Making occupation more efficient
Amal Abdo’s heart is in the right place so I do not wish to discredit or detract from this student’s innovative technology. Its just far from the most ideal application.
Then again, that could be easy for us ‘armchair’ observers to judge, if it saves a life.
Perhaps its just my skepticism that we are in danger of focusing upon only ameliorating the effects, without addressing the structural causes of the violence of occupation.
Mobile phones engaged in developing solutions
University of Sydney News | 24 October 2006
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Amal Abdo (left), Mark Kwanten (centre) and Andy Dong test out their new mobile phone application |
After reading about long queues at Palestinian-Israeli border crossings, and the frustrations and even deaths that can occur as people wait for medical care, a University of Sydney student decided to create mobile phone technology to solve the problem.
After entering your personal details, the reason for your visit and your time of travel into your phone Amal Abdo’s program tells you which checkpoint to go to. It will even give you a unique code to use when you get there.
“The phone tracks your GPS location to know which checkpoint is closest to you,” says Abdo, who created the work as part of a final year design project set by new media lecturer Andy Dong.
Her design gives “Israelis the security they want, but at the same time minimises disadvantage to the Palestinians,” she says.
Wow, very intersteing. But I’m not sure how this will help. It’s not like Israel stops everyone at the border crossings just for fun and to torture people. A suicide bomber can easily send the SMS saying that they want to come into Israel to visit their sick cousin, but still try to smuggle a bomb into the country. It’s a great way to tell you what the closest checkpoint is, but I’m sure that they already know (not the bombers, the people in general).
Then again, at least someone has some initiative in trying to make the situation better.
Hi Taltalk and thanks for your comment. I have no doubt from reading some of your blog and from your comment that you respond in good faith and sincerity. Its true, its not like all Israeli soldiers act in the way you describe, most are just doing their job. Unfortunately some do stop hapless Palestinians “just for fun and to torture people” and people are routinely harassed, unduly detained and treated like cattle.
This is well documented and I’d be happy to provide references. I’m not tarring all Israeli soldiers or all Israeli citizens with the same brush, of course, and Israel’s security is important, as is Palestine’s. Where we diverge in our views is in how this is achieved. The Wall cuts into Palestinian land, and illegal settlements are built every day. I’m of the view that policies such as this serve to undermine Israel’s security. From our point of view (who criticise Israel), we wonder why Israel would pursue such a self-destructive, occupation-perpetuating course that alienates its neighbours and goes against its own enlightened self-interest. This is debateable, of course, but its how things look from our perspective regarding Israel’s actions as a colonial settler state.
In one of your responses you voice incomprehension about how the Palestinians could have elected Hamas, a “terrorist organisation” and it was instructive to in turn read your perspective about this. In my perspective, Hamas was democratically elected and is not universally regarded as a terrorist organisation. The US and EU by no means make up the majority of the world. Hamas held their fire for well over a year and have a distinct political and military wing. Its not up to us to starve a population simply becauser we do not like their democratic choice. I can see why the Palestinans chose Hamas (though the result did surprise me), who were far less corrupt and more effective and politically clean than their then opponents.
Incidentally, the most effective way to dismiss an organisation struggling for independence is to label them a terrorist organisation today. If it were so sixty years ago, many in Israel’s first government would have been labelled the same. The current political climate is also pertinent: how does the world regard far-right Lieberman’s entry/ alliance with Kadima and his well-known racism? I’d be interested in your views on this anyway.
I do agree with you that at the very least someone is using their initiative to alleviate suffering, and question in the same way you do in your subsequent blog entry (though for different reasons) how this initiative is channelled. To me, this is just a band-aid and the deeper structural causes of occupation need to be addressed.
I value your input and feel free to comment and come by any time. I know I am very critical of Israel’s policies. I am also in great admiration of Israel’s peace movement and I endeavour to feature wherever possible hopeful stories of Israelis and Palestinians working together. On a people-to-people level, many wonderful grassroots initiatives can often be found. Pity that this is not always reflected in officialdom and our so-called representatives … but I hold out great hopes for civil society, and am glad to have made your acquaintance.
First, I’d like to say that I’m happy to see that you are at least trying to present as much of an equal view on the situation. It is very hard to find that nowadays, especially in blogs where a vast majority of people only receive and give one side of the conflict.
I will try to address all of your points. You’re right, not ALL Israeli soldiers are saints, but hardly any army in the world can claim that. It’s enough just to mention the pictures from Iraq with the US and British soldiers to prove that point. However for the most part these are 18-year-old kids and 35-year-old men who would like nothing more than to be at home.
As for the wall. If you ask almost any Israeli (and I’m not talking about any extremists or fundamenstalists), you will hear that in an ideal world we wouldn’t need to wall. Tt’s uglying up our country as well. We don’t want it. but the documented proof is that stince that wall has gone up, the amount of suicide bombers making it into Israel has decreased dramatically.
