The Bloggers Deep Within

Journalism is changing.

Not only has the NYTimes, via Ethan Bronner, finally come around to dealing with the Gaza Mall (see below) but mainstream media is embedding in its website stories links not only to definitions but to other bloggers as well.

Here is an excerpt from the NYT Gaza Mall piece:-

For Hamas, and for the Hamas-linked group of local investors behind the enterprise, the two-story mall, with its central air-conditioning and underground parking, has deep symbolic value. It is proof, they say, that despite the Israeli and Egyptian effort to isolate this Palestinian coastal strip, it can develop and thrive. Let the message go out: We will not be defeated.

But symbols are a risky business, and Israel’s fiercest defenders have seized upon the mall for their own purposes as well. Wielding glossy photographs of the new shops, they ask: Is this the land of deprivation that you have heard about? How did they build a mall if no building materials are permitted into Gaza? How badly off can a place be that has just opened up a luxury mall? Those aid flotillas are sailing to the wrong place, they say.

There's Tom Gross in there.

A Danny Ayalon op-ed.

A Jacob Shrybman collection of photographs.

Bloggers deep within a New York Times story.

And interestingly:

“Gaza is not poor in the way outsiders think,” said Nida Wishah, a 22-year-old information technology student who was at the mall one recent afternoon. “You can’t compare our poverty with that of Africa.”

Modest though it is, the mall is a pleasant and cheerful complex, especially for Gaza. Tens of thousands of people have been passing through it, enjoying the air-conditioning, the window shopping and the recent arrival of many Israeli brands...

“This is for the elite,” Mr. Abu Abdu said. “The money you see here belongs to a very few people.”...“It feels civilized here,” said Othman Turkman, 26, who works in conflict resolution and was comparison shopping. “It’s not for everyone, of course.

So, how many "elite" are there?

And how many civilized?


(Kippah tip: SoccerDad)
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