Nas drew my attention to the fact that The Jerusalem Post ran a story today about the on-line reactions to Jordan’s upcoming Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts (RSICA). First of all, the title of the Post’s article — Arab bloggers upset Jordanian school open to Israelis — is completely inaccurate. It was not Arab bloggers who were upset. In fact, both Amin, Laith and myself were absolutely thrilled about the project. It was on-line commenters, most of whom were anonymous, that expressed dissatisfaction with the project. Obviously, the journalist who wrote this piece does not know the difference between a blogger and a commenter.
I also noticed that the journalist — Ruth Eglash — decided to highlight the exact same comments that I highlighted on my blog last week without mentioning the fact that I, the blogger, was excited about the project and without making any reference to my blog. It is obvious here that the journalist did not do a fair and forthright job, as she focused only on the negative comments and reported inaccurate information by referring to commenters as bloggers. What irresponsible journalism!
“I’d suggest they don’t and that you shouldn’t tar anyone who has found a few that are non believers in super human rights”
And how can you tell? Israel is a democracy and since its founding its citizens voted for leaders to wage war, built jewish-only towns, expell non-jews, turn down arab offers for peace, kill non-jewish civilians with impunity, all of these things were CHOSEN by Israelis who ELECTED there leaders. I don’t belive in touch feely measures of who is nice and who is not. This is how Arabs got screwed over and over. We need substance, if not action, we need statements made in the open that leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that this jew setting before us is not some supremacist scum. And nothing flushes those scum out than an unambigious declations endorsing the right of return for non-jews to their homes without ifs thens of buts. Other than that, we deal with no KKKs or Zionazies. Supremacy is evil that must be fought no matter what and no matter who.
Natasha,I luv your blog and know that you are really a moderate and person of goodwill.
This fuss is ridiculous because Israel has diplomatic relations with Jordan,,close intellegence co-operation .. Shin Bet Director Yuval Diskin meets regularly in Aqaba with Jordanian and Egyptian Intelligence chiefs …there’s good trade relations and QIZ’s between Jordan /Israel and one has Jordanian students who are enrolled at Israeli universities and at Arava Institute for Environmental Studies
http://www.arava.org/new/
I wonder Hi if you think all jews feel that way. I’d suggest they don’t and that you shouldn’t tar anyone who has found a few that are non believers in super human rights as decent people. You seem to accept it is possible, so you should accept that she might have found a few.
Natasha, I am glad you can co-exist with israelis. do you think you can co-exist with Neonazis, Afrikanners, KKK, Alqaeda if there were nice to you and polite. What’s your criteria for people worthy of co-existance?
Would you accept to co-exist with an American who belives blacks and latinos are a demographic threat and that its morally acceptable to expell or coerce blacks out of the US to maintain a white majority? We call those KKK in the US. In Palestine, we call them Zionists.
We have no problem with jews who don’t belive they have Super Human Rights.
The reason for any excitement is simple: This sounds like a world-class school with the backing of one of the most well regarded filmmakers in the world. Anyone involved in film would be interested and the fact that it is coming to Jordan, where avenues for filmmaking and filmmakers are woefully few, would make most any filmmaker or filmmaker-want-to-be a bit excited. Of course, the downside is that it has to contain this political component. But as most surely know, that is often the case. Free trade agreements and so many others came with a cost and so does this. It’s a bitter pill to have to continually swallow but there are issues that need addressing in some form or another. Those wiser than we seem to think this is the best way to address them. Who can be sure until this is history behind us.
But I think the issue here, as spelled out by others before me, is simply that this writer for a fairly esteemed publication came out into the blogosphere and picked up this story broken by this blogger and manipulated it for titillation’s sake. Here it was noted that the institute was a welcome initiative, as it was on the other blogs that chose to highlight it. But here too, perhaps in the interest of full disclosure, it was noted that there were some who were dismayed by the mixing of Israelis into this. I took that observation to mean it was being left open for we, the commenters, to address. And of course, that’s where things got ugly, as the writer for the newspaper chose to pick and choose things to craft her own reality. That created problem number one. Then that writer chose to completely detach herself from a source and decontexualize a story. The blog that writer took it from and others she mentioned were actually supportive of the idea. When that writer was finished with her article that was not the truth presented.
I did not make my self clear about what I meant by the Not So Free World. I meant the USA, where poeple with anti-israeli views are charged with bogus accusations then shipped to some backward East or central European or 3rd world countries where thugs torture them for ca$h. The Not So Free world is a vast dark evil empire.
Dear Batir,
As I said I’m excited “about the project” as it will provide aspiring Jordanian movie makers with the chance to pursue their dreams. The possibility of having Israelis in this institute doesn’t change how I feel about the project as it is very promising. I am someone who believes in co-existence. When I was studying London I had Israeli and Jewish classmates. We all co-existed and formed good relationships.
And of course you are more than welcome to disagree with me:)
OK Jeff. Nice to meet you.
Well Natasha I do not recall a previous time where I have a contradictory opinion to yours but why should you be so excited about mixing Jordanians and Israelis? I ,ean, you can say it is “OK” based on your political convictions, but to say “excited” is a little bit provocative as Israel is not providing anything to Arabs than bombs. You have all the right to express your opinion but the way you are defending your “excitement” that was not mentioned by the newspaper is really strange. I hope this comment will not touch on the mutual respect we have for each other since it is more precious for me than this whole subject.
ahahah LOL You have no idea who you are talking to do you? Of course I support the right of return for Jews and expelled non-Jews alike. But I do wonder how everyone will fit.
And it’s not sugar coating things to point out, again, that the subject of this posting is the bogus nature, the shoddy ethics, the crap nature of the article written in the Jerusalem Post.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=1&cid=1159193355384&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull