by Esther · Filed under Israel

In an attempt to provide some balance to our presentation of the young Jewish opinions about the current situation in Gaza and the South of Israel, I asked some friends in the ROI Community and beyond to share their perspectives on Israel, the conflict, and how to achieve peace in the region. Their opinions range from right to left and hail from the US, Israel and around the world, consisting of text, images and videos - each person working the medium most resonant to them. Over the next few posts, I’ll be sharing some of those opinions with you, and I hope you’ll stay tuned and join us for what I hope will be a rousing, but respectful discussion with an end goal of peace.

Kicking things off is 2007 ROIer and Israeli Yoav Sivan, who gets points for both responding first and for sharing this editorial he wrote for Ha’aretz over a decision by Britain’s Channel 4 to allow Ahmadinejad to “deliver an alternative Christmas speech, to be aired shortly after the Queen’s.” Sivan is understandably upset, especially when the station’s news chief notes that “this message continues a long tradition of offering a different perspective on the world around us.” Sivan says, “She is confusing reporting on different perspectives with displaying them.”

Indeed, to uphold its professional duty, Channel 4 is required to rigorously track Ahmadinejad’s “different perspective” and tell us about it. It should send its top reporters to Tehran and ask him difficult questions about his positions and how he proposes to promote them in the Middle East. [...] Among his finer statements are “Israel should be wiped off the map” and “we do not have homosexuals in Iran.” And this is why Channel 4 invited him to address the British nation. They wanted a celebrity, and Ahmadinejad is a sure bet.

To be sure, I do not think Channel 4 supports the destruction of the State of Israel, nor the execution of homosexuals. No. The problem is that Channel 4’s officials think that public statements by a leader of a country on the verge of acquiring nuclear capabilities are a joke. And therein lies Channel 4’s biggest lie.

In their Jewdar blog, Heeb Magazine comments on the media battle that Israel is losing, with their inimitable Heeb style, under the post heading: Hamasturbation, which they define as “the subtle stroking that Gaza’s most beloved mass murderers receive from certain figures in the press and the diplomatic corps.”

Although some may consider him right-wing and non-representative of American opinion, the Muqata writes from Israel, providing on the ground liveblog coverage of the conflict, sharing his own observations as well as tidbits from the media like this one:

4:46 PM Hamas lets loose an earth shattering threat: If the IDF continues its operation, we promise to hit [with missiles] Tel Aviv, Rishon L’Zion and Rechovot. (reported by Ehud Ya’ari, Channel 2, Israel TV)

Brooklyn-based ROIer and “Orthodox Anarchist” Dan Sieradski shares his perspective on the conflict, noting that he’s against the blockade of Gaza, the isolation of Hamas, the treatment of Palestinians under occupation, the settlement movement, and Israeli politicians using the situation to propel themselves to higher posts. But he also thinks that “Hamas is its people’s own worst enemy, and that their refusal to halt their rocket attacks, despite their inefficacy and the lethal retaliation they incur, bespeaks an eagerness to sacrifice the lives and well-being of their people.”

I believe that Hamas willingly provokes attacks in order to orchestrate photo-ops and mount a body count which they use to manipulate public opinion. And I believe that Hamas is in bed with nefarious Islamic regimes whose human rights records make Israel look saintly, and that if Israel does not tamp down on Hamas’ armament by these powers that it is only a matter of time before Hamas is firing long-range Iranian missiles into Tel Aviv or sneaking dirty bombs into downtown Jerusalem. (For more, see here.)

Over in Denmark, Karoline Henriques was featured on a television morning program (just this morning) about the conflict. She was on the show with a man named Mohammed and this is how she described the program (which is in Danish):

This is the link to my television appearance (this morning) where I and a young Palestinian guy talk about how the conflict affect us on a day-to-day basis: how I worry about friends and family sitting in shelters, and how the conflict has resulted in a new wave of anti-semitism in Denmark and the recent shooting of two Israelis. And I point out that the Danish media’s coverage is extremely biased, leaving out facts from the Israeli side. Both I and Muhammed agree that the conflict cannot be exported to Denmark.

More opinions are coming in, and we’ll post them here, so stay tuned.