Final Topic Question: Answer and Accumulated Research Links
It is no secret that Israel’s defense policies involve many controversial tactics. Chief among them are practices such as targeted killing and the ‘eye for an eye’ policy. These concepts have been aggressively employed for decades in its ongoing struggle with subversive terrorist elements within and surrounding the nation of Israel. International opinion has largely condemned the use of such tactics, but United States citizens, politicians, and policies still overwhelmingly support Israel regardless of the controversy of its actions. With this in mind, should the United States government, starting with the Obama administration, take a firmer stand on Israel’s defense strategies?
Israel has been in numerous conflicts since the first years of its foundation in the wake of the atrocities of World War II. Curiously, however, it was not war with the Egyptians, the Lebanese, or all of the neighboring countries allied together that has caused Israel the most trouble over the years. With the advent of terrorist groups like Black September and the Palestinian Liberation Front in the early to mid 1970’s, and much later Hizbollah and Hamas, Israel met the deadliest threat to their continued freedom and prosperity as a nation. The international community has condemned the tactics and actions taken by these terrorist groups, but it is the Israeli method of retaliation against attacks on its citizens that has recently drawn the most criticism.
Perhaps the most widely held opinion internationally of Israel is its use of excessive force. This concept is best illustrated in the confrontations with Lebanon in the 80’s, late 90’s, and 2006. Alan M. Dershowitz championed Israel when he wrote the article Israel’s Policy is Perfectly ‘Proportiante.’ On all occasions, Israel used the impressive might of its army’s to retaliate against terror threats. Unfortunately, while a terrorist group lacks the credibility to be decried for killing innocents, Israel as a nation can be criticized when it inadvertently harms civilians. In all these struggles, Israel was forced months later to withdraw without achieving its primary objectives. No one can or will deny that Israel has a right to defend itself, but in too many cases her hands are tied. Israel cannot afford to let groups like Hizbollah and Hamas sit back and launch rockets from the relative safety of their host nations, and something must be done to stop it. However, it is not wrong to say that Israel has at times met a pinprick with a hammer. An article that reflects on how Israel’s use of force is crippling the Palestinian people and their way of life is They are war crimes! What has been/is happening in Palestine by Aisa Kiyosue, a Japanese born Ph.D. candidate who uses a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal to mix a variety of sources and first hand accounts in order to publicize the Palestinian plight. The United States would be wise to advise Israel to use more discretionary restraint when defending itself. Otherwise they appear in the media to be just as brutish and violent as the terrorists themselves, ultimately undermining the possibility of multi-lateral international peace talks.
A fascinating element of Israel’s policy involves their answer to the claims of excessive force. According to Amos Malka’s Israel and Asymmetrical Deterrence, deterrence is a military term used to describe a nation’s threat or perceived threat of retaliation after an act of war, terrorism, or violence. For example, the United States has deterrence with China firstly because a strong military, a large nuclear arsenal, and the promise that any conflict will be equally as deadly to one nation as the other. Likewise, China has the same deterrence with the United States. Thus a static system occurs where neither nation is inclined to attack the other outright for an indiscretion and must resort to diplomacy instead. Israel claims that its desire to use full military invasions instead of key targeted military operations is to restore the deterrence that it historically held in the region with its overwhelming military superiority. For a while, this line of thinking seems rather logical. But historically speaking, Israel has enjoyed only relatively short periods of peace and stability directly after they fought a war, battle, or skirmish. The irony of Israeli deterrence is that it has effectively ended the threat of a full-scale invasion by any of the neighboring countries, but given rise to violent terrorist groups that welcome the negative attention Israel gets when it inadvertently kills an innocent Palestinian or Lebanese with a smart missile. The Paradox of Israeli Power by Uri Bar-Joseph seems to support the idea that the theory of deterrence is not compatible with the situation, the opposing force in this case not being a sovereign nation. At first glance, citing restoration of deterrence for motivation is an adequate excuse, but the United States should examine the facts and discuss how there is no military great enough to deter a suicide bomber on a holy mission.
