The Arab-Israeli conflict has so much more to it than I originally thought before doing the readings for this class. I am the first to say, I believe I was far too judgemental on topics I now see I wasn't educated enough on. For so long now I have put so much pressure on religions as the sole cause for all of the issues in the conflict. I was the first to blame religion for every reason the conflict began and continues to exist. While I still believe that the religious aspect of the conflict in deeply rooted to the problem, I now see that there is so much more to it. I think that as humans, there is a tendency to take claim things that we maybe don't have the right we thought we had. As much faith as I like to keep in humanity, the further our values lean to dividing people based on their differences, the more developed the issue is going to be. We have to be able to first close the gap between minorities and the majority by looking at issues such as employment, education, and new opportunities for those in the lower class of Jerusalem both Arab and Israeli. The more educated a young public is on social issues and history, the easier it is going to be to find a solution. I know that it seems very broad and I wish I could elaborate more on how I think that could happen, but I don't have those solutions because in reality this is the solution to many world problems I think. I look forward to keep reading Armstrong and the other readings, as well as hearing more from my classmates and guest speakers.
On another note, I was wondering if anyone else is interested in film? There are a number of extraordinary films on the topic and maybe we could start a movie night or something and search for some of these films. Maybe that sounds really nerdy, but I would like to meet more people in our class in a different environment.
I wish I had the answer to the problem, I really did, but I think a lot of people have worked at it for a long time. However, we just have to keep trying to make progress, and maybe one day the world will see peace.
Wow, Maggie! Your response reflects a wonderfully positive attitude. I guess I also thought religion was at the core of this conflict. And, I don't know much about the details we are learning through Karen Armstrong's book, but I am realizing that the problem is much deeper than religion; religion is only a piece of this tangled web of human identity. It makes sense what you said about 'closing the gap between minorities and the majority' using education, etc. I wonder, probably no way in the world, but I wonder if, through education, jobs, and opportunities that this new generation could be brought up with a different mindset than the previous generation (s), allowing for different attitudes within resolution...maybe this is not even ethical to consider, but I mean it in a positive way...maybe the problem is not resolving the past, but rather, resolving the future.....
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