven’t experienced war on our soil in the past 150 years.
As John Lennon said in his famous peace song,”All we are saying is give peace a chance.” We need to follow his words. Israel and Palestine have not tried to give peace a chance since Israel became a country in 1948. They have never tried cohabitance. Even though I am strongly in favor of Israel having their own country and kicking the Palestinians out. I think that if at the beginning they tried to peacefully habitat together it would of worked. But since all of this blood has shed peace will not work in that country. Their has been to much deeepseeded hatered of each other for peace to work now. If something doesn’t happen in the country in the next few years stories like Dr. Abuelaish’s will continue to happen everyday.
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I cannot even imagine what Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish must being going through losing three children and a niece so violently in such a short period of time must be impossible to bear. This man is one of the few people that is actively working to find a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and despite his efforts to end the violence it found its way to his front door. He is one of many people, both Palestinian and Israeli, who has had to suffer through the loss of one or many of their family members. If he was a Palestinian man who lost family in the conflict the Israeli people would not have even heard about it. Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, however, is a public figure both in Palestine and it Israel. The pain that he experienced, as shown in the video clips, is so heart breaking.
People from Palestine and Israel all grieved with him over his loss, which is perhaps the first step towards the resolution of this long conflict. The people of Israel can finally see that the people of Palestine are losing innocent youth in this conflict, and that they experience the same grief at the loss of a loved one. This tragedy finally gives a face to the people whom they are fighting. It is true that in all war people see the opposition as the “enemy” and the “aggressors”. There would be no way to justify any war if this was not the case. What most people do not realize, or chose to ignore, is that to the other side they are the “enemy” and the “aggressors”. They see the opposing side as some faceless and emotionless entity, not as families or fathers or mothers or sons. It is in this refusal to empathize with other people who are different that is truly the source of all violence.
Intolerance is what causes conflict. Do we fear people who look different, have different ideals, or live a different lifestyle than us? Is intolerance the result of fear and misunderstanding? On some levels, I would say yes. When you do not understand other people, it is hard to identify with them, and so different people become just a group, they lose their individuality. Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish fought for peace, and is loved and respected in both Palestine and Israel. He has a face, and this is why people mourn his loss with him. He is no longer so different and intimidating, he is a person just like them.
His loss is extremely great, and yet through his suffering one can only hope that some good, or realization of the wrongs that they’ve committed, can come from this horrible tragedy.
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Putting a human face to the horrors of war will always be a sobering experience for those who otherwise would be adamantly in support of it. The modern day strategy of war, where command can be thousands of miles away and completely disconnected from the troops they are directing, results in a chessboard effect. Soldiers become nothing more than pawns, civilians the squares the pieces must fall on. It is a reality of modern day warfare that life is treated with less importance than it would be in regular life, and sometimes our technology becomes a more important commodity than human lives. So when there is an occurrence similar to that of Dr. Abuelaish’s experience; one where the media breaks the norm and actually reports reality rather than playing the part of assorted talking heads, and in so doing shows a human face representing an abstract concept such as war, of course it will have a profound impact.
Everyone knows that life is precious, so war must be justified through belittling the other. As it says in the blog, “how would it be possible to kill others if we didn’t see them as less human than us?” This is the foundation of war: the declaration that our ideas are more “right” than the other’s ideas, more specifically that the other’s ideas are wrong, and the other side is so wrong, that taking human life to prove we’re right is fully justifiable. But even just seeing the other’s suffering isn’t enough, because we can say that we knew that was happening, and it is what is has to be. Dr. Abuelaish incidentally was able to rise even above that justification, because he was one of us, but also one of them. He took the fundamental divide that separated the two sides and abolished it, because he was both.
So what if we did know the faces, families, and stories of our “enemies”? It would be impossible to see them as enemies. It would be impossible to perform that lynchpin of war: violence. Because rather than seeing those rockets flying into Baghdad and destroying buildings that most likely have enemies in them, we would see those same rockets obliterating homes, destroying neighborhoods, and killing family and friends. It would have been hard to justify going to war with Iraq. Rather than saying, “we don’t mean to kill civilians, but we can’t tell the difference between friends and enemies,” we would say, “only those responsible can die. There is no other way of approaching this.” Of course, if that was true, we might not have been able to justify going to war at all, and it is hard to argue that Saddam Hussein’s regime of terror and violence had to end, for the sake of the Iraqi people who suffered every day.
If we saw the true face of war, there is only one thing certain: we would never be certain about anything.
