Mideast Sites

I've been reading several blogs that are commenting on the Anglican Church's support for their Christian Arab bretheren. Usually, when this support and sympathy is expressed, the implicit reply is "well what about the Jewish victims?" We weep at those terrible times also - without asserting that innocent Palestinians are also responsible. So we continue to hear and tell stories about the victimization, humiliation and destruction of Palestinian lives.

I'm not sure if such a question is meant to justify Israeli aggressiveness [and it is aggressive - they will even admit to such] or merely undermine the universality implied by witnessing to Palestinian lives. Conservative bloggers, such as Midwest Contemptuous Journal, imply that when you weep at the death of one Palestinian, an innocent one, a child, you implicitly defend terrorism and fantasize about the eradication of Israel.

For the sake of promoting better understanding of the crisis:

Middle East Report - excellent and unbiased, with an invaluable primer.

Catcus 48 - comprehensive, well maintained, interesting and compassionate. Good links, including links to smaller Jewish and Muslim sites.

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs - non partisan and academic. The board consists primarily of "Arabists."

The Episcopal Peace and Justice Ministries

Haaretz is an Israeli Daily worth reading regularly.

Churches for a Middle East Peace - Ok website with a good page of links to original documents.

Bitterlemons, a site of Palestinians and Israelis working together [beautiful site, with compelling articles]

Of course, the answer is not to rehash history, but to promote projects where Israelis and Palestinians have to work together.

Comments

[Norris Battin]

Thanks. These are great links. Your thoughts about the Jerusalem Post? That link is not on your list.

[dkp]

Dear "John:"

I have two comments; one on-point, and one that's more personal. The on-point comment is that i'd like to add MEMRI to your fine list of links. I think that they do great work in disseminating information instead of bias. They're available online at http://www.memri.org/#

The second, as I said, is more personal. I managed to pull off that wedding ceremony I told you about when we had lunch together in August of this year. While I wasn't able to find the time to correspond with you about it, I was quite mindful of the last wedding I saw you perform, and my memories of what you said that day were extremely informative. Thanks again for all you've done and all you continue to do . . .

Best,

dkp