Newfoundlanders with ties to Middle East look to Israel-Palestine conflict in horror
CBC
Newfoundlanders with ties to the Middle East are reeling from the ongoing news out of Israel and Palestine, as conflict and bloodshed continues in the region.
Israel announced a "complete siege" of the Gaza Strip early Monday, vowing to cut off all food and power to the two million Palestinians living there.
The move comes two days after Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israeli residents — killing more than 700 people — and as rocket attacks on Israel continue.
Steven Wolinetz, a retired Memorial University political science professor, has watched the news in horror.
But the violent images he's seeing are nothing new, he said.
"Israel has been in the unfortunate position of having to live as a garrisoned state," he told CBC News in an interview Monday. "Jewish settlement has not been without conflict, and that's obviously a massive understatement."
Wolinetz said some families within the small Jewish communities in Newfoundland are originally from Israel, and are in touch with family and friends injured in the attack.
"Nobody is unaffected," he said. "To say someone was asleep at the switch understates it. The Israelis were not prepared."
Wolinetz, as a political scientist, has an inkling the latest violence will become a catalyst for change between the two nationalities.
"Things are not going back to where they were. The political argument will intensify," he said.
"There has to be a settlement.... I'm not sure — I'm 80 years old — that I will live to see it, but yet, conflicts do get settled."
Majed Khraishi, a medical professor at Memorial University, has extended family in the West Bank.
"It is heart wrenching, no doubt about it.... This is a horrible situation, horrible situation for the victims on both sides," Khraishi said Monday.
Khraishi sees the latest conflict as a culmination of decades of tension — and its coverage in the western world as evidence of bias against Palestine.