Tag Archives: Israel

Israel and Palestine must compromise

Leave a reply

By Rashid Binnur
Imperial Beach, Calif.

By all accounts, there is a major discrepancy between the number of Israelis and Palestinians who have died in the conflict in Gaza that erupted last month. According to the United Nations, more than 1,800 Palestinians have died, while the death toll in Israel, according to its government, stands at just 67.

But these disparate death tolls reflect not just a war in Gaza, but an attack on a nation’s sovereignty — a sign that both Israel and its backers in the United States refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of the Palestinian state. Continue reading →

Facts of Gaza conflict elude many in New York

Leave a reply
A demonstrator displays a flag at a gathering for Universal Peace Day, which commemorates the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on Aug. 5.

A demonstrator displays a flag at a gathering for Universal Peace Day, which commemorates the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on Aug. 5.

By Angela Kim, Amna Nawaz, Nicholas Santiago and Hasani Valdez
with the staff of the Princeton Summer Journal

ByTheNumbersNew Yorkers are known for their global-mindedness, diversity and strong opinions. But in a survey conducted by the Princeton Summer Journalism Program last week in New York, a majority of respondents did not know some of the basic facts of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza.

A large majority of 410 people interviewed around Union Square on Aug. 5 did not know the name of the leader of Hamas, the political faction which governs Gaza and is regarded as a terrorist group by the United States. Although 58-year-old Khaled Meshaal has run Hamas for the past ten years, 99 percent of those surveyed could not name him. Just three percent of those interviewed were aware that the Hamas leader resides in exile in Qatar.

Of those interviewed, just under 25 percent correctly identified the approximate number of Israeli casualties, which numbered 67 as of Aug. 6, according to BBC world news. (Responses within the range of 47-87 were considered correct answers.) Similarly, just under 25 percent of those polled correctly identified the number of Palestinian casualties within a range of 1300-2300. The number was 1,888 on Aug. 4, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. Continue reading →