Where can I NEUTRALLY keep up to date about the Palestina/Israel situation?
Looking at the two big news publishers in my country. One isn’t reporting about the current bombings at all, while the other one is phrasing their words mostly anti-Palestinian.
Is there some neutral coverage I can keep up to? Where do you guys get your info from?
Just remember as you read news, these are inherently biased sources. Basically all of them are. Look at who they are citing to understand how bias might affect the information being relayed to you. For example, if Hamas or Gaza Authorities are saying something, it is probably coming from a pro Hamas perspective, if IDF or Israeli authorities are saying something, probably comes with some bias too. This is true of all news, all the time. The spin is real. Anyone claiming a lack of spin are probably the biggest spinners of bullshit. It sucks that to be well informed you have to be able to be literate not only in the language but also how to read journalism itself. But that’s the reality.
Good question. It’s unfortunately difficult because it requires some knowledge of history and since there’s a cycle of back and forth violence (which most media only reports the latest episode and not what prompted it), it’s hard to follow the big picture.
Do you just want a listing of facts with no analysis? Probably Reuters or Associated Press (AP).
Do you want facts and context and minor analysis (like historical comparisons, etc.)? That’s gonna be BBC and NPR/PBS. Maybe The Economist.
If you want deeper analysis or opinion… That’s gonna be tricky. Probably Al Jazeera, The Guardian (maybe), … I dunno if it’s possible to find one balanced need source that will have in depth analysis or opinion. Probably best to pick two that are about the same distance from “neutral” in either direction.
I do like Al Jazeera for an alternate perspective from the Western media taking points, but I wouldn’t necessarily call them unbiased particularly when it comes to this conflict.
That being said, I highly recommend their documentary series Al Nakba which is a documentary series about the founding of Israel from the Palestinian perspective.
I agree with InfiniteGlitch, this conflict has been going on for centuries, arguably millennia. IMO, at its core, it’s land rights with religion piled on top. Depending on who you talk to, both sides have plenty of reason to hate each other (doesn’t make it lead to any good) because of what their forefathers have done up to present day atrocities. Ultimately, it has come down to reactionary hate over land rights, freedom, fear and safety. I find it helpful to read the facts of what is happening from a distance and take the emotion out of it. When you do that, I’m not sure how this conflict will end. There is so much retaliation. The prisoner thing has me understanding why they’re going overboard. The backlash from Israel makes sense if you think you’re justified in keeping everyone in an open air prison. I hope they all find peace, but I don’t see how that can happen when everyone is raised in that environment of hate & vengeance. Basically, read everything you can on it and take the facts from each. Everyone will spin it to their opinion.
This seemingly simple comment already tells me you are pro-palestinian. Also, for someone that is interested enough in this matter to take part in this discussion, you show impressive ignorance.
So just to to troll you a bit, let me answer this way: Thinking that this crisis started when seven Arab armies attacked Israel with the proclaimed goal of “sweeping the Jews into the sea and pillaging the millions they invested in the country” is extremely short sighted.
Technically, Northern Ireland and Ireland share a border, just saying. Also, Ireland is more apt since they share the same religion, one came after the other, they both think they’re right and it’s a total, lengthy, shitshow.
That area, because of so many religions centered on it and/or the power it holds, has been fought over since Solomon’s Temple.
Nope! Solomon's temple was built 1000-600 BCE. From then till christianity took over it's mostly been a backwater, or buffer zone.
It only seems important because we have writing from people who lived there (the Torah, etc.) saying how important it was (to them), then that writing got the official stamp of truth when the Roman empire took over Christianity.
To the extent it was fought over, it was mostly because it was between much more important areas - the Egyptians and other powers like the Hittites, Babylonians or Assyrians.
Even then the neo-babylonians for example seem to have left the region largely depopulated - it's not like they actually wanted it for any reason
The neo-babylonians sacked Jerusalem, among many other cities and temples. Temples are where much of the wealth and power was kept, sacking the first temple had little to do with the potency of their specific religion. At that time the religion was just the normal Canaanite pantheon.
Judaism as we think of it, with the covenant between the special people and a single all powerful god - that only begins after the first temple is destroyed and Judah is largely depopulated, around the 500-200BCE time period.
What happened to the 2nd (actually 3rd) temple
The Romans destroyed it 70CE. ~600 years between major sacks of your city shows it's not that important.
Don’t forget, Crusades anyone?
Yes, during the medieval period Jerusalem finally starts to become an important goal of religious conflict - 2-2.5 thousand years later than the building of the temple of Solomon
So, you agree, since the destruction of the first temple, there has been some issues that have cropped up. Should I say 2nd temple then? I feel like you’re an archaeology student/pro that is getting lost in the weeds. It’s still millennia. (Or maybe 50 years short, if you’re going to be technical. I bet you’re going to be).
Also, stop editing everything, it’s a pain in the ass. That area has been in conflict over one of the religions since at least 70 CE.
The Romans destroyed it 70CE. ~600 years between major sacks of your city shows it’s not that important.
Right, not important enough to build an arc de triumph, oh wait…
Last comment, you still haven’t talked about the Waq, I wonder why.
“It’s the imperialist culture that drew the borders”, says person who apparently is completely unaware of the history of the middle east in the past few hundred years, nor in the geo-political forces behind the conflict in the past 75 years.
For one sided propaganda for Palestine, try mondoweiss.net
Read all those and choose for yourself what parts of which sides you want to believe. Or don’t. You can also live in peace and happiness knowing that the conflict exists without thinking about it too much because in the end it doesn’t really matter what you think about it anyway.
This war in the middle east has been going on as long as I've been around, for 64 years and beyond that. It's not ever going to stop. The only solution to any of this is the most easy and yet frightening one -total annihilation of every human on earth. Yet that's what MUST happen if the earth is ever going to be a place of peace.
Yet somehow those "other" animal disputes don't end up destroying the climate or beheading kids in Palestine or Israel or threatening nuclear annihilation of the planet. Compared to what us human animals do to each other -- that looks very peaceful indeed.
I’ve been a cord cutter for a long time and I enjoyed watching world news on Al Jazeera for a long time. While I definitely enjoyed their content as an alternative to the celebrity fluff filled US cable news, it’s definitely biased against Israel when it comes to this conflict. However, I would still recommend everyone watch Al Nakba which is streaming for free with no ads on their website. It’s a four episode documentary series about the founding of Israel with primary accounts of what happened in the ground there from Arabs, Israelis, and British officers.
It’s probably very biased and one-sided, but the rest of the media is very biased and one-sided in the other direction.
For example, Wikipedia says that the 1948 war was started by the Arabs once Israel declared a state. In Al Nakba, they challenge that narrative with first-hand accounts from Arabs and British officers who say that it was the Israelis who started the war through ethnic cleansing of Palestinian villages, in some cases before the British even left.
At Telegram channels. Subscribe to the top channels for both and then use your own discretion. Note: You need to use translate tool in Telegram as they use local languages.
If you need some hints for the name of the channels (the ones I sub to):
For the Israeli: search for kod[twice]group about 148k subscribers.
For Gaza: search for G××× Now. about 1.5M subscribers.
Need to be careful. There are some fake channels having similar names to those. So you need to double check the number of subscriptions.
Add comment