Tomorrow is Obama's day, today is mine.

At least that's the spirit I want to apply to my new term. I can't believe how frightfully bored I've been over the holidays (stress over assignments not included), and I've looked forward to the start of this term for what seems like months.
I'm also exceptionally excited about Obama being sworn into the White House tomorrow! I remember my mother saying, "He's not going to do it, because he's black yunno. It's sad but it's fact." What a looooooooong way America have come :)
So term started, and we were laden with another hefty 8,000 words to write by May. Awesome. For now, however, I'm working on my presentation on Wednesday about foreign correspondence, and in truth, to sound ever so slightly geeky - I love my course. There's always something new to write about every day right? Foreign correspondence, the Fourth Estate, and the Gaza conflict. All very interesting.
Which led to my friend and I to debate exactly how much do we actually know about the conflict? It's very simple, Israel are wrong, Gaza is Palestine's and always should be. Israel should stop firing rockets and killing their own military. Israel have killed over 13,000 civilians. Correct?
Not quite. Even Palestinians are losing their patience with Hamas, and is the one week ceasefire going to solve ANYTHING? What do we know about this conflict? What have we been told? Even The Daily Mail says it's all Israel's fault, so it must be right?
Hmm. As Baudrillard said, "The Gulf War did not take place." In his essay, Baudrillard argues that what the public get, is exactly what they are allowed. How easily we accept that Israel are the bad guys because that's what the media say. While Israel won't let foreign correspondents anywhere near their borders, Hamas have all but embraced them. As a Palestinian empathiser, I'm not really sure that I've been given a great amount of detail on Israel's story. True, they should really let journalists into their country in the first place, but what if the majority of the western world are wrong?
Israel has put up with 8 years of rocket bombs without so much as a retaliation until now. Hamas have been trying to rile up Israel's government for a very long time.
Palestinians are dying, while Hamas leaders go into hiding.

Maybe we need to hear both sides of the stories before we jump to conclusions.