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Seeing the faces of innocent people who have just lost the lives of people whom they love is an in-comprehensive feeling. Hearing the Palestinian doctor on the phone, someone who served both Israeli people and Palestinian even through conflict, was heart wrenching. I do not quite understand why countries who feel the necessity to drop bombs in the neighborhoods of those not involved in fighting. What does it accomplish? No innocent death can be justified by the conflict of two countries. If more people could witness the pain of people like Dr. Abuelaish, they would see that war is not the solution to conflict.
Our occupation in Iraq may seem outrageous to some and justifiable to others. We are at war with a country that did not threaten us in particularly in any way. The belief of nuclear weapons ended up resulting in the death of many Iraqi and American lives. What does the death toll have to reach in order for us stop? Why can’t we let them live their own lives? Furthermore, Our Iraq war would be different if more people could witness the pain of those suffering. I believe that we would still be occupying their territory, but there would be less casualties. Iraqi rebel groups would not be so angry as much as they would be disappointed. They would see it more as an annoyance than as an invasion. Moreover, this can never be accomplished, especially in developing in countries because of the lack of technology. In the United States, we can access videos in thirty seconds like the one of Dr. Abuelaish on CNN and it will affect our ethos. On a rare occurrence, someone who watches the video will try to send the message further somehow, maybe even start an organization striving for peace. In reality, nevertheless, most people will watch it as if it were a movie, think about it for a day or two, and then completely forget about it.
If this message of suffering was received well, warring with each other would be decreased. Domestic violence could be prevented much more easily too. The widespread message of peace could outweigh all of the gang, drug related violence that plagues today’s society. The use of guns could also be curtailed with more awareness. We could re-examine those whom we think that we hate from a distance and ask the question, where does this hatred stem from? Bias and general disliking of another often makes us think that it is justifiable for us to hate another person. Additionally, religion and race both serve as the premise for the divide of people. While it would be optimistic to say that we could end international and domestic war by spreading messages like the one of Dr. Abuelaish, it is not out of the question and it is up to us to realize this.
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The commonly used quote, “It is easy to say but difficult to do” is definitely true when it comes to many situations, especially this one. When our own country and then even worse, our own family is affected, most of us only wish for some kind of revenge upon the people who did this to us. It is easy to say that we should stop and think about this how harming those people would affect their families after seeing what they have done to ours. This is difficult to do when your own home is attacked. Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish probably never even imagined that his own three daughters would get killed and others injured after all that he has done his entire life—help other people and believe in peace. His entire life’s beliefs are tested all of a sudden with the shock of his three daughters being killed all at once. Looking passed this despite your entire life’s belief system only becomes extremely. Such an incident can change the best of the people. We all know that the right thing to do in a way is to look at our country’s enemies as people who have families just like ours and are going through losses just as country has. If we keep on taking revenge and hurting innocent people on both sides, it is going to make it extremely difficult to ever even getting close to achieve world peace. The famous words of Dr. King “Why can’t we all just get along?” say it all. If someone kills me, then my family member kills that person’s family and then back and forth more and more people just keep on getting killed exponentially. In the end was the revenge in the very beginning even worth it? Each revenge leads to more and more people getting harmed and killed. If there was no first revenge, many families would have probably not lost parents or kids or any loved ones. One of these families that got affected due to someone else’s revenge could have been your family. Basically, I am not saying that we should just sit on our behind and just watch innocent people get killed and not do anything about it, but I am saying that we should think several time before making any stupid decisions and think of ourselves in other peoples positions. As I said before, it is easy to be said than done. One thing is that all this that I have been saying is what should be done in order have a “better world” and so that more people could be happy. I cannot say that I would not wish something bad happen to the people who harmed my people. For example, each and every time that the bomb blasts took place in India numerous times in just the past few years, made me want to wish the worst upon the people who did this to the people of my country. Just thinking about the numerous innocent lives that were taken, only made me want to hope for revenge upon those terrorists, but then what would be the difference between me and them anymore? The recent blasts in Mumbai made my heart cry like none other just as it did for every person, especially people of Mumbai (like myself). I may say things like all the people who did this to us should be killed, but if this were to happen, it would happen with the stake of even more innocent people on the line. Yes, something needs to be done but not in the way that usually comes to mind. As I said, it is all easy said, then done. Just think, in the end is it all even worth it…
