An Average Wednesday in the Holy City

Instant news updates are helpful in a city that has lots of regular instant news events to keep track of, but I rely fully on wifi, so I got both of these (roughly equivalent) headline notifications hours after they would've been any use at all to me.

On a directly related note, I was two and a half hours late to work today! I got to take a longer bus ride than normal, walk a ways, take another taxi, and then get a ride from a Kindergarten parent.

Here's why: Maan News (the English one of the two notification headlines circled above) (Disclaimer: I was never personally in any danger whatsoever, it's just that them soldiers got roadblocks fo' days, and I happened to be stuck behind them.)

For an interesting comparison, symptomatic of a whole bushel of things, here's a popular Israeli paper's take on the incident from Israel Hayom. (counter-balancing the Arab news agency)

(Also Israel Hayom is a freely distributed newspaper everywhere in Israel cause American billionaire Sheldon Adelson basically pays for the whole thing. Another claim to fame might be that he spent $150 million on Mitt Romney's campaign in 2012.)


And for my take on the incident itself, here's a little context for fairness:

1) Israeli citizens have been intentionally targeted in vehicle hit-and-run attacks before.

2) Israeli soldiers/police officers have shot and killed innocent Palestinians for far less suspicious behavior (erratic driving & attempted U-Turns included)

3) I'm sure that the police officers 100% legitimately were afraid for their lives. But does being afraid, whether rationally or irrationally, always justify retaliation? (And we can up the ante in a very relevant way by rephrasing that as "But does being afraid, whether completely rationally or supremely irrationally, always justify immediate and lethal retaliation?" Given it's kind of hard to pick apart that rational v. irrational fear thing, and that's true throughout the Israeli/Palestinian context.

(Also I think this question of fear as a justification for immediately shooting a sucka down is perhaps relevant to the discussion of police violence in Amurka as well maybe?)



And for those who aren't on Facebook (and thus saw this already), this also happened today:

(Start reading from the bottom cause that's chronological cause that's how notifications work) 

I giggled.