Reading Set 2 and Video Response

The Readings:
The second set of readings really shows the immense diversity in Jerusalem's history. In all honesty, I can't say I retained much of the specifics of all the events that went into shaping Jerusalem as she is today. But I definitely got a sense of why she represents a holy site for three religions and is one of the most disputed territories. Just the three articles we read was an overwhelming amount of information, and I imagine that it is only a very brief summary of both reality and perceptions of history. Although it is easy to see why three distinct religious groups lay claim to the same piece of land, I wonder if understanding these intricacies is going to make me more hopeful or less so about the peace process.

The Video:
The first thing that struck me about the video was the music. I absolutely loved the song played during the intro. and thought it was a very powerful piece. It turns out that it is an instrumental Palestinian nationalism piece that would only be recognized by those who know it.
Perceptions are extremely interesting. The way the video was set up, especially in the second half depicting the Palestinian side of Jerusalem, I thought that most of the sequential events were in some way connected. Especially the scenes cutting from a terrorist attack to a woman singing a mournful song to a graveyard scene (I don't remember the exact order). However, as we were discussing the video after class, I learned that those three scenes and many of the others were in no particular way connected to each other. This made me think about how interesting representation is in media from both the producers' and viewers' perspectives.