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With war, people’s parents, brothers, sister, sons, daughters, friends and innocent people die. People fight against each other. To actually kill someone else people have to get into a mind set that those people are horrible and that they don’t deserve to live. It is the only way some people can take away someone else’s life. In the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Israelites hate the Palestinians just like the Palestinians hate the Israelites. Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish is a Palestinian who works with Israelites. He is trusted by the Israelites who hate where he was born, Palestine, his nationality. The Israelites trust a Palestinian. Many trust him with their lives. So if the Israelites can trust Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish why not the other Palestinians? What makes this one man so different? Yes, he wants peace and wants to help fix this fight but does that mean all the other Palestinians want war? I think not. It is the way both countries were brought up, hating each other, probably only hearing the bad. So, to each other the other side of people are worthy of killing because they aren’t like them or that is what they believe. So if someone who is from the other side and who you actually trust is hurt is that justified? Or is Dr. Izzeldin Abuelasih not considered a Palestinians? If he is not considered a Palestinian, which he is, why was his home targeted? I do not believe Dr. Izzledin Abuelaish was targeted because he is Palestinian, I think he was targeted because he wants peace. He has always been a man of this kind, and he brought his children up this way, as well. People just do not want to see peace, which is why someone “saw” military militia in his home. Or I could be wrong, and people did target him because he is Palestinian, and they do not want a Palestinian making peace with Israelis. It will probably never be known. Contrary to my hopes for this world, I do not seeing our world making peace anytime soon. And if at all possible, Dr. Izzledin Abuelaish is making the first step. He lives in a world, where he should be hated. Rather he is trusted and saves the Israeli people.
As the Israel people watch as someone they trust and believe in, hurt by there own killing, one would think it would lead to a little insight how they are actually killing people and not just bugs or something. Does his pain show everyone is human? Or does his pain show that war is only about people dying? His pain portrays the spiritual downfall of his own being. Anyone in his position would lose control, and ask themselves why not me. At least I would.
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When one thinks about the brutality of war, they often forget to think about all the innocent people and places that are affected. Many innocent people are killed in wars for no reason. They just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Stories about women and children along with many soldiers getting killed are on the news every night. The same goes for buildings and landmarks when a war is occurring. Many homes are destroyed by bombs and bullets due to crossfire. Wars make nations unsafe and many uncomfortable because the thought of one of these misfires or car explosions could happen at any moment.
I thought the idea when nations are at war they often think the opposition is wrong and less of a human being. We have our views on the subject and they have theirs. We think our way is the only right way, and they think the complete opposite. We are a different culture and have different beliefs and customs then them. We are exposed to different things than they are. Because of this fact, we cannot fully understand where their point of view is coming from. We think our way is the way it is, and do not take time to think about why they think what they do. We don’t want to put ourselves in their shoes.
The story of Dr. Abuelaish is tragic. He seemed like an nice, educated guy who had a loving family until one day everything changed. Three of his daughters and one of his nieces were killed by Israeli bombs. I believe that is my worst fear; having my family killed, and let alone for no reason. They were those in the wrong place at the wrong time. They never know when a car is going to explode nearby or if a missile is going to crush their home.
I personally do feel bad for the innocent people in the middle-east who have to deal with this on a daily basis. They do not deserve this. It is immoral. It would be very difficult for an average American like myself to put myself in their shoes. I could not possibly understand what goes through their mind and what they have to deal with on a daily basis. It is something we need to think about and be thankful for what we have.
We need to treat one another with more respect. There is absolutely no reason why a 5 year old little girl should be blown to pieces in crossfire for something she had nothing to do with. We need to keep Dr. Abuelaish and his family in our prayers and pray that nothing like this happens again. We need to increase the peace, and have this topic be something of the past.
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I find it amazing how Dr. Abuelaish, even after three of his daughters and his niece were killed, could still say that he hopes this is the last of the killings and it ends with his family. Even with all that he is going through he is still a promoter of peace. I think about the war in Iraq and wonder how many promoters of peace did our soldiers kill while bombing or raiding civilian towns. For me, it truly does bring a face to the numbers of war victims we hear about. I’m used to hearing the numbers, never names and never faces. In one of my communications classes, we looked at how the media portrayed the Vietnam War and what they chose to leave out of their coverage. The footage they left out were dozens of Vietnamese children running away from U.S. soldiers and mangled bodies on the ground. It made me feel sorry for those innocent lives that were destroyed by war. Similar innocent lives are being lost everyday in Iraq. Sam made a good point as well saying that we all got to know the faces of the survivors of flight 1549 that landed in the Hudson River. Yes, it is truly amazing how the pilot landed the plane in water successfully. He did a great job and should be praised for that. However, it is a sad thing that we as a society remember their names and faces better than we can remember those lost at war. Maybe because too many are lost. Or maybe just because war has become so banal to us that it does not faze us anymore. The war is away from us, not on our own territory. If the war were to hit home, like 9/11 did, then I think our society would treat it differently. We would know more and want to know more. I think if we would see ourselves in Dr. Abuelaish’s position then this war would be a lot different. We would feel the effects of war a lot more. We would understand how the families of fallen soldiers feel. The United States does not see war at home. We do not have to fear bombs falling on our homes and raids coming into our towns. Today’s society does not know what that is like. I think there would be widespread panic if that were ever to become a reality to our society. I wonder how we would view war then if that were ever to happen to us. I wonder if we would not enter into war so lightly. I hope more of us can promote peace like Dr. Abuelaish has, even after the murder of his daughters and neice.
