WMR: Ships and Gaza – Two Perspectives
Victoria Wilmarth 12/2/08
I looked at several articles about the same thing from two different sources.
CNN has an article titled “Israel Turns Back Gaza Ships” http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/01/israel.gaza.aid.ship/index.html and an Israeli Newspaper (Arutz Sheva) had an article called “Muslim World Send Ships to Give Hamas Control of Gaza Coast” http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/128662
The two article titles show the very different views on what happened with the ships in Gaza. Israel saw the ships attempted landing as a threat to Israeli “sovereignty over the Gaza coast.” The article from CNN acknowledges Israel’s “perceived security threat” but focuses instead on human rights groups concerns that “humanitarian aid” was being denied as a result of the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza.
I found the article from Arutz Sheva particularly interesting because it discussed how the ships could be viewed as a “threat to sovereignty.” From my outside perspective, I never would have viewed the ships in that way. These two article (as well as this hwole situation) bring up several issues we have talked about in class. The first is power of the media to affect someone’s opinion. There is also a question of humanitarian aid, which we discussed with the UN sanctions of Iraq. Is there a way to have sanctions or blockades without making the most vulnerable, impoverished members of society suffer from an increased lack and scarcity of resources?
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