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The War Hits Facebook
Israel’s assault on Gaza has launched an emotional firestorm on Facebook—including violent threats, Nazi slurs, and pleas for reconciliation.
Ever since the first bombs fell on Gaza this week, Tomer Perry’s Facebook page has been “on fire.”
Perry, a 26-year-old Israeli student from Jerusalem, counts dozens of Palestinians among his 700 Facebook friends, and the war has touched off an emotional frenzy that’s splintering his online social network.
One Palestinian friend posts a running tally of those killed in Gaza. Another friend in range of Hamas' rockets updates her page whenever she hears sirens warning of an incoming attack. And contacts on both sides have posted angry slurs and obscenities, ranging from "Turn Gaza into a parking lot" to "Fuck Nazi Israel. Hitler should have finished the job."
Harel-Fisch was shocked when one of his Palestinian friends changed his Facebook picture to a grotesque cartoon depicting Israelis bathing in a swimming pool of blood.
“I've already encountered barriers between me and my closest Palestinian friends,” says Perry. “On Facebook, when you are angry, it's so quick to write an insulting comment without thinking. You don't have to call someone on the phone to tell them what you think…I think some Facebook friendships will survive and some will be ruined.”
In the five days since the bombing began, Facebook has emerged as both a new outlet for hostility—and a rare venue for dialogue. The social networking site is hugely popular in the region, with nearly 500,000 Israeli members and about 44,000 from the West Bank and Gaza. Because travel restrictions limit physical contact between Israelis and Palestinians, the Internet is often the only place the two groups can regularly meet.
"The ironic part is that Israelis and Palestinians use Facebook to communicate as though we are on different continents, the same way we communicate with people in America,” says Lama Mashni, a 25-year-old Palestinian who has largely stopped speaking with her Israeli Facebook friends since the crisis began. “But in fact we are right next to each other on the same land."
Mashni met her Israeli Facebook friends through Seeds of Peace, an organization that brings together Israelis and Palestinians for group retreats in America. But since the attacks began, she’s been struggling with the complexities of those friendships.
Last week, Mashni changed her Facebook status to a popular slogan, "Stop Israel's genocide in Gaza," triggering a range of responses from her friends.
"One Israeli friend wrote on my wall and said this is the perfect time to speak to each other and show that our friendship works and help each other get through it," Mashni said. "It's nice to know that they are there for me if I want to talk to them, but I'm not sure that right now I feel like hearing what they have to say. Right now I only feel like being angry."
Mattan Harel-Fisch, a 27-year-old Israeli who fought in the 2006 war with Lebanon, met his Palestinian Facebook friends at a peace conference in Japan last August. While their political views were vastly different from his own, he was touched by their stories of suffering under Israeli rule. He in turn gained their respect by presenting a human face to his career defending Israel as a soldier in the army.
"One of the Palestinian girls, Rawan, had terrible stories about things the [Israeli] army had done to her family. It was very difficult for her," he said. "But she told me that after getting to know me, when she sees an Israeli soldier at a roadblock, even though she thinks the roadblocks are cruel and inhumane, she no longer sees the Israeli soldiers standing there as animals, and she understands that they also go through difficult things."
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This is all just too much....its heartbreaking.
Facebook is a great venue to make AND LOSE friends. I saw it during the US presidential election. I lost a couple of friends over that. I'm sure this is even bigger. I have a Jewish friend that is very upset right now that some of her "friends" are part of a Pro-Palestinian group. These are people she grew up with and went to school with. They are posting updates and becoming "fans" of groups and not realizing that their friends may be in stark contrast to their views. It is really hard to remember that anything you do: post updates, join groups, etc...is placed on the Home Page of the rest of your friends.
Remember that song (some of us) learned in grade school, 'One Tin Soldier' by Lambert-Potter? In case you haven't heard it before, it's a good one:
"Listen, children, to a story
That was written long ago,
'Bout a kingdom on a mountain
And the valley-folk below.
On the mountain was a treasure
Buried deep beneath the stone,
And the valley-people swore
They'd have it for their very own.
Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after....
One tin soldier rides away.
So the people of the valley
Sent a message up the hill,
Asking for the buried treasure,
Tons of gold for which they'd kill.
Came an answer from the kingdom,
"With our brothers we will share
All the secrets of our mountain,
All the riches buried there."