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I really connected with the content in this blog. I drove to Florida over spring break, and while everyone was sleeping in the car I was listening to NPR. The reporter was interviewing a journalist from Gaza. He was describing what the town he lives in was like at that point- all the windows in houses were blown out (in their coldest month of the year), but once he said that they had to do bomb drills with their children, much like Americans do fire drills, I started to cry. It’s terrible to think that any human should have to live like that.
I think that part of the reason we’re still in this war is because the American public is unaffected by it. Unless you have a friend or relative overseas, odds are you aren’t even sure what’s going on. If we really were able to connect with the enemy everything would be different. Not only would we not be fighting this war there would be many other wars that wouldn’t have occurred or escalated as they did. To be able to connect with the “enemy” Americans would have to have a completely different mindset. I’ve been studying Orientalism in one of my classes. Edward Said suggests that the West perceives the people living in the middle east/east as fundamentally different then themselves. This perception is shown dramatically through the American media and Hollywood. Most portrayals of Middle Eastern people in movies show the individual as a terrorist or an abused woman. While the media reports mostly on suicide bombings and terrorists. Africans are included in Orientalism, which explains why we’re able to sit back and watch Darfur, and neglected to act for so long to the Genocide in Rwanda. But, it’s not just in other countries that we fail to recognize tragedy. Recently in the news they’ve reported up to two dozen boys missing from a Somali community in Minnesota. Can you even imagine the uproar we’d experience if 24 white kids from a rich community just up and disappeared? And when the FBI investigated this situation they announced to the media that they suspected the boys had joined a Somali terrorist group and feared that since they all had passports they were planning an attack on the United States. That doesn’t exactly help the Oriental image.
So, if we really are going to be able to connect with the enemy we need to change ourselves. We should start showing “Orientals” in a positive way. I’m not sure this psychological transformation is possible in America, but maybe with time people will catch on that we really are all the same, and share the ultimate goals of survival and happiness.
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When tragedies come our way, we often experience something that we never expected to come our way. Even if that tragedy can make a difference in a small or big way, we can tend to focus on what is happening now. The now is the feelings, the hurt and the sadness that comes from a loss. It is often hard to see it, but some good comes out of the worst things that we can imagine. There is always a positive way to look at things, even if we choose not to see it. It is all about the choices we make daily. Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish has suffered a great deal when it comes to loosing loved ones, but through his loss peace might be found. In other words, change might happen between the Israeli and Palestinians. The situation between the Israeli and Palestinians leads me to talk about the way human beings are.
Human beings are extremely selfish, we tend to think about ourselves and what can benefit us before we think about lending a hand. The concept of considering others better than ourselves can be an easy simple thing, but we all do the contrary, consciously or not. As stated in the blog “how would it be possible to kill others if we didn’t see them as less human than us?” We are all capable of doing wrong all we have to have is the opportunity to act in such a way. (Don’t get me wrong we can also do good, but it’s about the choices we make on a day to day basis). We have to constantly be fighting against evil in this world; true world peace can’t be accomplished, but change can happen. The answer to peace is being selfless, taking the actions necessary to love, care and think about others better than ourselves.
What do we gain from acting out of evil intensions? Or being in a state of mind that “I” am better then “he, she, them”? If the world could empathize or experience what others have experienced then “ignorance” wouldn’t exist. We wouldn’t treat others humans’ beings like unequal but rather as an equal.
This question was asked in the blog “how differently would we treat people who we hate from a distance if we could see ourselves in them, and if we could actually see the shared pain we all carry within?” On a daily basis we are all guilty of treating other people badly whether it is a harsh comment or just a simple thought. Experiencing something through someone else’s shoes would make many of us realize how judgmental we are.
