The Lemon Tree post 5

I have finished chapter 10 and i found chapter 9 particularly interesting. The conversation between Dalia and Bashir at his home in Ramallah was very intense. Here two people feel that they have the right to live in a house that has at different times belonged to both of them. I feel that both of them were right in different ways. Yet Dalia deserves a lot of credit for trying to find out the truth about what happened to the people in the houses before she lived there. People usually tend tend to believe what most convenient for them and not try to look for inconvenient truths. It takes a lot of courage to look for the knowing that it is probably not pleasant.

Dalia and Bashir were building a friendship witch was not very common between Arabs and Jews. Dalia understandably felt betrayed once she found out that Bashir was accused of being involved in a bombing of the Supersol in Jerusalem.

The Lemon Tree post 4

I have just finished chapter 8 and so far the story has been interesting. In chapter 7, “Arrival” I found it very interesting how  the new Israeli community was evolving, especially how the jews were discriminating between each other. Here an ethnic group got together on basis of their common religion and survival and yet the the human instinct to discriminate is still strong. The chapter taught me how different all the various groups of jews were depending on there origins. For example, the North african jews, with their dark skin, came speaking Arabic and listening to Arabic music. The Bulgarian Jews who suffered relatively little during the Holocaust were light skinned and cultured. 

In chapter 8 the events leading up to the 19 67 war are described in great detail. All of the lies, bluffing, and boasting seemed to be a main part of the cause. The Palistinians were much worse off after the war than in the beginning. At this point they have nothing left to lose which explains what is going on now.

The Lemon Tree post 3

I have just completed chapters 5 and 6 which were both very heavy chapters. In chapter 5, emigration jews are bring recruited to relocate to where we now call Israel. As I was reading about the jews in Bulgaria I felt it was weird how they spontaneously moved to the middle east not knowing if they would evan have a place to live. Especially the families with new born babies and elderly people. Not only were they just moving but they were giving up their citizenship and their right to return. The war obviously brought the jewish communities together because they were only safe with one Another. 

In chapter 6, Refuge it talked about the Arab refuges in Palestine who were forced to leave there homes and live in terrible conditions. The refuges lived in over crowded conditions with very little food, clothing or clean water. They were dependent on charity. “Refuges entirely dependent on springs for water, standing in line for hours for turn to fill cans… Definitely possible that water supply may give out completely before end of Aug…”

The Lemon tree post 2

I am finishing the 4th chapter “Expulsion”. So far in the story the author has explained the background of several of the characters and how their paths will cross. In chapter 3, “Rescue” I found it amazing how those four men had the courage to stand up for what they believed in. By protesting the deportation orders, they succeeded in saving 47 thousand people. The Author seems to be good at making the reader feel like he or she is almost there. For example, this passage made me realize how terrible these events were: “In the Freight wagons, there were old and young, sick and well, mothers with their nursing babies, pregnant women, packed like sardines and weak from standing they cried out desperately for help for pity, for water, for air for a scrap of humanity.” This creates a disturbing image that makes me wonder if I would have had the courage to help.

The Lemon Tree post 1

I am midway through chapter 3 and so far i have found a few aspects of the book very interesting. I am enjoying being forced to look at a situation from both sides and have my opinion of each side change. The author gives a lot of back round information and apart from all the dates and complicated names it is easy to understand. The characters are easy to relate to and feel sympathy for. 

I already understand the significance of the title, “The Lemon Tree” because it was the tree that was planted by the original family who built the house on the land that had been theirs for generations. It is kind of ironic that it was a sign of hope.

Racism in the U.S

Will Obama’s election result in a decrease in racism?

             One third of U.S citizens consider themselves racists (washington post). To begin Bush had the lowest approval rate ever and it can be said that Obama’s victory was a vote against Bush and the current republican regime. The reality in America is that 50% of respondents to a recent Washington Post poll said that racial issues still exist in the United states. Furthermore, this same poll showed that a large percentage of Afro Americans believe that racism is one of the biggest problems in the nation.

