Israel and the Middle East in 5 minutes
Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2013 6:34 am
I've got a great idea for peace in the Middle East:
Change the name of Israel to Palace Stein. See? Everybody's happy.
It's simple.
Of course if you think the problems of Israel and the Palestinians can be reduced to a 5 minute commentary by David Prager (and his humbly named Prager University), I think it says more about the ADD attention span of the viewer than the actual problem itself.
His presentation begins "Israel would like to exist and recognizes the right of the Palestinian state to exist."
The problem begins now. There is no history. There is no 2,000 year diaspora. There is no holocaust.
Quite frankly, anyone who thinks the problems of Israel and Palestine can be reduced to a 5 minute film wants to make the viewer a prisoner of his point of view, rather than talking about the complexities of the situation.
People want a simple narrative. They want all problems to be easy, clear-cut, black and white. If a 2,000 year history has to fall by the wayside, so be it. History is messy. Opinion is clean.
Quite frankly, I get tired of being referred to youtube videos instead of books or opinion pieces. Videos can convey visual information that is not easily conveyed through the written word, but this is certainly not one of those cases. If you can't articulate a position on your own, and rely on another to state your opinion for you, there's a name for it:
dittohead