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For some reason, it is always those who try to do the most good in this world end up suffering the most. What Dr. Izzeldin went through is devastating. Despite the change he is trying to begin and trying to enforce, his family still became a horrible victim of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Can you imagine? Losing three daughters and a niece all at the same time? After all his work for peace…he only wanted to be a link to both worlds.
It is hard to look through enemy’s eyes – to see what it is like in their world. It is hard to even consider what kind of suffering they are going through, when we are constantly reminded of the suffering inflicted on us. As the blog says, “there is often little compassion between warring people, little willingness to recognize the humanity in one another. After all, how would it be possible to kill others if we didn’t see them as less human than us?” People’s (and nation’s) stubbornness to communicate and compromise is killing lives everyday. Innocents are suffering because of a war no one wants to be in.
The blog entry asks us, what if we can apply seeing “the other side” to our own wars. If we can manage to do that, maybe we would be more compassionate people; maybe there would be more understanding in this world. Unseen similarities lie with each and every one of us. If people realize that we all suffer the same way, under the same pain, then people would be able connect with each other in way never before.
Approaching someone who is different from us seems to be difficult. We are too hung up on the differences; convincing ourselves that other people can never understand and building barriers we do not want broken. By blocking ourselves, we block out learning about others, as well as the possibility of others learning about us. We become are stuck in our own side, never considering how much we are similar with those on the other side of the fence.
We need to start having an open mind. We need to look past appearance, race, countries, and any other “physical” characteristic we have labeled upon each other. We need to have more understanding, more compassion, more respect and more awareness. Because once we gain full perspective of the lives we touch, we realize how much it reflects our own. And maybe, little by little, what used to be the grief of one side will be the grief of the whole – and the whole will work together to end the grieves of all.
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Dr. Abuelaish’s story is a very emotional and touching one. The situation is tragically ironic: Abuelaish, a proprietor of peace and love, lost several daughters and a niece to the same Israelis he was seen as a friend to. The fact that he was accepted in Israel enough to get through medical school and even work in an Israeli hospital shouts optimism and hopefulness, but the fact that Abuelaish had to be a victim of the hate he has been trying to prevent shouts betrayal. No innocent citizen of society deserves to be a casualty of these unprovoked attacks – especially for a family that prides itself on peace and love. In an area of ethnic warfare, it truly takes courage for a man to step forward and try to resolve a seemingly unbeatable conflict. With so much segregation and ethnic hate, it’s hard to be the first person to speak up or try to bridge the gaps. Therefore, Dr. Abuelaish can be attributed as a hero, a peacemaker, and some might even argue a modern-day Gandhi.
But what I find most appalling about this story is Dr. Abuelaish’s outlook on the tragedy since it occurred. Surprisingly, Dr. Abuelaish is looking down at the incident with optimism, and he hopes that this will be one of the last attacks to occur as a result of the Gaza and Israeal conflict. After reading through various comments on the blog, it seems that many others feel the same way – personally I find it very hard to even comprehend that he will remain working in an Israeli hospital among Israelis. I believe I would have a tremendously infuriating time living along side people that consider themselves your enemies. Although it must be noted that from an American perspective, it is very hard to take in exactly what Dr. Abuelaish faces every day in Gaza. We as Americans, especially in recent years, experience a lifestyle nothing like Middle Easterners in the middle of warfare. Racism exists here in the United States, this is true, but as a whole we simply just do not face the hatred that Palestinians and Israeli’s face every day.
Dr. Richards asks in his blog, how would “our” Iraq war be different? How would we be different? The truth is, there is no way to answer this question – there’s no telling how “our” Iraq war would we be different because we are not even close to being on the same level as the Palestinians and Israelis today. It is so difficult to apply a concept like this to our own wars because the attacks and amount of casualties every day is astonishing in the Middle East. So as Americans it’s tough and almost unreasonable to compare ourselves to the tragedies they face on a daily basis – and I think I speak for others when I say I can only imagine the pain that Dr. Abuelaish is feeling right now.
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Constantly we here about our American troops dying in Iraq. Every day the people want out of the war. We feel we did everything we can and now there is only negative results to get out of the war rather than the positive ideas that Bush had in his head. Hopefully Obama will do something about this since he is what our world needed, as most Americans voted. But seriously, it is pathetic that people just like you and I die every day because some man wants you to go fix another part of the world. But more harm is being done to American society then good. It is because Bush believed that we were too deep in the war to just back up and we might as well finish the job. WHY?
