2021.6.2

     Today, Mr.Paterson introduced us few websites that cover the topic of Israel and Palestine. The class was divided into two. My group looked out for the website that is run by people on the Palestine side. Almost all the websites were media that I never knew such as Information Clearing House, THE ELECTRIC INTIFADA, etc. Information Clearing House has a lot of reports about global topics and talked a lot about United Nations and positive movements in other countries. On the other hand, THE ELECTRIC INTIFADA talked about the reality of Gaza from the local people’s point of view. One of the shocking reports was the story of mothers in Gaza. It must be so scary and frightening to spend days pregnant under persecution. Especially when some mothers were denied to go to the hospital and lost their baby's precious life. On the other hand, there is a group of people called Hasbara that attack people who criticize Israel on SNS. However, public general’s growing awareness toward the issue made it possible for likes, retweets, and positive comment to go over negative hate comments.

     It was really an valuable opportunity to know the media and websites that are reporting the truth. When most informations are strongly biased, it is hard to understand what is really happening between these two countries. As a Japanese, I feel that this is one of the merit of learning English. English is lingua-franka that is used widely around the world while Japanese is used by defined group of people that has similar social backgrounds.