              The question remains, will America embrace or reject their first afro-American president? My opinion is that evan though the above is true Obama’s victory represents more than just a vote against the republican party. I believe that this is a great step in breaking the race barior in the U.S and globaly. Although it will not happen over night it will take time change will come little by little.

In the U.S racism has become a serious problem. “Much of the attention of the last 40 years has focused on individual racist behavior. However, just as individuals can act in racist ways, so can institutions.”Therefore, institutions can treat people-of-color and whites differently. This behavior can injure people-of-color and when it does it is racist.

Why would institutions want to be racist?

              India for a year and a half has tried to deny that caste discrimination is a form of racial discrimination. Even though caste discrimination has been less common now, there is a conference called the dalit movement formed by some activists. Apart from India there are many places where there is caste discrimination such as Nepal or South Africa. The U.N. has writen a sixty page report on this topic.

              I find find racial discrimination the same as caste discrimination. This is because you are discriminating people from some thing that is not easily changed.

Reflection on article on racism

I read the article and watched a short youtube video that was with it. The video was about a a mother and her daughter who happened to be immigrents. The daughter got stoped at an airport for having marijuana and was sent to a detention ficility. when her mom was informed she went to go see her but she was moved to another one and then another one after that. she even went to one in Texas. In these ficilities she was treated terribley racest comments and names were said to here by the gaurds. The ficilities were tying to get her to sign paperes to deport her.

The video was very powerful i could not evan imagin what it must have felt like for the daughter or the mother.

corrected essay

Many respected thinkers of the time expressed strong but different view about this period of history known as modernity and if we have been progressing. Not all ofthese thinkers agreed however on weather it was a good or bad  for society. When it comes down to it, how should progress be measured? Is progress more jobs, longer life, education, more freedom, democracy, more technology, less or no manual labor, even distributed wealth, or increased happiness? Obviously these people have different views on this topic. This paper will compare several of these views.
The fallowing writers believed that modernity represented progress because modernity provided more freedom and other characteristics such as, more freedom less labor and more happyness. For Walt Whitman progress meant more freedom and more equality by having democracy, liberating men from manual labor by greater and more advanced technology. “Lo, how he urges and urges,leaving the masses no rest! His daring foot is on the land and sea everywhere, he colonizes the pacific, the archipelagoes, with the steamship, the electric telegraph, the newspaper, the wholesale engines of war.  With these and the world-spreading factories, he interlinks all geography, all lands.”Another interesting French writer Jean Antoine Nicholas de Condorcet believed simply the more time that passes the more progress we have. With time there is progress in other words progress is inevitable. To Condorcetprogress was less labor and more time for people to do what they enjoy and make better things. He said “will augment at once the excellence and precision of his works, while they will diminish the time and labor necessary for executing them.” Dun J Li, a man who believed there can be no prejudice said “the new society we have in mind is characterized by honesty, progress, positively, liberty, equality, creativity beauty, goodness, peace, love, mutual assistance, joyful labor and aviation to the welfare of man kind.”
While some thinkers believed that modernity was progress a few believed that modernity was a negative thing. One of these thinkers was Fritz Lang. He believed that modernity was not progress. He thought that modernity enslaved people because the technology interesting thoughts on this topic. He was not only very against modernity but he was also against progress all together. He was against machinery. He believed that people should use their hands and feet and was against technology for technology lets any one distribute there writing. He says “Now any body writes and prints anything he likes and poisons peoples minds”.He was also against cities and education. One of the most interesting things about Gandhi in my opinion was that he accepted poverty. For example, he said, “Millions will always be poor”. Olive Schreiner a woman who believed that machines were taking all the jobs from men and women and only giving them to men. She believes that modernity  brings greater inequalities. She believes to progress we need more equality between men and women. While some authors believe that equality was inded what we were after but that madernity represented a problem.
Many of these intelligent writers had interesting but different things to say about if we  had been progressing. Yet they all acknowledge that this period represents one of the most dramatic changes in history.