That means just more and more people are going to die. Do you think that if George Bush were to witness his children and other family members die on the fields in Iraq, we would still be there? That would be hard to believe. If he speaks for the best of the American people, then what in the world is he doing?
Imagine if race did not exist. We believed that whites were just as important to the world as Arabs. Sounds ridiculous right? Well back during slavery, they never believed that blacks would be considered human, but now we have a “black” man running our country. Things are clearly getting better. And hopefully soon enough we will realize that race is just a security issue for the American people. It is stupid. Life is short and every human being deserves a peaceful life.
There is no reason for the war in Iraq or war in general. If we come to realize this along with the rest of the world, that race is just for us to feel protected, then war, fighting and negative ideas will be gone. What if I told you, I could prove God did not exist? What if religion had no purpose? Well it doesn’t mean anything but a symbol for the people to feel safe in the world. We the people obviously evolved in the world. But even if I could prove this, millions of people would deny the facts because they would realize there is no purpose in the world and that we are all going to die. This religion and race plays such a big part in everything. But really if we can get over the fact that the world is divided by color, religion, culture and anything, then we can realize that if you get to know anyone, Arabs, Israelies, Cubans, Asians, etc, then we will have no reason to attack one another.
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In reality there is no true justification for Palestinians and Israel’s launching rockets into each other’s territories. Though if we look deeper into this issue we would come to realize that the loss of life in such wars is undeniably preposterous. Innocent people being targeted in which majority are women and children. They even targeted a UN school in which several children died. In their defense they said that the militants were attacking the Israeli’s from these locations so they had to take them out.
Unfortunate hate has been spread amongst the Palestinians and Israeli’s due to consistent skirmishes. From the Palestinian side Hammas was throwing rockets over to Israel’s side and innocent people were dying there too. The loss of life in any situation is condemnable especially in war where the strikes are very carefully pre planned ahead of time.
Losing a loved one is probably the worst feeling in the world. If we all start thinking this way the world would be a much more happier place. But everyone isn’t as noble and peaceful. There will always be extremists out there who will try to disrupt the peace. No doubt thousands of innocent civilians have died in the Iraq and Afghan war and it is very sad. Though this war was important but it still doesn’t mean that we can allow innocent civilians to be killed. This is some what like the Darfur incident. Thousands and thoughts of people being killed mindlessly and no one is accountable. Everyone knows about it but no one actually cares enough to raise their voice.
When Hitler’s army on his orders committed Genocide the world spoke and everyone took action against the mass murder of Jewish people. Why don’t people in this era say anything? Are they scared of the government perhaps? There have been cases where the government has gagged several human rights activists for being a bit too out spoken is the U.S. but since when did freedom of speech become limited?
It is too good to be true if we start to feel each other’s pain. Though if someone loses a loved one we grieve with them but with no doubt it not comparable to what the person who actually loves them feels. Love is a very subjective term and feeling it for someone else is almost impossible. But if we were to then this world would no doubly be a better place. Everyone would understand what it feels like to lose someone who you hold very dear to you heart. Hitler wouldn’t have committed those hate crimes, the KKK wouldn’t kill black people just because they were black. What if someone in their family got killed. We need to put ourselves into others shoes to realize what the world is like.
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“How would Palestinians find justification for launching rockets into Jewish civilian neighborhoods?” I’m one forth Palestinian my grand father form my father’s side was a Palestinian Christian from Bethlehem on the west bank. that being said, the Jewish Palestinian Conflict is just one many arisen from ignorant and irresponsible border and state creation of the European nations. The Jewish population within Palestine before it arrived into English hands was only 7% of the overall population(60,000 Jews to 731,000 Arabs in 1914). The creation of the illegitimate state was born out of terrorist Zionist group Irgun and Lehi that bombed public places with the full intention of killing unarmed Arabs in order to create the Zionist state of Israel. The first movement of Zionism didn’t occur till as late as 1884 when the first 14 (fourteen) Jews (Eastern European) landed in Palestine. These Europeans of the Jewish religion established the state with support of England to suppress the Palestinian people. Now 2009 millions of Palestinians are who were ripped out of their homes and land 42 years ago are still refugees in the world largest prison Gaza. ON the West bank apartheid was once again surfaced. In 2006 when Palestinians from Gaza and the west bank both voted for the legislative body that represents Palestine they overwhelmingly vote for Hamas (against Israeli State) over Fatah (agrees to work with Israel). This election displeased Israel because it legitimized Hamas a political group that they had succeed in painting as a terrorist group had just be confirmed by millions of Palestinians by DEMOCRACY that they were a ligament political party and the one that best represented Palestine. incensed by this Israel broke the cease fire in November of 2008(THIS IS NOT DISPUTED ITS IS FACT). In turn Gaza returned fire the only way they could with quassam rockets. Dr. Abuilaish is just one of many who have their relatives dead because of the constant indiscriminate firing of Israeli troops upon Gazan homes, mosques, and UNITED NATION SCHOOLS AND HOSPITALS. I have very strong opinions when it comes to inhumane acts, in fact just over 50 years ago Jew were imprisoned in the Warsaw ghetto killed indiscriminately in concentration camps by Nazis. BUT HOW CAN I HAVE ANY FAITH INHUMANITY WHEN IT THE SAME PEOPLE KILLED DUE TO THE HOLOCAUST TURN AROUND AND COMMITTED THE GENOCIDE OR THE ERADICATION OF A PEOPLES FROM THEIR BORDERS!!???
