Israel Palestine

For this semester group project I chose to work on the topic of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Now our paper as well as our presentation is focusing mainly on the affect that the turmoil is taking, and has taken on the children living in Palestine-Israel, and through this area of analysis I have come a crossed a method of social change that intrigues me.
The 2001 movie "Promises" is a documentary that follows the lives of various children living all throughout the country. The narrator of the movie goes into the homes of all of the Palestinian children and asks them if they would like to meet and spend time with some Israeli children, and vice-versa. Most of the Israeli children feel that either it is too dangerous to associate with Palestinians or they just don't want. However there are two brothers(twins) who are not Jewish by religion but rather just ethnicity that are willing to go to a Palestinian city to get to know some of the children of Palestine. The narroator of the movie takes the twins to this city where they meet four Palestinian children and spend the day with their family.
The aim of this is to establish a bond and trust between the children when they are at a young age so that when they grow up there is no longer that conflict between the two batteling neighbors. However the surrmounting tension proves to be too much for the children and after just a few short years lose contact with each other. The twins end up joining the Israeli army to fight the war against Palestine, and the Palestinian children that had expierced freindship from the twins grow up to have no less destain for Israel than any other Palestinian.
Now although in this isolated case the goal of the non-violent action may not have been met, I feel as though this method of social change stands a good chance at working. The concept of educating the young so that they will grow up to be wise is not a novel concept in the least rather it is one that has been used and tested through the times. If only there had been more children that were willing to make that comprimise and meet the others; it might stand a chance at working in the future, however like I have said many times in class I believe that social change movents that are based around non-violence need to have a substantial amount of people to make an impression.

Guest speaker Sarah Worley

Last class Sarah Worley a communications professor at Juniata came to our class to talk to us about the use of technology in the pursuite of social change and non-violence practices. One of the first points she touched on was that of the Digital resistance. She said that is was a movement that uses digital technology as a form of protest by ecploiting infromation as a medium. I found this really intersting because it raises so many question about the "virtual" world and whether or not what goes on "on line" counts as non-violence.
For example does a vietual march count and a protest march? How many people do you need for it to be effected because it is online and it is harder to see the vast number of supporters. Also brought to my mind is whether not it can be as effective as the non-violent practices we had been talking about in class.
When I was comparing the differences and similarities in the movements, it really only came down the the fact that one was on line and the other was off line. Yes, there are obvious differnces, however both take coordination and organization. Both types of movements take skill a cause and people who support that goal. Also for both on line and off line protests and acts of non-violence there are people who are in the opposition.
The world that we are living in today is taking such a mondern turn, everything is run by technology and is electronically based, for example our very own college stopped printing bills it only uses "ebills" now which can only be accessed from and online account. This increase in the use of technology leads me to the conclusion that on line or virtual protests can be just as effective as off line protests.