Israelis, Palestinians, and What We Can Learn from Vietnam

 http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/02/25/world/middleeast/100000000653542/israel-palestinian-reax.html
This video from Newyorktimes.com, which I couldn't figure out how to post, shows an Arab reporter interviewing an Israeli on his opinion of the recent events in Egypt and then interviewing some Palestinian revolutionaries in Ramallah about it. I thought this was another great example of how modern technology allows dialogue to occur between people that have never met. Israelis and Palestinians are able to communicate and exchange ideas through the medium of a New York Times reporter, and then an American chillin in the Heights can see what they both had to say and can comment on it.
The reason I think this is significant has to do with something I learned from the movie “Fog of War,” which is a documentary about Robert McNamara, who was US Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War. During one part of the movie, McNamara is talking about an argument he had with a Vietnam General years after the war at a dinner in the White House. During this dinner, they got into an argument about why the war occurred. McNamara, quoting American policy at the time, insisted that the war was a “War of Aggression- Communists against South Vietnam,” whereas the general claimed that it was a civil war. In other words, the two sides didn’t even agree on why they were fighting the war. McNamara claims that this is one of the reasons why never should have gone into Vietnam- because we did not fully understand our adversaries, and why they were fighting against us. ( Here’s a short clip of Robert Mcnamara admitting the war was a mistake http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hDjvKF_X78&feature=related).
Had we understood the North Vietnamese, it’s possible we could’ve come to some sort of compromise and the war may never have occurred, and thousands of lives could have been saved on both sides. Modern technology, which provides a medium for people from different sides to communicate and express their concerns, could somehow eventually, if utilized correctly, help start the march toward global peace. The hardest part is no longer getting in contact with your adversaries; now it’s about listening to what they have to say and being willing to engage them in an open conversation.  

Egyptians and Libyans seek US Sympathies Through Media

(Photes courtesy of google images)

The poster on the left is an anti-Mubarak poster; the poster on the right is a famous pro-Obama poster.
Clearly, Egyptian demonstrators are using the imagery of Obama to protest against Mubarak. Professor Daves showed this to our Middle East Politics class; he also showed us another poster in the same style that had Gaddafi on it and read, “Hopeless.”

We pointed out in class that it’s unlikely that these posters were appealing to the average Libyan or Egyptian citizen, because chances are they wouldn’t understand the reference to Obama’s presidential campaign and the ideals it symbolized. Therefore, professor Daves explained, it must be appealing to Western European and Americans, trying to elicit sympathy from them by conjuring a famous image of a man that said he stood for hope and change.  

This is a great example of how important the role of media plays in revolutions nowadays. The people revolting, rather than making signs that will resonate with the people of the country they're revolting in, are making posters with slogans that will catch the attention of people thousands of miles away. The people who make these signs are so sure that there will be foreign media in their country that they decide to appeal to their sympathies rather than their own fellow countrymen. The fact that we in American can see what's going on in Egypt and Libya allows the Egyptians and Libya's to connect with us by comparing their struggles to the struggles we are going through here in the U.S. and in other Western countries.

      

"News" vs. "Here's something you'll want to read"

        Part of the reason why watchdog journalism has declined in recent years has to do with the fact that it's simply not as entertaining as other news that's out there. In other words, many supposedly news sources provide things that are interesting to read, rather than news. So if you're trying to get someone to read your article, you can either do a lot of research and write a really really interesting piece, or you can do not a lot of research and write a really interesting piece. So there's little incentive to do extensive research because the payoff is not much more than soft-news pieces.
       This has to do with what we classify as "News" nowadays.  One of the top stories on Newsweek.com is entitled, "Are Dogs Stealing Our Jobs?" While this is certainly is an interesting story that will surely leave the reader feeling informed (here's the URL if you wanna read it http://www.newsweek.com/2011/02/13/are-dogs-stealing-our-jobs.html), I'm not sure you can categorize this as "News." Instead, it might be safer to call it, "Something you didn't know before that will interest you to learn about."
       So, because Americans do want to read these types of soft-news stories that don’t require as much investigation as watchdog journalism requires, it would be more beneficial to watchdog journalism as a practice if we made clearer distinctions between what we call "News" and what we call "Stories." Keep in mind that the dog piece was among the first articles that popped up on a website entitled, "Newsweek." If this in one of their top news pieces, it would be more realistic to call it, "Funthingstoreadaboutweek." If we were clearer about what constitutes news and what doesn't, it might help watchdog journalism make a resurgence, because it will again be the most interesting and eye-catching thing to read about when people go to check the news.

Why Americans would rather be entertained by news than informed by it

In my opinion, Americans would rather watch news that is entertaining and supports their point of view because on a day to day basis, things that happen in other countries don't affect our daily lives. No matter who's in power in Egypt or Tunisia or even Iran or Iraq, none of those countries pose a threat to our borders. We haven't been invaded since the war of 1812. And it's true that it affects prices in the stock market- but the affects that these then have on us on a day to day basis is minimal, if at all. Prices at Grandma's Pizza and even Golan have remained consistent throughout the revolution in Tunisia and the riots in Egypt.
The proof for this idea is that in Europe, the average citizen knows more about politics than does the average citizen in the US- that's a fact that is supported by statistics. That's because in Europe world politics could possible pose a security threat to them since they're so close to each other. Who's President of Canada doesn't matter if you're an American, but who's president of Germany matters if you're Poland.
And even in America, were we to be invaded, who would get the brunt of it? The states on the coasts- and studies show that people on the coasts know more about politics in general than do people in the middle of America, where the danger is less.