Targeted killing is essentially a more politically correct way of saying ‘assassination.’ Fatal Choices: Israel’s Policy of Targeted Killing by Steven R. David begins by seemingly decrying the use of this tactic by Israel. As he furthers his point; however, the reader realizes that David thinks that targeted killings are an important alternative to the large-scale military invasions that have effectively destroyed Israel’s reputation internationally. This is a tactic that even the United States has taken a stand against, but David provides a compelling point. There was a swirl of controversy in 2004 when Israel ‘target killed’ Palestinian cultural leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin. The international community was in an uproar and despite the United States historic support of Israel’s actions; they condemned the act as well. These events were well described in Jonathan Rauch’s Like it or not, Israel’s War with Hamas is America’s, too. The assassination; however, was remarkably similar to actions taken by the Clinton administration in 1998 against a then considerably less well-known threat, Osama bin-Laden. The United States ought to be careful condemning Israel when they also must point the finger at themselves.
So, should the United States government take a firmer stand on Israel’s defense strategies? Yes, if a lasting regional peace is something that the United States is interested in. The issue of Middle East peace is undeniably complex, but if the United States continues to enable Israel to perpetrate acts of violence for acts of terrorism, we are simply allowing them to bury deeper and deeper the hopes and dreams of justice, peace, and security for both Palestine and Israel. As an interviewee Professor Mel Gurtov put it, “Israel’s policies just serve to [continue the cycle of violence] and sabotage future peace negotiations.”
Slideshow Reflection
Up to this point I have not found a project more enjoyable. In addition, I did not run into any of the technical demons that plagued our last two projects. To begin with, a chose a relatively easy subject to track down, yet a subject that I didn’t know well enough to make it a boring, tedious day of following him. I was able to check out a camera from the equipment room without any hassles and I was astounded to find out that it wasn’t just a meager 5.0 megapixel camera, but was actually a very high-end device. Unfortunately, the capabilities of the camera caused the only problem I did run into on the project, which had to do with editing out many of my incredible amount of photos. When I finally sat down to assemble my pictures into a coherent presentation I discovered that I had about 100 more pictures than I needed. This was the most difficult part of process (save, maybe, for soothing the timid beast that is the SoundSlides program), taking a days worth of work and distilling it down to a reasonable amount of media to sum up an average day in someone’s life. I can honestly say; however, that I wouldn’t change any of my techniques for the next time I attempted something like this, because the breadth of pictures I took and the detailed story that each told allowed me to work them into the audio in a more niche-specific way than if I’d only taken 50 or so photos. This was definitely my favorite project thus far.
An Interview with Stella
topic: Should the federal government come into the healthcare system to help lower premiums?
answer: Stella is of the opinion that it is encumbant on the federal government to assist in lowering healthcare premiums because in the current system healthcare is tyed to one’s employer and since more and more people are unemployed, less and less people are insured. In addition, the recession has forced small business owners to chose between healthcare benefits for a few of their employees forcing redundencies upon other workers.
sources: “Opinion on Health Care” – A New York Times opinion article that describes how a greater amount of Fed. government intervention in the Health Care system could stimulate the economy in addition to insuring the uninsured.
“Health Care: The hidden business killer” – A cnn.com article that Stella used to support the claim that many small businesses are forced to make a difficult choice: letting people go becuase insuring them is too costly.
“The Uninsured in America” – A census style survey that puts specific numbers on the amount of people insured/uninsured and the average cost of insurance. The article also delves into the different types of Health insurance in America.
Reflection on an Audio Interview
As a typical college student, when I initially received the assignment to get an audio interview and edit it into a “tellable” story I did what any true academic would do, I forgot about it until four days prior to its due date. On the Monday before the assignment was due, I went to the equipment rental room and reserved a camera for the following day. Upon arriving to pick up my camera 24 hours later; however, I found out that the prior rentee of my required equipment had not returned it in over 48 hours. Luckily, the kindly folk in the tech rental room were able to help me out and get me the equipment I needed. What they were unable to help with, though, was getting in touch with my interviewee, who had not returned any of my phone calls from the day, before, or the day, present. In need of someone in crunch time, I resigned to just use my roommate, figuring that everyone is capable of thinking up a good story from some summer job in their past. This inclination could not have been more wrong. Fortunately, my original interviewee got back to me about half way through hour 2 of trying to get a usable tale from Ian, my roommate. Praising my lucky stars, I walked over to my CA’s (that’s community advisor, rough equivalent to an off-campus RA) apartment, and proceeded to record her story.