IF I COULD GIVE UP MY LIFE SO THAT PALESTINE COULD EXIST AND IT PEOPLE WOULD NOT BE KILLED INDISCRIMINATELY I WOULD.
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Applying the Israeli-Palestinian War to our war, both wars might occur with difference reasons, but they have the same result that civilians are the victims and the residence are destroyed. We might think that truly understand the consequences of the war, however, do we really know what how feel like to live in fear every moment of our lives and never know when it is going to end. Iraqis are people who live in that fear in their own homes. Home, which is should be the safest place but now US soldiers are walking around their homes with guns. Imagine, if we live in our homes, try to live our lives and one day, there are thousands of armed soldiers show up on the street. And all we know is those soldiers are coming to take our resources. According to Sam’s Class on last Thursday, the media plays strong roll in this war. For example, Americans and Iraqis do not know what really US Government after for at the first place. There were many cover stories came out from the media such as US Government has to take down the dictator in Iraq, has to find nuclear weapons and Iraq had involved in 9/11 attacked in New York. Currently, the propose of war is starting to come out from the dark, oil becomes to be the reason for the war.
It is not our president fault to sent the troop to Iraq, but our country have to protect our interest in oil. However, is it the right way to protect of interest, is it worth it to sent our people to die over sea. At that time before decision about the war was made, it must be really hard decision for the government to decide the decision. If we did not sent the troop to Iraq at the time, we might not have the chance to keep our interest. Currently, the damages have been done, many people might blame on the former president, the president that do his best to help our nation. Additionally, the new president is in the office, many people might admire him right now, if he has the same situation as the former president people might dislike him as well.
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When I remember back to 9/11, I recall the live horror I watched from the moment the second plane crashed into the towers until late into the evening that Tuesday. Never before had I felt so heartbroken and tormented over the tragic events of that day. Following the 11th, news broadcasts singly covered the breaking news concerning the attack.. Putting personal heartache at family and friends involved in the attack on the twin towers aside, I found it incredible the amount of personal grief I felt for the thousands of people who lost their lives and lost their families.
War has since broken out between the United States and the Middle East. We’ve lost countless men and women to unnecessary violence. In addition to that, thousands of innocent civilians: men, women, and children are being killed mercilessly. How can anyone condone the condition we are in?
Like many others, I am influenced to see these people as our enemy; to think that every single citizen believes and is proud of the violence against our country and is proud of what their part of the war stands for and does. To put it into perspective for myself and view them as a country full of highly different people and cultures such as the United States, it churns my stomach to see that they are suffering beyond what we could ever contemplate. The violence is happening on their homefront, far from the comfort of our front doors. It’s not fair to selfishly concern ourselves with personal convenience when it’s ending innocent lives in the Middle East. We’re all human, aren’t we? What gives us more of a right to life than anyone else?
The Doctor’s story is heartbreaking. I could put my Dad in his position and imagine the mourning he would endure. Losing your daughters to Israeli bombs and having your home targeted for reasons unknown is horrific. For a man who promotes peace and does all he can in medicine, why should his home have been targeted?
I think it’s easy for many Americans to watch or read the news, see videoclips such as this, and go on with their day only having acquired a bit more knowledge in current news. Imagine the time it would take to consider every loss a person or family has suffered and then maybe we can “bring everyone to the table” as Obama has said and decide where we are going from here.
