After reading, The Question of Palestine and Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict I was able to analyze the two different strategic approaches to educating the audience on the history of Palestine and Israel from two different perspectives. The Question of Palestine by Edward Said took an approach that discussed the historical context of Palestine and how the usage of Western history records connects to the Zionist agenda as European countries have often taken part in failing to acknowledge Palestine and the native people. Edward Said, as a Palestinian himself, addresses at the start of the book that the intent is to educate people on a concept that has been misconstrued and connected directly to the effects of colonialism. On the other hand, Understanding the Palestianian-Israeli Conflict alludes to the understanding that the challenges within the situation have equal platforms of power and does not acknowledge the marginalization of the Palestinian people or the erasure of their history due to intention to invalidate the community standing. As a reader it is evident that the language of Bennis is less complex as the “conflict” is broken down into questions for an audience that may not have had experience learning about the topic. Quite often the author attempts to balance the situation in the book through claims including “The violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories has come from both sides” (Bennis 2). This wording alludes to the fact that a conflict as mentioned in the title is an equally challenging situation and does not fully address the difference in power and support between Israel and Palestine. While simplifying language to better educate an audience about a situation that they may not have been educated on in the past, it can often lead to a lack of historical context, leading to misinformation. This question-and-answer format is flawed as an audience can pick questions that interest them which can shape a misconstrued understanding of the history and overall ignore the full message Bennis is attempting to address in her piece. Said takes an approach that is from resistance from a system that refuses to unpack the large history and goes into detail about the history of Palestine to keep the records alive and to educate the audience of information that may have been hidden or switched around based on media, educational courses, or government perceptions.
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