I had heard the story in an earlier pre-interview, and I figured she was the perfect candidate for the assignment; well-spoken and with a good natural cadence. Another inclination, on my part, that was not entirely accurate. As soon as the tape began she turned into an “umm…-er” and a “like, so, you know…-er.” In addition, it happened that she had a bit of a sailor’s mouth, which, I must admit, humored me slightly. Nonetheless, I recorded a “tellable story.” In typical fashion, my bravado told me that it would be a breeze to edit this down; an hours work at most. This was simply and totally untrue. The next day, I spent four hours in the lab attempting at first to delete every individual pause and “umm,” only to find these so entangled within a coherent thought that it was impossible to extract the undesirable information. I was able, thankfully, to remove any colorful language. After I toiling over the cadence of the interview, I realized I was still 50 seconds over the limit for the audio clip. There I spent another hour. Finally I was done, and with extensive frustration from a technical standpoint, I submitted my clip, which I believe turned out rather well.
The next time I do this, I will most certainly allow more time, but more importantly have some sort of a reliable backup. The last thing I wanted was all the frustrations that come with doing and assignment like this at the last minute; I would account for as many variables as I could. I would also advise my interviewee to take it slowly and calmly, and I though maybe I’d even discuss some sort of hand signal beforehand if the audio is getting too jumbled and unclear. All in all, it was a fairly simple assignment that really opened my eyes to how complex some of the software/hardware is available to us as journalism students.
Should…?
With the mounting worldwide criticism of Israel’s current war on Hamas, should the United States government take a more firm stand on Israel’s defense strategies.
Obama/Lincoln Inaugurated as the 44th President
(From: missrara.com)
Today is a historic day. You will undoubtedly hear this mantra time and time again today, and so it is on institutional websites covering the inauguration of our forty-fourth president. Institutional information providers (like the government) portray the inauguration as something more exciting than a World Series title parade, but slightly more tame than Woodstock 2009. The coverage from the presidential inaugural committee (http://www.pic2009.org/content/home/) and the governent website for the Inauguration Day (http://www.inauguration.dc.gov/index.asp) does not simply give you news points of President Obama’s speech, they provide links for travel information, ticketing, safety procedures, and lodging. The new administration has promised to be more wired and seemingly more accessible than ever before. You can clearly see that they have already taken strides to do so. They have truly taken advantage of the networking and connectictivity possibilites provided by the internet. The presidential inaugural committee even has a blog, much like this one, that keeps us updated on news and notes. Their RSS feed includes press releases detailing Mr. Obama’s last few days leading up to his speech on Lincoln memorial. These realeses, as you might imagine are generally self-serving, but it allows you to literally track words and movements of the man-who-would-be-president. The PIC also gives you links (onwhat is the equivalent of a blogroll) to other government institutions with their own take on the inaugural festivities.
The senate website, http://inaugural.senate.gov, takes a very pointed approach to the inauguration. The homepage of their website does not feature Mr. Obama, opting instead to portray a floating statue of President Lincoln with the words “A New Birth of Freedom” in script on its right. The take of this government institution seems to hold that the freedom we’ve had for around 233 years is old and tarnished and requires a new dress for the ball of Obama’s presidency. An interesting point about this institutional source is their tie to Lincoln. Evidentally, they chose a theme for the inaugural ceremonies and that is President Abraham Lincoln. This at first seemed rather arbitrary, what with the lack of any significant similiarities between Mr. Obama and Mr. Lincoln, but you can distill two themes out of this. The first, slightly more subtle, theme is that both men inherited a nation in turmoil and would be forced to make some tough decision throughout the presidency. The turmoil of the two nations, however, was markedly different. Lincoln took the reigns of an America that was on the brink of Civil War. Mr. Obama is inherenting a nation that is divided on issues, but not necessarily ready to cut its own throat. In fact, Mr. Obama’s presidency would be more easily compared to that of Franklin Roosevelt. A nation in economic strife trying to resolve foreign affairs issues. While this is a much more appropriate comparison, it does not factor in the second theme, Barack Obama is black. Whoever decided on the theme opted to bring civil rights full circle. From the great abolitionist, Lincoln, to the first African-American president, Obama. These not-so-subtle themes blanket the whole inauguration on institutional websites, the PIC even links to the china being used for the Inaugural luncheon, replicas of that which Mrs. Lincoln picked out for her husband’s swearing in ceremony.
