Class

Class has been great experience, where I learned a lot. Enjoyed the movies we watched it taught me a lot about my history. I came from the Middle East and specifically from Palestine, where the conflict doesn’t need, people killing each other everyday. Israel from one side and Palestinian parties on the other, the class of professor Metcalf offered me great learning about my conflict, and the treaties that they don’t teach us about, such as Iran who is playing as the religious ruler of the Middle East, put it interest before their believes, or how king Abdullah went to Israel behind the Palestinians back asking for land if he doesn’t fight, or when Nasser fought his group leader in order for him to take over his nation and establishing his spy system. Thanks professor for this chance you giving where you gave me a lot of your valuable information, to make me understand more about the issues of the middle east, especially when Saddam had his own treaties with the Americans in order for him to take control over more land.

Somali

Somalis groups has been attacked ships crossing the red sea, kidnapping more than twenty ships till now, killing few members of each ship, and asking for money as a exchange of the ship and the goods on it. People have become with those ideas because of the lives they living. I know you will argue the question, “but that’s not an excuse for them to become kidnappers?” trust me if you see the stress and the lives they live, you will excuse them for what ever they have done, because most of them do it because they can’t feed their families and they need to stand up for themselves. So they don’t think any other way of doing that but by kidnapping the ships and asking for money in return.

new events

In Afghanistan few events has been happening, the American forces killed more then twenty Taliban fighters as a counter attack on their camps out of one of the Afghani cities, and president Obama admitted that Taliban considered now as one of the biggest threats on the American security, since they been taking over town on the borders between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Zayni Barakat

Zayni Barakat was written in 1971 discussing the state of Egypt during the 16th Century. Throughout the 16th Century, the Mamluk maintained control over the nation of Egypt, despite being on the brink of losing power to the invading Ottoman empire. Barakat, although an able leader, maintains power through tyranny. Although the novel is made up of the personal accounts of Barakat’s subjects, it is clear this book was written because Zayni Barakat is depicted in the image of Gamel Abdel Nasser, the prime minister of Egypt at the time the book was written. I would argue that Barakat, like Nasser, only came into power as result of political instability, and maintained power only through oppression.

Touba

Shahrnush Parsipur’s, Touba and the Meaning of Night, is considered one of the biggest achievements of Iranian literature written by a women. Her story tells the life of Touba a young girl who was restricted by her culture yet had to make life changing decisions at the young age of fourteen against a changing political setting. Parsipur invites us on a journey of complicated Iranian history defying Western stereotypes of Iranian women and culture. Her modern feminist approach has gotten her in arrested but she continues to write for she feels it is important to portray the lives of these Iranian women who do not have a voice of their own. In fact she started writing Touba and the Meaning of Night while she was imprisoned.

The Man who Changed the World

Iran before the revolution was becoming modernized and westernized, were government isolated Islam in their rule, were women were allowed rights, but everything changed after the revolution, when Khomeini decided that Iran should go back to be ruled under the Islamic rule, were he gathered huge numbers of Iranians to follow him.


Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran in 1979. Iran’s seizure of the US embassy in Tehran and the holding a staff of 66 for more than 400 days. Discussing issues between the east and the west were interest plays a huge rule in the equation we witnessed through the movie that Iran had their interests such as the 5 billion dollars the American government was holding belongs to the Iranian government. Even after the agreement over the American hostages Iran still picked benefit of moral since in the 1980’s and after the establishment of Hezbollah French citizens were taking hostages in Lebanon. The French government at the time asked Iran for help since they got influence over the Hezbollah, and they offered them more than 100 million dollars, the Iranian government refused since the opposite party in France offered 10 times more the number.

Israeli Palestinian conflict

On Thursday, we discussed the issues that faced that Arab and the Jewish nations, forcing them to fight each other, instead of living together on one land equally. Palestine was under the British mandate, before the establishment of Israel as a state. After allowing the Jews to come to Palestine from Europe where they were treated badly, Palestinians accepted the idea of having Jewish community in certain parts of Palestine, while they can’t get involve with politics. Jewish immigrants were allowed to come to Palestine only certain number a year, but the illegal immigrants were more than the legal ones. Palestine is a country for three religions, Muslims believes that, meanwhile Jewish minorities in Palestine started a revolt against the Palestinians who were not armed at the time, causing a massacres in every single city of Palestine, throwing more than 750000 Palestinians outside of their country, and taking their houses.

to Die in Jerusalem

The documentary “To Die in Jerusalem” showed and discussed the reality, which both sides live in. the idea of the movie in my opinion is to bring to humans all around the earth that killing is not the answer to solve any problems. In the beginning of the movie Rachel’s mother was talking about how she thinks that peace is the answer for everything, but we witnessed half way through the movie, when she said that she hates Palestinians, and she doesn’t love them, she just want to know if they knew about the incident. Also when the reporters mentioned that Ayyat’s mother is appealing in order not get her house demolished and we saw the reaction that Rachel’s mother gave, she was disappointed and she wanted the Israeli government to destroy the house. The movie had an idea, trying to figure out different ways besides killing in order to bring peace between Israel and Palestine, but we also have to remember, where ayyat’s family came from, Jaffa, which is a Palestinian city on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, that was occupied by the Israel forces in 1948. Ayyat’s family forced to be moved outside their city, leaving them in dehacescha refugee camp near Bethlehem city, what wrong did they do in order for someone to take their land from them? Rachel’s mother had great point of view but at the same time, she wasn’t willing to admit that her government has huge rule of the killing of her daughter, think logically, what would make a human, sacrifice his/her live? Israeli army is killing Palestinians everyday up till now, and they not allowing Palestinians from the west bank to visit Jerusalem and the Dom of the rock, which is the third holy mousaq for Muslims. I was born in Jerusalem in 1987, I never killed Israeli, I never shot at them, but still they won’t let me in Jerusalem, because I’m Palestinian. Through the movie Rachel’s bother, asked a good question “I wonder what would’ve happened for Rachel if terrorism weren’t around”.

