IRL 2, September 19, 2009

URL; http://www.newser.com/story/64781/israel-to-us-we-wont-halt-housing-in-jerusalem.html

This is a news article posted on Newser.com concerning the Israeli refusal of the US request that Israel stop an American millionaire's housing project in East Jerusalem, an area that is largely populated by Arabs. The article was written by a journalist named Neal Golgrass, based on information from an Israeli news site called The Jerusalem Post, as well as the Associated Press. This article relates to what we are studying in class because we are studying the origins of the Arab-Israeli crisis, which began when massive Jewish immigration to Arab-occupied land led to a series of conflicts between the two groups. In THIS article, it is explaining that the Jewish people in Israel are refusing to stop building on land that is mainly Arab-occupied (which in a sense is similar to the massive Jewish immigration in that both affect the lives of the Arabs that live in the area), and this action could lead to further clashes between the two groups. This adds value to what we're studying in class because the event that is being described (Israeli refusal to stop building on Arab occupied land) is an example of how the Israelis feel entitled to the land and as a result, are going to do what they want in Israel regardless of how it will affect the Arab people living there, and this is in part what sparked the Arab-Israeli conflict as a whole (although of course there were other contributing factors). Another reason that this adds value for me is that I am alive to see the results/consequences of this action, and it will help give me a clearer picture of what happened many years ago when the conflict first began. The main limitation that I came across with this source was that it was very one-sided. It stated that the Israeli refusal to stop building in East Jerusalem (which is largely Arab occupied) has the potential to spark problems, but it didn't state what these problems could be and it didn't give an Arab perspective on the Israelis building in East Jerusalem. It only stated the American perspective (that Israel should stop building on that land) and the Israeli perspective, which was that they refuse to listen to America's request.