I have found myself very emotionally involved with the whole Middle East conflict. I also have found myself reading different perspectives and commentaries and even some blogs I had not yet visited. So today I came to the conclusion that I really do not feel qualified to give any opinion on the situation, other than from what's going on on the American end of things. I need to be at peace and I cannot contribute otherwise.So I had to re-group and change course.
There are blogs and commenters from the region who are engaging in intense, and personal discussions that are much more worthwhile reading than what any outsider has to say about it. This is not to denouncy my blogger friends who do, I just don't feel that I should anymore. I have a lot of material to read, online and off. This is such a multi-faceted situation, even if it is understood that I am only writing my own opinions, it is still a waste of time.
From now on, when referring to the situation in the Middle East, I will give links of articles and/or posts to read. Let's educate ourselves instead of jumping on anyone's bandwagon with (our)pre-conceived opinions.
Here goes;
MAHMOUD'S DEN! I have often referred people to his site and now he finds himself with many commenters from the region including Israel who are engaging in some very intersting discussions. Please check out his site every day if you can, I do.
A new site I had stumbled upon a while back but not checked back with is;
THE RANTINGS OF A SANDMONKEY
and one more;
Jonathan's INTELLECT OR INSANITY, which is an Israeli site in english.
If the situation were different, I'd say, happy reading!
Atta girl!
ReplyDeletethanks..
ReplyDeleteIngrid, eating humble pie
Right after I'd just posted about it. LOL
ReplyDeletePT, well gee,THANKS! Do you know that when you have the perfect answer but you live in a seperate world unaffected by whatever drama is happening, it just feels 'wrong' to be assigning blame without appreciating all kinds of mitigating factors. And I do believe there are so many, even on the Israeli side. My natural inclination is to say, Israel is not a legitimate state because of the way it came about and has waged war in the past, except..that doesn't solve anything and does not reflect the fact that I mean no harm to become to Israeli citizens either.. so..if I return out of my thinking cave..I will or might let you know.
ReplyDeleteZeb..are we in sync or what? Good thing you're not a girl (hehe, let you think about that one)
Ingrid..gotta go, swim lessons for the kiddies
Thank you for introducing me to these new sites. I found them fascinating and will continue to read them daily.
ReplyDeleteBut Ingrid, you know I'm going to keep on talking about this subject, don't you?
Sometimes distance gives perspective. We ALL have a role to play here.
This conflict has raged for fifty years. The solution is actually simple. We all know it. It's called UN Res 242.
The pressure of many people and many organisations - take a bow Abbas - has finally got Hamas to accept Israel and it's right to exist.
Now we have to work on getting Israel to accept the "inadmissablity of the acquisition of territory by war."
I respect your decision to go quiet at this point, I do hope though that you will appreciate why some of us feel compelled to go the other way.
Kel, as the Americans like to say "honey"..I totally understand, that's why I acknowledged my friends who do write on the subject (passionately), in fact, I was mostly thinking of you. This is an internal 'something something' I am going through so hence my decision to withdraw from posting opinions, but not coverage! Also, I am hoping that this event might trigger my initial intent for this blog; to have different people from different countries post their views on hot topic issues. Can't get any 'hotter' than this! Wish me luck,
ReplyDeleteIngrid
LOL @ Ingrid You never know, I could be making it all up and I'm not really a 45 yo guy from Maine with a wife and six kids. Oh, and the former Marine part could work either way, I suppose. LOL
ReplyDeleteAC-tually...ya gotta ask Shelly 'bout this one..I think she would get it..hehe
ReplyDeleteIngrid
Ingrid,
ReplyDeleteThanks for that and good luck with the round table idea. I can't wait to see how it works out. But it's a really positive thing to encourage different voices and give them one forum in which to speak.
Thanks Kel. One can only hope. In the beginning when I started the blog I wasn't sure about a lot of things and I emailed quite a few people too. I only emailed two so far and hopefully sometime today will get to email some more (it's a juggle having kids around all the time I tell you)..
ReplyDeletecrossing my fingers
Ingrid
You'll pull it off, Ingrid! Hopefully they'll get back to you soon and then they can post and you can oversee, giving you more time with the kids - but hopefully not stopping posting yourself!
ReplyDelete