Sooo I’ll admit to not really having a huge amount of knowledge about the Middle Eastern conflict between Israel and Palestine, and so over the course of the last week have taken to occasionally seeking out the odd video or two which can explain it to me without having to do any reading (I felt I was doing enough of that for my dissertation).
My starting point was this video from Dennis Prager and the ‘Prager University’ series of talks…
Although this video helped somewhat in understanding the geographies involved, and to some extent the conflict since 1947, personally I found it overly ‘American’ in its production. Somewhat oversimplified, largely ignoring further back in to the history and decidedly one sided. For my two cents this (slightly longer) video offers a better interpretation of the conflict and the parties involved – and much better animation.
As far as looking further back in the history of the region goes, I was aware from some modules taken during my undergraduate degree that the area was one of almost permanent conflict, and I am yet to find anything better at summarising that as this 3 minute cartoon.
I want to at this point put in a piece from the most recent edition of John Oliver’s ‘Last Week Tonight’ which looked at the more recent aspects of the conflict (and how nothing is changing) but sadly the clips for that aren’t online at the moment. Instead I found a segment from an old copy of The Bugle from 2011 when Justin Bieber was almost drafted in try and solve the situation.
Luckily, that meeting never happened and a much more intelligent and amusing man – Tim Minchin – has subsequently had a crack at solving the conflict in the much more reasonable way, via the medium of peace anthem… Enjoy.
I realise that this post offers little in personal opinion on the matters – but even after watching through many videos (and some actual reading) I don’t really feel in any position to comment. If the question was more related to the Contagious Disease Act of 1864, I’d probably be the guy to ask, but for now a few (mainly) light hearted videos will have to do.
More G, Less T 