The Palestinian government is doing a great job (I’m being completely serious here) in stopping terrorists. I know they do a lot to make sure they don’t get through, and they work religiously with israel on this. (Again, I am being serious.) When you couple that together with the roadblocks and the border points, they are extremely efficient together at stopping ALMOST all the suicide bombers from getting through into Israel.
Unfortunately, the system is not yet working perfectly.In an ideal world, and the world that Israelis hope is nearby, Israel won’t have to put up roadblocks anymore and we would be able to depend 100% on the Palestinian government to stop any potential terrorism from entering our country.
If you think that no Israelis opppose the building of the wall then you are wrong. We would much rather this money go towards helping the poor and homeless in our country, to help with hunger, education, etc. We have plenty of domestic problems that have gone almost completely unaddressed since the inception of the country for the simple reason that if you can’t ensure your citizens are safe, you can’t expect to work on welfare.
No one here wants to starve anyone, Palestinian or otherwise. When you have terrorist orgainzations (excluding Hamas since you are basically right, for the past year at the very least they haven’t carried out any acts of terror) threatening to send in terrroists on our holiest of days, sometimes we have no choice but to disallow any of them to enter our country. even then they get through.
Speaking of Hamas, however, they still don’t recognize our right to exist and still call for the destruction of our country. So while they have temporarily (their words) halted terrorist attacks, they still openly state that we should be wiped off the face of this earth. A large portion of the problems they are having nowadays is because they refuse to recognize Israel and enter peace talks. You can’t possibly expect us to withdraw all our troops and let palestinians get everything without getting anything in return.
We already pulled out of the Gaza strip and misplaced thousands of people. In return we only got more terrorism and nothing in return. So, yes, it was unilateral and it was intended to be, but you’d think one act of good will would be returned with another. it’s the only way peace can be achieved. There is no relationship in the world where one person gives and gives and gives and the other side doesn’t. One will end up breaking up with the other.
As for calling any organization trying to establish their country a terrorist organization, that is true in cases where excessive killing is used as the only means. You’re right about Israel having resistance organizations that assisted in establishing the country. Yes, they also resorted to physical harm, though they went more for blowing up bridges. There were several organizations struggling to help create the state of israel, and the moment that it was declared these ceased to exist. The haganah and palmach became part of the israeli army (they didn’t have any terrorist activities anyway – they didn’t believe in violence, those were the irgun and lechi), and the irgun and lechi were invited to join israeli forces as well. Ben Gurion, the first prime minister of israel, almost caused a civil war in the case of Altalena, preferring to shoot his own people (israeli jews) than let them smuggle arms into jerusalem with the sole purpose of attacking arabs. You can read more about that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altalena
As for Liberman, eyes are wide open right now. The labor party is threatening to leave the coalition if Liberman gets out of line, and Liberman in resopnse has stated that he does not intend on changing the directin the government has been going in.
I can understand the election of Hamas in a way – the Palestinians are desperate for a leadership that will do something, and hamas acted, even if it was by blowing hundreds of israeli women and children to pieces. You think we dont’ have hundreds of dead children? you don’t see the pictures because we do not publicize them out of respect for the dead (which, by the way, why open caskets don’t exist in Judaism).
You’re right, the cell phone solution is a band-aid, and not a very effective one. mostly one of those with disney characters on it. My point about that article (which you may have seen on my blog because i posted the story as well) was that people are trying to take care of the symptoms in order to alleviate the pain as much as possible so that an actual diagnosis can be found and treated.
I await the day where someone will suddenly think up a solution to solve the problems on both sides. I think israel has a lot to offer the palestinians. thousands of them work in israel anyway, and were the terrorism to end, more would be able to work in our country, which would help them economically. For years they were the victims of arafat’s government where the funds they received went to fund themselves instead of assisting the palestinians who needed it for thei infrustructure, education, and even food and medications.
I agree with you 100% about the illegal settlements being built. they are illegal because the government does not approve either, and you have seen that they have torn them down. yesterday or the day before there was a meeting adn articles about pulling out of those territories voluntarily. i’m not sure i’ve seen it in english, but i can find it for you if you’d like. Most israelis (again, not extremists and fundamentalists) agree that we shouldnt’ build lands, and if makes you feel any better, we are often perplexed by why people would choose to build those settlements to begin with.
Israelis and palestinians have worked together before, and it saddens me that it is more than anything due to our governments (though i do see the palestinians government more to blame here than ours). You can read stories all the time about israelis who donated their family members’ organs to palestinians and vice versa.
There’s no reason this can’t go on into other categories as well. israelis aren’t anti-arab, which you can see both by our peace treaties with jordan and egypt (not to mention tourism with egypt, and former tourism with jordan until the intifada broke out in 2000), as well as the large amount of israeli arabs.