Institutional information serves a very specific audience, it attempts to ignore partisanship unlike many information sources, but is entirely self-serving. Rarely if ever will something critical be said of an institition by its own information source. Thus, it becomes a good way to view something to get a broad sense of the thing, but you must combine their information with something more critical to get a more realistic view.
Ira Glass
Ira Glass’s presentation on storytelling was interesting, compelling, and well-thought out. I would say; however, that I do not think that it was entirely comprehensive. The pieces of storytelling that Glass offers us are no doubt very important. These pieces (the power of the anecdote; moments of clarity/reflection; perseverance) are well developed and Glass is not wrong in the way he stressed their importance. Simply put, I would argue that there can be other things that will make a good story great. Also, there are other elements of storytelling that I think are very important. The Glass video’s were certainly helpful and encouraging, but I would like him to maybe have an addendum where he addresses further elements of a good story.
Interviews
I recently interviewed two people, one classmate and my neighbor, for a class assignment in order to try and write up one of each of their stories. The first interview was with my classmate, Jack Mehl. We didn’t as much question each other as we each provided the other with a story in accordance with the assignment. It wasn’t until I went to write up the piece that I realized the word limit would stunt my ability to do his story justice. I didn’t want to trivialize his experience of attempting to hold on to baseball as long as he possibly could until his academic career had to come to a close. In retrospect, we should have settled on a more discreet story, but I took my notes and wrote it up, careful not to simplify whenever possible.
For the second interview I chose my neighbor Jesse. Jesse is a good kid and was conveniently around at zero hour (the night before my assignment was due). Realizing the challenges of my previous interview, I was much more careful to ensure that Jesse’s story followed more rigorous guidelines. This presented problems of its own. It took close to 45 minutes of probing discussion for me to finally get from him a writable/tellable story. I think that the interview process intimidated a little bit and it took him time to settle down and recount his rather remarkable tale of whitewater rafting through a wildfire. The written story definitely came out much cleaner than my other story, but I was able to learn from my experience with the first interview what I needed to do better for the second.
In the end, while Jesse’s story turned out better than Jack’s I do not think that it was because either story was inherently more interesting than the other. Thinking on that, I do believe that a story is only as good as its delivery, and its means of delivery. That is to say, I might have the most interesting story in the world, but if I write it out and its boring drivel, no one will be entertained enough to read it. Therefore, I propose that the strength of Jack’s story (or lack of it) is based less on the material and more on my green interviewing skills. I think this realization will really effect my writing in the term to come.
Kraft Macaroni and Cheese: Myths, Legends, Nonsense
Mustachioed Crackheads Love "The Cheesiest"
It’s one-thirty in the morning, and you begin to rummage through your cupboards for any foods that will either alone, or in combination with other foods, sate your hunger. After abandoning the peanut butter and brown sugar on a bagel option as too labor intensive, you discover that by some incredible oversight your roommates have left a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese uneaten in the cabinet above the sink. Now I don’t know how many of you have experienced the waves of joy and exhilaration that accompany this occurrence, but let me assure you that if you have, it is hard to make a case that any other food in the world is worthy of being in the same league as the “the cheesiest.” It has even been placed in the company of “the wheel and the iPhone in terms of the world’s greatest inventions,” by thingsyoungerthanmccain.com blogger, Joe Quint. I discovered this greatest of culinary innovations in my youth, when my mother would buy the large size “familypack” and cook it for my brother and I. People like my roommate, Song Ho Downes, a native of South Korea, grew up outside of Kraft’s sphere of influence. He’ll question my Mac and Cheesey (As I from time to time will familiarly call it) experience with quotes like, “what is the orange powder for?” or “the orange water at the bottom looks gross.” It may look gross my friend, but in that orange water I see myself reflected back, golden and happy if only for a minute. Besides, I am too lazy to do the double strain technique, championed by another of my roommates, Ian. “The double strain allows you to control the flaccidity of the noodles.” As you can see, for many, Kraft is not just an instant meal, it is a lifestyle.
Sources
Roommates:
Ian Tierney- proponent of the double-strain technique, straining the water after boiling then straining again post cheese mixing stage.
Song Ho Downes – Korean confused by my Kraft Mac and Cheese mania
Blogger:
Joe Quint- author of a book entitled “72 things older than MacCain,” a book attempting to point out the absurdity of electing an 80 year-old to the presidency. Also, Joe loves the Mac.
Third-Hand Smoke
A New York Times article about a new danger involved with smoking.
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