[chorus]
Now the valley cried with anger,
"Mount your horses! Draw your sword!"
And they killed the mountain-people,
So they won their just reward.
Now they stood beside the treasure,
On the mountain, dark and red.
Turned the stone and looked beneath it...
"Peace on Earth" was all it said.
Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after....
One tin soldier rides away."
Wouldn't it be great if the conduit for mass insanity (Girls Gone Wild, drunken students posting insanely stupid photos, ect) was also a conduit through which the seed for peace could be sown?
It is unfortunate that Shakespeare was European. Remember the opening of "Romeo and Juliet"? There was a fair city, and two families that hated each other so much that it cost them their fairest youth, and their hopes for a future? Sounds like Israel and Palestine. I know how hard it is to let go of hate, but it seems to me that the only hope for the region is for people to put aside hate, and to refuse to deal with those on their own side who won't or can't do so. They don't have to like each other to live in peace, but they do have to refuse to act out of hate. After what, sixty years, doesn't look like it's going to happen.
The question is. How many illegal Jewish settlements are there on Palestinian lands?
the situation between israel and gaza/the palestinians is already so complicated, and it just gets worse and worse. some of this is because both sides are dealing with different facts. i will not post whose facts i think are more truthful, because my opinion doesn't matter. but as long as there are two perceived realities going on, nobody will ever agree.
i have been thinking for a long time, and now even more so, that peace is not really ever going to be an option.
the best solution would be to just make two countries. put up a giant border and both go their separate ways. if either one does something hostile over the border, then let the same rules that apply to everybody else apply.
unfortunately, even that is just a fantasy.
its really sad.
Aren't many of the world's conflicts, including Palestine versus Israel about territorial rights, who's land is it and who was there first ?
In some cases don't the disputes usually come down to the indigenous population versus the newcomers, the so-called "invaders."
In the "Americas" the native population was "invaded" by Spain, France, and big surprise the British, before the hemisphere was divided and renamed places called San Diego, San Francisco, Montana, New Hampshire, New (Amsterdam) York, Montpelier, Vermont, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador, etc, etc.
It's been debated that even the so-called "Native" American population may have originated in Asia walking across the Bering Straights to the "New World."
Does the Palestinian resentment of Israel come from the 1947 United Nations Partition of Palestine, dividing the land into two states, one Jewish, one Arab; or is that too simplistic?
Hopefully some day peace will come to the Middle East.
The world expends a disproportionate amount of time, energy, attention and resources on this conflict. Look at what is happening in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in Zimbabwe. These are crisises of major proportions affecting millions of people and yet, because the victims are poor and black people, we hear almost nothing about their problems.
It's time both Israeli's and Palestinians faces a very important fact: the land you are fighting over will soon be under water due to the effects of global warming. I'm sure given the intractable nature of this conflict and the absurd viewpoints of vested interests, both sides will be blasting each other until the water rises over your collective heads.
Perhaps before then we should clear all of the people of Israeli and Palestinian decent out of the so-called Holy land and allow only fat, white Christians to waddle around their ancient corridors. That would unite both groups over a common hatred of fat, white Christians and give fat, white Christians a feeling of importance they seem to desperately need. Palestinians would be resettled on the North Pole, where they could forever taunt and threaten Santa, and Israelis could be resettled on the South pole, driving penguins to assured extinction.
Okay that last paragraph was a feeble attempt at humor over the stupidity of human conflict. We need to wake ourselves up somehow from the collective stupor we humans call consciousness. Hear this all ye who dare: Stop the violence now, all you idiots. You're killing and maiming innocent people.
Feelings expressed, void of a factual foundation, are overvalued worthless opinions. The theory of evolution would be a great example of the aforementioned.
Never before, until this day, had I read a blog that was 100% idleheaded.
Do any of you folks know that Palestine, until the day after The Six Day War, was simply the moniker for a region? That's right. Palestine was never a country. To call Palestine a country, is akin to calling the regional areas of New England, or the Southwest in the United States, countries.
Prior to the day after the Six Day War, the people you now refer to as Palestinians were Jordanians, Syrians, and Lebanese. You have been duped by people that have an agenda and count on your ignorance.
Again, for those that have not yet taken their brain out of neutral; to label Palestine a nation is on par with calling Southeast Asia, a country.
