Free Fall in Syria

In the Newspaper The New York Times there's an article called Three Years of Strife and Cruelty Put Syria in Free Fall published on March 17, 2014. The article talks about how the Syrian civilians are fleeing into other countries in order to escape from the conflict.

It's now the fourth year since Syrians revolted in a peaceful way and turned out into a civil war between the government and the people. The government attacks the people in such a violent way that is opening a miserable path for the Syrian country.

There has been videos and photos of all the amazing atrocities that Syrian civilians are going through. According to The New York Times, "They capture appalling suffering on video and beam the images out to the world: skeletal infants, body parts pulled from the rubble of homes, faces stretched by despair, over and over."

n Syria, 700,000 homes are damaged or destroyed. Above, a road in Deir Ezzor in January.CreditAhmad Aboud/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Citation:

Barnard, Anne. "Three Years of Strife and Cruelty Put Syria in Free Fall." The New York Times. The New York Times, 17 Mar. 2014. Web. 18 Mar. 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/world/middleeast/three-years-of-strife-and-cruelty-put-syria-in-tailspin.html?hp&_r=0>.

Race

It is very easy to differentiate a Chinese person from an American personas but this isn't the only way of determining the race of an individual. The idea of race is a modern idea because in ancient time they weren't divided by physical appearances but by religion, status, or language. The first time we can see in practice a definition of race is when Americans created slavery demanding control over similar physical characteristics.  Although this beliefs were taking seriously in the past, in the modern age there is proof that there are no sub species in the human race, we are among the most similar of all species.

In The Power of an Illusion they show how there are no genes or traits that determine a persons race. The genes that determine the sin color are totally different to the ones that determine the hair color or texture in an individual, thats why we can base the definition of ones race in their skin color. 

Racism still exist and society has demanded better opportunities to the whites more the the black race which clearly shows how people don't understand the real definition of race. 

The following link is a way of defining race by Ian F. Haney in a different king of way.

http://racism.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=268:race010101&catid=14&Itemid=117

Citation:
PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2014. <http://www.pbs.org/race/000_General/000_00-Home.htm>.

Issue of the Defense Wall in Palestine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2lMJKEBXDA

This video is very interesting because it talks about the reasons behind the creation of the defensive wall surrounding Israel. It also talks how Israel supplies Gaza with fresh drinking water and electricity with actual reservoirs. This video is taken or taught by an Israeli point of view also from an American point of view because they are economically supported by the United States of America.

Reflection: Lemon Tree

In the movie Lemon Tree we can appreciate how Salma,  a Palestinian resident in the West Bank fights for her lemon trees planted by her great grand parents. The Israeli minister of defense builds a house right by her side and Salma's lemon trees are demanded as a security risk. Salma hires a lawyer to prevent the powerful man from having her ancestral trees removed, but there are little possibilities of winning the case against the Israeli minister.In addition Salma begins to fall in love with her lawyer which is inappropriate because she is a widow. Even though the minister wife clearly doesn't agree with her husband decision, Salma couldn't escape the Supreme Court declaration of cutting down her trees down to 30 cm tall. 

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has taken place for so long and the reasons of the conflict reside too back in history. In the movie we can see how Palestinian people are conditioned to follow orders from Israeli people even if their rules are unfair. The movie shows how religion and cultural beliefs clearly affects Salma's feelings and actions until she start doing what she likes without living under those ideas.



Picture taken from the movie Lemon Trees.