I understand that war has its strategies and purposes, but never will I condone the nauseatingly numerous killings of innocent civilians. Maybe we think they look different. Perhaps they speak languages we don’t understand. They practice their choice of religion, just as we do here in America. How can we justify so many lost futures? When it comes down to it, we are all HUMAN.
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The Grief of War Comes Full Circle: The Essence of Race Relations
I find it amazing how people simply kill other people without thinking twice about the problem. I think that each person should think for himself or herself and agree with themselves before going ahead and doing it for a country. Even though it means fight in the name of your country, but seriously how is it fighting in the name your country when there’s no harm being done to your country? Most of the people in the world just want peace; they’re fed up with all of this. The images of kids, women, men and old people drowning in blood. Parents seeing their families, relatives and friends are being killed in front of them. They are being hurt from both sides. Whether it’s in Palestine or Israel, the United States or Iraq each one is getting hurt and leaving in sorrow. It’s hard enough to leave your family to a place that is viewed as uncivilized in the TV. And the Iraq people watching their country being invaded by Americans. This explains the sociology class; we just were in on Thursday. People should stop viewing this from one obstacle. They should research and educate themselves to see different obstacles. If the media is filtered or just shows propaganda, the Internet has many websites that have different opinions on everything. Youtube has different videos that view speeches, protest, images and interviews that make you understand and see the different obstacles. We should be able to teach ourselves and put ourselves in another person’s shoe.
We are all the same; we are all going through the sorrow and pain. The Iraq war is not different. We could be different by maybe standing up for what’s right. We can stand up for ourselves and for others. We should talk among one another and negotiate everything. We should show people how things are really and how different people feel. We should expose the truth. The truth that is hidden because of the media. The truth of how we are the same. The truth is that we are all fed up and see this war as useless. In the beginning, it was lie to save the Iraqis from Saddam but now its nothing-just going after the oil. Now it’s truly just the heartache that’s living in both nations. The pain that lives in the hearts of the Iraqis family that live in fear and in the hearts of the Americans leaving their family members to a senseless war. It’s truly very hard to live in Iraq. A religious group in Iraq kidnapped my uncle. He was kidnapped because he was an opinionated writer. His family had to pay a ransom for him to return. My Aunt had her son murdered in front of her. The radical Muslims that are in Iraq are killing the American soldiers. At the end of the day, members of the family goes home and cries themselves to sleep because of what they see. That is how we ARE the same.
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I’ve always had a strong dislike for violence and war. Every violent war that I have ever learned about has involved lies, the killing of many innocent people, and greed that has manifested into full-blown hate. There is no other explanation for it except that people do believe their own group to be better, more human, more worthwhile and more meaningful than the enemy’s group. One loses all logic on the pursuit of selfish desires and fears. He views himself separate from everything and everyone else. He makes up excuses allowing him to destroy life in many forms. In his own mind, the people who he is killing have lives that are less important than his own. Not to mention the lives of their own friends and family and lovers and teachers and priests and leaders. But when you place a friend or family member or teacher on the other side, those people don’t look so different anymore. And wait, killing these people could actually hurt you because one of them is your friend. This person made a deep impact on your life and has taught you a few things, but you are pointing the gun at them. And at their daughters and mothers and brothers. And then you say wait, this other person is kinda like me. He has feelings like me and would sure be sad like me if his son was blown away or his community was destroyed. This is when we remember that all people have love and want the same things for themselves and their families and friends. They want happiness and safety, peace and friendship. Just like us. We get so caught up in our differences and in our competition for material things that we forget the underlying fabric that ties us all together. We forget that we are sharing this consciousness and this Earth whether we want to or not. It’s sad that it takes a peacemaker’s three daughters to be murdered for people to open their eyes. But there is always a bright side; at least something is to be learned from the tragedy and it triggered a step in the right direction in the mindset of the people involved in the Palestine/Israel conflict. There is a cool quote that I found in my Yoga book that is pretty applicable here.
“Han Shan, that great and crazy Chinese poet a thousand years ago, said we’re all like bugs in a bowl – all day going around, never leaving their bowl. I say that’s right – every day climbing up the side, sliding back down over and over again.
Sit in the bottom of the bowl, head in your hands…cry…moan…feel sorry for yourself. Or – look around…see your fellow bugs…walk around …say, “how ya doin’?” Say, “hey, nice bowl!””~ David Buttfeild
We’re all just bugs in a bowl and we’re stuck in the damn bowl. So let’s just get along and make it easier and more fun for everyone.
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