The soldiers’ testimonies described cold-blooded murder of Gaza civilians and unreasonable commands passed during the operation. This lead to a promise by the military to form an investigation which was recently concluded, resulting in no file charges against any of the soldiers as their descriptions were based on hearsay. Their names have not been released in order to protect their identity, and the military investigative police did not publish any more information about the case.

Zamir’s efforts haven’t sat well with a certain patriotic constituency within Israeli society. The IDF is seen as a sacred national institution that is beyond reproach. I’m sure Zamir didn’t expect to be lionized for his efforts, he probably didn’t expect to be vilified either. Not only have Israelis accused him of smearing the IDF, they’ve accused him of aiding and abetting the nation’s enemies who are only waiting to pounce upon such stories to justify their hatred of Israel. The IDF itself initiated this campaign by revealing that Zamir had been imprisoned briefly in the 1990s when he refused to guard a settler group holding a provocative religious ceremony at Joseph’s Tomb. They attempted to shoot the messenger. (link)

While doing research for my Global Voices Online post, I scoured through Israblog, Tapuz and other Hebrew portals, trying to find posts from soldier first-hand witnesses who wrote about their experiences in Gaza. To my dismay, I could not find any. It is such a taboo topic; an Israeli must not help those haters validate their claims against our country. We were all soldiers. We all realize that these situations are not black and white. And even if these stories are somewhat true on a micro level, it is certainly not an IDF-wide phenomenon. But when they are taken out of context and amplified to the masses, it is easy to forget the source, while letting our emotions play out. Especially when messages are rapidly amplified through Twitter, the effects can be devastating ( a.k.a. what we saw last week re: #amazonFail)

Ever more often, we are witnessing the implications of living in a society with fast-paced, worldwide media coverage that can easily spin stories out from their original context. This is precisely how a closed door session between school colleagues turns into a worldwide news sensation against the reputation of one of the most powerful armies in the world. We must remember that the truth usually lies somewhere in-between, and make an effort to fact-check before letting our emotions passionately take over our logic.

Here’s a link to my GVO article:

[tags]Israel,global voices oline,testimonials,context,idf,soldiers,war,palestine,gaza[/tags]

Happy reading.

[tags]nytimes,gvo,global,voices,online,journalism,censorship[/tags]

I am a big sucker for the New York times audio+visual slideshows. The interactive environment that the NYTimes has built is a fantastic way to receive personal stories – stunning photos, solid narration and lots of links to videos and texts. I almost want to build something similar for GVO. With the joint forces of the 100+ Authors from around the world, the slideshow can concentrate on a different topic every time. Its creator will need to fetch a variety of CC flickr photos, and attach a short recording of the topic. There could be additional links to videos and other stories on the topic – A visual representation of a story for those readers who engage with the content better through images rather than text.

Below, a screenshot from the NYTimes Interactive slideshow about life in Gaza. Shortly narrated at first, then accompanied by four different perspectives on people who live in Gaza.

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Conclusion? I need many more hours in the day. On my list of to-do’s – find an effective, open source tool that would allow us to create these visual-audio slideshows for GVO. If that doesn’t exist… well… build it.

[tags]audio,news,global,voices,online,visual,slideshow,gvo[/tags]

…Having knowingly agreed to live under the city’s laws, he implicitly subjected himself to the possibility of being accused of crimes by its citizens and judged guilty by its jury. To do otherwise would have caused him to break his “social contract” with the state, and by so doing harming it, an act contrary to Socratic principle… (source: wikipedia)

I’m relatively new to the States, and can’t help but constantly compare its rules and people’s behaviours to those from my other hometowns. What I keep seeing here is a state of mind that encourages people to constantly cover their arse. When I go to the doctor and she needs to perform a minor operation, I sign papers waiving her responsibility over me. I assume this is mainly to protect her from patients taking legal action against her. But when I see a doctor, I want to trust her and not sign some *status-quo* agreement upfront. I come to you, and I pay you to fix my body out of trust. Whats next? Are we going to start signing Chinese manufacturer’s documents waiving our right to sue them when we buy toxic-glazed toys?
My driving teacher in Israel was extremely passionate about his work, and passed onto me the importance of making good judgements on the road. This week, I took the local driving test, and was failed *again* when I decided against passing a junction on a red light when taking an LA left turn. LA has a fundamental problem across town with its left turns. Most people wait until the light turns red, then take their chance at crossing the intersection. In the driving test I made a decision to wait it out, and thus was failed for not taking the turn, even if the light turned red. My tester claimed that the California law states you MUST take the left turn, even if on red. So first time I was failed because I did not look over my shoulder (stated in the law) every time I changed lanes, and second time because I did not take a left turn on red. What worries me is not only the fact that I know the DMV so well by now *cough*cough*, but that with such a crucial activity as driving, the rules in this state are created with some form of ‘ass covering‘ in the style of ‘just making sure‘ instead of thinking about what makes most sense. Why fill the city with 4-way stop signs ‘just to make sure’? Why not have only 2 in each junction, like in most of the developed world.

This country baffles me.

For being so open to entrepreneurs, to new ideas and *freedom*, it is a place where people are encouraged to follow stupid rules without thinking. I am sure Socrates would be grinning from his grave, but I am disturbed. Disturbed by my need to follow rules that make no sense in order to (pardon my French) ‘cover my ass‘.

[tags] rules, socrates [/tags]