Ottomans

After understanding the article of “The Gulhane Proclamation (1839), it made me believe more in Islam. As the article discuss in the beginning the raise of the Ottoman Empire, and how they ruled their country with the laws of Koran, the Ottomans did give freedom to believe in any religion you would like to believe in, but at the same time, you have to pay taxes if you not a Muslim. For Muslims also it was the same way, but they don’t call it taxes, its just every Muslim has to donate 3% of his income to the poor citizens of the nation. Muslims and non-Muslims liked the idea because they saw that everyone was living a good life under the laws and regulations of Islam. I wouldn’t consider it democracy because you had freedom of choosing your religion, but not necessarily having freedom of speech, or gay marriage, etc. but at the same time, we won’t see any problem with the system, because if the country is being ruled fairly, I don’t think they should be need to go against the government. The Ottoman Empire had it’s glorious time, when they were under the Islamic law, and look what happened to them when they started become westernized. America has some similarities with the Ottoman Empire, but the same time, American government taxes their citizens in order to give aid to different countries, and that why people in this country are not satisfied with the taxing system that this country has, but you can that the Ottoman actually took money from the rich to give to the poor.

Hamas vs Fatah

Yesterday was a great day for the Palestinians, after almost two year of fighting between the two dominte parties in Palestine, in Cairo Yesterday they both agreed to stop the figthing and to release the prisoners from both sides, which is good sign for the Palestinians to make them realize more, in order to become a country they need to know that they have to agree, and have one way of thinking, instead of having Hamas;s point of view, or Fatah's. both groups are going to have meeting with each other to establish ideas, that can work for both sides.

The Imperial Harem

I would like to discuss in my blog the differences between the role of women in America and the Ottoman Empire, in the 16th and 17th centuries. In the Ottoman Empire women ruled counties, the raised their sons to become sultans. In the other hand the American men, didn’t even give the women the right to vote till early of the 20th century, meanwhile since suluman the magnificent came to power, we witnessed more women involvement in the political and governmental discussions. In the 17th century American women were mostly interested about fashion, and the Ottoman women were more interested in getting educated, maybe not every woman in the Ottoman Empire got educated, but at the same time women of the Ottomans had a great amount of influence on the sultan and his discussions.

Gaza crisis

About a month and a half ago, Israel declared war at Gaza Strip (more than 1.5 million Palestinians living in an area that considers the most crowded area on earth, comparing the size of the land and the population). This war lasted more than 20 days, leaving behind more than 1300 Palestinians died, and more than 4000 injured badly, from the Israeli side, the results were different, since only 13 Israelis Died, and about 200 injured. The reason for the war Israel said, to protect Israel from Hamas’s rockets. Hamas has killed less than 5 Israelis in the past 6 months. So this make’s Israeli’s reason with no backup, what I believe is the reason for this war that Israel declared on Hamas in Gaza, is the Israeli elections that is going to take place in the next few days. The Israeli leaders used Gaza and the killing they created there in order to for them to raise their popularity between the Israeli Citizens, for them to win in the election.

Recent Events

In the past couple of days, an event occur in the Middle East, specifically in Iran, where the Iranian government launched their first space ship, to help them with the weather and see the geography of their land, and other peaceful projects. This act made the west unpleaset with the fact that Iran is actually improving, and trying to be a better country. why would France disagree with Iranian idea of development, while they have space ships that carries rockets. Also America, why do justify your act as peaceful acts, even though the acts that america takes most of the are not peaceful, who are they to tell another nation, what they can or can't have in their own land, America was established under the name of freedom. the dream land where everyone gets a chance.

the creation of Islam

God sent the Qur’an to Mohammad as a last message from god, telling him, to show humanity the right path, in order for them to survive hell. Mohammad was illiterate, he lost his parents while he was six years old, but he was honest, respectful man, a lot of people around didn’t believe at the beginning, so they challenged him and they brought their best poets to defeat Mohammad, but how could u defeat the god is words. Recently people started viewing Islam differently, such as terrorist religion, Muslims hate the west, but they forgot that word Islam, means peace, love and respect.

Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: movie

After living in the middle east, specifically in Palestine for the past 16 years, and coming here noticing that everyone believes that the Palestinians are bad side of the conflict and are the ones refusing peace, and I keep asking questions to my peers about the conflict and it all seems one sided and all seems that the American government does not want its people to see what is actually occurring on the other side of the world. I was please to see this movie and see how this is one of the few movies that shows the truth about the conflict at hand. This movie may seem to favor the Palestinian side; however, I feel that this is the reality. They take in consideration every aspect from both sides and not focus on one side like the American media due to political, social and economic ties. I had to deal with all of this, every time I want to leave my city to go to a city just 45 minutes away, I need to pass three checkpoints, stopping at each one and showing my id, getting search 80% of the time, watching old women struggling and getting yelled at from an 18 year old who is practicing his army duties in an inhumane way. I am glad that my peers where able to see the struggle 4 million Palestinians deals with in their daily lives.