Reporters will tell you there are two, maybe three narratives in the Middle East. They’ll split the stories into perspectives and call them Palestinian and Israeli or East and West or Arab and Jew. But that’s like saying Moby Dick is about a whale and a man. I don’t know what Moby Dick is about — I still haven’t read it. But hundreds of thousands of people have and I can’t believe it’s because it’s a story about a whale and a man.
So it is with the Middle East.
There are so many stories. People. Lives.
READ THE FULL POST (in the Times of Israel).
and yadda yadda, an aliyah blog 
Very much appreciated the chance to read your full article, Jen. It was very thought provoking indeed, and of course, brilliantly written.
I’m new to Twitter (fairly new) and having seen the piles of tweets that cascade under world event hashtags like #gaza, I can’t help but ask myself the very questions you ask. Although, until reading your article, I wasn’t sure how to process it all. The ‘news’ can feel relentless and bottomless, it’s hard to dig in and find a constant or a center.
It helps to hear a perspective like yours about the spectrum – helps in digesting all of the emotion and pleading and opinion and perspective and distance – it in some meaningful way, if that makes sense. It can feel overwhelming to try to be informed and sensitive at the same time.
Many thanks,
Wishing you peace,
Allison
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Very overwhelming, even for me, too, Allison. Thanks for reading and for your compassion, sensitivity, and willingness to hear multiple perspectives,
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Jen, this is responsible, objective, honest and an important – necessary even – perspective. If only everyone with an opinion about anything in the news, anywhere, would read this and truly consider it. I’ve seen so many people posting so many “news” stories on social media and it makes me wonder (fearing I know the answer) how many of them have considered critically whose truth they are reading, and whose truth they are believing, or even acting upon.
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Great article, Jen.
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I read your article with great interest. My father was a journalist and he told me an editor said to him, “You do not need to be first, but you need to be right” Things have changed a little since then.
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