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Thank you for viewing this blog. Feel free to view the links on the right. The ‘Video Materials” section is especially interesting for those who want to get a further understanding of the conflict from many perspectives.
Please give us your constructive feedback. We are looking forward to discussing this subject with you.
No offense, but your blog was a bit of a mixed bag in my mind. On the one hand, I liked the formatting of your blog, with the top menu serving as the main page tabs and the side menu serving as a sort of bibliography. Even that had its problems, though, with the tabs crowding over themselves, though this may be more of a problem with the blog format itself and not due to any failures on your end. On the other hand, almost all of your blog seems to be quotes taken from other sources, and not original writing, with the exception of the occasional ‘summary’ at the bottom of some pages and the conclusion. Admittedly, the conclusion was quite good, but this only proves to me that you could have put a bit more time into writing the blog for yourselves and not just quoting other sources. The conclusion demonstrates that you are insightful analysts, but the rest of the blog is otherwise something of a letdown.
Gaza Strip bloggers,
Your blog was a little difficult to follow, because there was so much thrown together. It was also mostly quotations and research from academic articles, and not so much your own analysis. There is so much interesting information throughout your blog; it is just a matter of analyzing it further and creating your own analysis. Your conclusion, however, is very well done. It summarized your blog very well and clearly states the main challenges in the Gaza Strip, who is being affected, as well as what is being done to aid the region. At the end of your conclusion, you make a very valid statement pointing out that more attention should be given to the environmental issues relating to the water crisis, rather than focusing so much on terrorism. Since terrorism is a big issue in this region, I thought it was wise that you pointed out that the water crisis should be taken more seriously since it is affecting a great amount of people in that region.
The background on the region is concise and informative, however, aside from the simple back and forth of violent advances, what does the history state concerning the environmental issue? The group mentions a water issue (i.e. the un-sustainability of the water being used by the local populations), however little more is said about a collaborative effort to fix the environmental issue, rather than the social and political one (perhaps this is because there is none; however, that could be a point addressed by the bloggers).
The quotes utilized by the blog group paint a vivid picture of the situation in the Gaza Strip, however, more analysis on the part of the group is lacking. Perhaps the group could have discussed the issues of regionalism and regulatory harmonization addressed by Kernohan and De Cain as a possible unified effort of forcibly linked entities who share a common humanitarian (grassroots) and ecological (water source) bond. Also, the religious dispute is one discussed in length by Finley-Brook in terms of disparate identities. She lays out the conflict of communal land and ethnicity in her article on "Demarcation in Northeastern Nicaragua" ( a very relevant topic to the power struggle between the Jewish and Arab populations in the Strip). Finley-Brook claims, "it is not enough to create autonomous indigenous spaces – these constructs must also make a positive material difference in people's lives and livelihoods" (Finley-Brook 360). Clearly this rings true in the Gaza Strip. Cooperation and collaboration are lacking between religious groups, thus negatively affecting the local communities, who are drinking contaminated water at unsustainable rates.
This blog presents very good evidence of the issues in the Gaza Strip – quotes, references, websites, and audio-visual material. Yet, the critical analysis of the problems, reasoning for dispute, and recommendations for a resolved environmental (and perhaps social) problem could be stronger and more apparent.
The analysis section was a bit hard to look through and really tell what your group thought of the Water Issues in the Gaza strip. The “Theory” page, which I assumed was going to have an application of the theory, i.e. the analysis. It seems to be a large collection of relevant, yet un-analyzed quotes. There was a bit of summary at the end, but other than that it wasn’t what I was expecting.
After looking around your blog and its links to such things as the various SWOT analysis’, I think that you have the good potential for analyzing this issue in the Gaza Strip, and may well have already done so. However,all the information and your analysis are scattered throughout the blog. If I hadn’t actively gone hunting for the information I thought was lacking, I probably would have missed it entirely. The analysis lacks the “oomph” that it would have had the potential for, had you given it its own page.
