Tuesday, April 22, 2008

How Much "Fluff" is Too Much?

In my paper, one of the big sections is on the story of Jonathan Pollard, a spy for Israel, and seeing as I knew nothing about it before I started the paper, I think I can assume that few people (at least in AiS, or AS?) will know much about it. I know we aren't supposed to have a lot of summary in the paper, but is it appropriate in this situation? At the moment I have about 6 sentences about the situation and I still have to write a little more, but is that too much? Also, how could I bring up this topic without a lot of summary????

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Possible Grabber Idea

I have an idea for a grabber for my Junior Theme, but I'm not sure how exciting it really is. The question that my paper is going to answer is, why does the U.S. support Israel? What I came up with so far is:

“שלום חבר” (Goodbye Friend) were the emotional words spoken by President Bill Clinton at the funeral of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Rabin, who was assassinated at a peace rally, was “[Clinton’s] partner and friend.” Israel and the United states have been allies since the beginning of the State of Israel in 1948, but why do we have this special alliance? The US is just as important in the survival of Israel, as Israel is to the U.S.'s Middle Eastern (policy?).

Please give me some feedback so I can make it better, or if you have any ideas of your own. Thanks!!

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Junior Theme (what else?)

The question I landed on for JT is "Why does the US still support Israel?" I want to try and go back and find the source of the relationship, because during the Holocaust, the US barred most of its borders against the Jews trying to escape Europe, and President Roosevelt didn't help.

When I first started exploring ideas, I really wanted to do something relating to the Holocaust, but obviously, I had to relate the subject to US history, and more difficultly, to current issues in America.

One story that always remained in my mind was that of the failure of the Wagner-Rogers Bill. It proposed that 20,000 Jewish children under the age of 14(?) would be permitted into the country, the bill died in Congress, and neither the US nor Cuba would take them, so they were sent back to Europe to their deaths. This story always strikes me particularly hard because I lost many members of my family that were under the age of 14 on both my grandfather and grandmother's sides, and I can only imagine if they could have been taken in by the US, then my family might be bigger than it is now (I have no 1st cousins on my dad's side). And I can only image the terror experienced by those children who thought they were free.