I think the biggest problem facing us right now is the fact that while israelis accept palestine’s right to exists, our right to exist is still not recognized my most arab and muslim countries, which you can’t deny (i can point you to many sources – from Ahmadinejad to palestinians officials to the hezbollah). I think once our mere existance is accepted and recognized, we will then have some more common ground upon which we will be able to begin building 2 states for 2 peoples.
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Thanks for taking the time to posit a substantial response, much appreciated. As you allude in your trackback (comment #4) these issues are perennial ones and will likely be occupying the best minds (including ours ;) ) with many postings that are variations on the same themes. Usually we establish the lay of the land with the basics (so I’m mindful that many of these “establishing” points will be basic and appear very general) before moving on to specifics and nuances.
While you and I have no doubt posted on the topic many a-time before, perhaps what is new is the opportunity to have established a civil dialogue and common ground between two peoples whose respective nations just went through a war.
I can agree with much of what you say, but I also feel that you at times project your own good will on to the actions and intentions of Israeli policies. If only! I’ll endeavour to illustrate this in my response how I think you are over-generously ascribing the best of intentions at all times. Lest you think its only the Israeli government, I also feel you are generous in your description of PA administrations, many of which have been corrupt (you do say this with respect to Arafat).
First, I appreciated what you had to say about the Haganah et. al. The Haganah were effectively subsumed into the Israeli Army as you point out and hopefully the same thing can happen with the military wing of Hezbollah being integrated into the Lebanese Army (politically, you may know they already have 2 ministers in the government). Thanks very much for the link which I’ll read – I’m fascinated by the history of these early groups.
My central proposal is that the most effective way to stop the tide of suicide terror acts and would-be suicide terrorists is quite straightforward – simply end the occupation and all its attendant conditons of immiseration. People are driven to desperation, squeezed economically and financially, their land often stolen, their olive groves destroyed, their families terrorised, their livelihoods threatened, their movement curtailed in what amounts to living in open air prisons.
Terrorism exists not because of some innate propensity toward violence on the part of the Palestinians, but because of the unbearable situation outlined above. Palestinians too, like most Israelis, simply want to be with their families, to have a modicum of dignity and a life worth living. The successful, educated and economically well-off Palestinians returning from overseas are now being increasingly barred from re-entering all of a sudden, as well documented by Amira Hass in Ha’aretz and other people. Why is that? Why do we get the distinct impression that Israeli officials do not want Palestine to be prosperous and successful?
Israel has every right to build a wall if it chooses. But on its own land, not Palestinians. The Palestinians are being stripped of their rights, THEY are not recognised–how can we expect them to recognise Israel–and then expected to be grateful because of a belated withdrawal from Gaza (all the while expanding settlements in the West Bank) and never really ending the stranglehold on Gaza anyway – calling it a disengagement is thus a bit disingenuous. The daily incursions, land grabs and harassment are not unfortunate incidentals but often part of calculated policy. You say for example “no one wants to starve the Palestinans”; I’m sure you recall that awful comment about “putting them on a diet”. This calculated policy is all part and parcel of a larger vision related to greater Israel which unfortunately involves transfer, voluntary or otherwise, of Palestinians.
If Israel was serious about securing its own future and security based upon a viable Palestinian state that would remove Palestinian grievances, why has it been pursuing these Bantustan policies that are effectively make a two state solution impossible? Good faith negotiations based upon a capital in East Jerusalem and pre-1967 borders in line with international opinion (/ UN resolutions) would work wonders in dissipating Palestinian grievances and establishing mutual recognition.
Instead, each time there is a real “peace offensive” the squeeze is on to tighten the noose and produce even more barbaric conditions and internal tumult, leading the Israelis to claim, always, “but there is no partner for peace”. The numerous metamorphoses Arafat went through in how he was presented and regarded (dependeing upon his willingness to accept the unacceptable bantustans) attest to this.
You rightly point to the fact that peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt should serve as a springboard to treaties with other countries in the region, whose hostility has been largely based on the displacement of Palestinians. There have been large Jewish populations (still are many thousands in Iran) in many Arab countries in the past – a century ago, one third of Baghdad was Jewish, and this should serve as a reminder of past co-existence and portend a better future.
The latest “prisoner’s document” gives in principle Palestinian recognition of Israel, as does the Saudi peace plan. As for that President Ahmadinejad, I do not think he has an intention to nuke Israel. The often-repeated allegation that he said “wipe of the map” is also a mistranslation and was closer to “erase from the pages of time or history” (ie alluding to regime change).
I guess that’s another topic though!
I do agree, and am not sure what to do about, the fact that Israel’s coming under so much condemnation, however much of it is justified, may just cause it to collectively back into a defensive corner. And that is not going to achieve much. Israel has much to be proud. The feat of reviving Hebrew is just amazing (I’d like to learn the language some day) and I’d like to see it be a regional leader and friendly with its neighbours, on equal partner terms, not chauvinistic terms.
Better leave it there for now.