I immediately thought of Carr III when looking at your specific case. In the Gaza Strip, its all about making both nations come together or at least securing the safety of people and drawing lines that should never be crossed. First one on the list should involve the ceasing of attacks that contaminate the water. Carr’s article focuses on regional management and discourse of relatively peaceful areas– Central America and Europe. The Gaza Strip presents an even more challenging context, because it’s obvious that the security of the people is at a very high risk, which has only been intensified by water issues.
Another point I thought of is the fact that the scales of power are very unbalanced. The nations being affected by the water contamination have a very complex network of allies around the world, therefore influencing the strength of their voice when it comes to the environmental protection and welfare of the area. This makes me think of Sletto’s argument that environmental politics are often guises for the playing out of destructive power politics. This case study also reminds me of some of Dickens’ work, in which he approaches the concepts of nation and state, which are clearly at tension in the case of the Gaza Strip. These concepts of belonging and representation are essential to beginning to work toward improving the water situation in the Gaza Strip. For a region already riddled with a series of historic and severe challenges, concepts of environmental protection may unfortunately take a backseat. It is my hope that environmental activists can continue to work on these issues, promote awareness, and strive to protect the health and safety of inhabitants of the Gaza Strip.
Hello Gaza Strip bloggers!
I like how you guys have really taken advantage of the available media and literature on water and environmental issues in the Gaza Strip. You have effectively provided interested readers with large amounts of outside information and helpful links.
I think you could have taken your analysis further in terms of the issues of politics of scale involved in the situation. You provide not only links and descriptions, but also SWOT analyses of several organizations working to promote environmental action and awareness in the region. But you do not seem to take this a step further and question, explore, and conclude which scale is most effective in this situation in the Gaza Strip.
I think the integration of Thomas Perreault's theories on jumping scales and the benefits of multiscalar networks would have really contributed to the analysis of these projects. When it comes to promoting environmental action in the midst of so much cultural and political turmoil, is it more effective to work at the local scale or the international scale, and having determined this, are the functioning, effective projects working at a practical scale? Is it necessary to work at multiple levels?
While this blog was certainly well researched, there is a little bit lacking in terms of analysis through a majority of your tabs. I found your major actors page to be a really effective way to outline the issue but you could take it one step further to discuss how effective the different actors are and how they all fit in to the big picture. Kramer's quote at the top of the page about regional mechanisms potentially contributing to further integration is certainly an interesting one and I would like to hear your thoughts on the prospects of that. Splitting the actors into three levels is helpful however there is not discussion as to how effective these actors are. Has any one level been more successful than the others? Are there any reasons as to why one level may be more successful?
Hi Gaza bloggers. I would just like to point out, from a purely semantics point of view, that your videos come overwhelmingly from Al Jazeera English. While Qatar-based AJE is certainly a great source, maybe you could have considered some more varied viewpoints? Some moderate Israeli websites such as Haaretz.com or even jpost.com are both full of information, articles, slideshows, and op-ed sections stuffed with experts of all perspectives on the conflict. I've linked my twitter page to this comment so if you're interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, particularly those that have to do with Jordan, Egypt, and regional geopolitics, you can follow me. I regularly post links to a variety of sources and connect with people who are in the region, be they the IDF Public Relations Department (http://twitter.com/idfspokesperson) or the twitter of the website Electronic Intifada (http://twitter.com/intifada). In case any of you are interested.
Also, just one quick point for Crackle, who refers to the Israelis and Palestinians as similar to Kernahan and de Cian’s “forcibly joined” populations. An Israeli-critical viewpoint might lead one to suggest that most residents of the modern state of Israel are willingly residents, while the Arab residents of the Palestinian territories Gaza and the West Bank are perhaps not as willing and comfortable in their current situation. Just a thought, considering most of Israel’s current Jewish population (over 90%) willingly migrated to Palestine after 1945, while Arabs had been residing on the land for centuries, and were evacuated, sometimes forcibly and with little to no compensation, from their land to make room for Jewish European settlers. (I’m also Jewish BTW; this is clearly a rhetorical exercise.)