The agenda I refer to is rooted in Islam. The guy that made the 'fat Christian' slurs, that he attempts to pass off as jest, will not understand, because he hates God.
Those of you, who desire peace in the Middle East, will have your day. Your day will last three and one half years.
There is so very, very much you are ignorant of. Ignorant means: uninformed; not stupid. I doubt any of you are stupid. Until you open your hearts to the Truth you will remain blind, and blow off all things of God.
A quote from King George of England, to parliament, at the onslaught of World War II;
Quote, "I said to the man at the gate of the New Year, 'Give me a light that I may go forth into the unknown.' And the man at the gate replied, 'Put your hand in the hand of God. For you it will be better than a light, safer than a known way.'"
For those of you who may want to know the Truth; put your trust in Jesus and ask Him to guide your steps. Seek His truth, with a pure heart, and it will be given to you.
If you want to understand the origin and nature of the conflict between the Jewish people and Muslims, you need to find a good church that teaches from the bible. One that is attended by people that have their bibles open, not a feel good church with Power Point sermons.
Do you know the origin of Islam? Its genesis is not from the false prophet Mohammed. Its genesis is recorded in the book of Genesis in the bible. The organized religion of Islam was founded by Mohammed in the 7th century. Ironically, when he wrote his Koran, he plagiarized the Torah, (the first 5 books of the Old Testament, written by Moses, a Jew, whom the Muslims hate).
Oh you, who may mock God, you are of such little understanding!!! Did you know that Muslims believe Jesus is not God; merely a prophet? They believe that salvation through Jesus is not possible. Salvation, they believe comes through being a good person and worshipping their mean and vengeful god, Allah.
Here's why I tell you that, did you know, when Mohammed plagiarized the Jewish Torah he had no understanding of Hebrew.
In Genesis, and the KORAN the genealogy is recorded as follows:
HebrewEnglish
Adam----------------Man
Seth------------------Appointed
Enosh----------------Mortal
Kenan----------------Sorrow
Mahalalel------------The Blessed God
Jared------------------Shall Come Down
Enoch-----------------Teaching
Methuselah-----------His Death Shall Bring
Lamech---------------The Despairing
Noah------------------Rest, or Comfort
Read the English translations as a sentence and you'll have read the message of Gods plan of salvation through His son, Jesus, the Christ. A message of Gods grace through Christ; not your good deeds.
I will never believe that Rabbis and/or Muslims recorded that message by choice, or chance.
One more, of many, many, many, examples of proof that all scripture is inspired by God.
For centuries, scholars have argued that the last 12 verses in the Gospel of Mark were added by Scribes, and they are not to be considered part of Gods written word.
Hebrew and Greek are numeric languages. Each letter in those languages has a numeric value. You will have to do your own research for more detail. Just Google; Chuck Missler 12 verses of Mark.
Bottom Line!!!
It would take 1 MILLION supercomputers, EACH doing 400 MILLION computations PER SECOUND every second of the day and night, more than 4 MILLION YEARS to randomly achieve JUST 34 of the 75 heptadic features found in those 12 verses. The BIBLE is packed full of that kind of stuff! Again, the Bible, not DaVinci Code, that's a book filled with errors, both biblically and historically on every single page; what God calls, the folly of a fools foolishness.
Go ahead. Blow it off as bible thumping foolishness. Get your information about what's going on in the would from the BBC, CNN, FOX, ABC, NBC, HISTORY CHANNEL, CBS, or like the boy stated above, Girls Gone Wild, and you will remain ignorant until the day you die; and suffer for it, for eternity.
God doesn't what that, it is not His will; it will be your will because YOU blew HIM off, not because you blew me off.
God loves you and I, and we don't need to know all the cool heady stuff that's in the bible to escape the judgment of sin. I am a sinner and will be one until the day I die. However, I believe Jesus is who He said He is, the Son of God, and I confess my sins to Jesus and asked Him to forgive me, and each day I try to live my life for Him. It's that simple. Don't look at Christians like me, I fail all the time. Put your eyes on Christ; He will never fail you.
He, who has ears to hear, let him hear.
One thing you guys forgot to mention is the Qassam Count feature on FB. I detail it in a post here: http://www.readingpulitzer.com/2009/01/08/facebook-and-the-gaza-war/
One thing for sure: the christians and semetic peoples are bathing in a pool of blood and who benefits? Who will profit?
Thank you.
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