At the risk of being inflammatory, regarding Israel and Palestine and the whole debate among Western progressives about the inherent evil of Israel:
I think the only way that Concerned Citizens ™ can truly understand what the conflict is actually about,( without either side utilizing inaccurate American racial politics to rally support) is to listen in on a Muslim Arab and a non-Arab Jew having a conversation about it.
(Also it’s not a religion issue, it’s just that there are Christians in the Middle East who just want one side, either side, to just mow down the other and be done with it)
Yesterday a debate-friend of mine and I were debating about it. We went through the litany of Western-tailored arguments (colonialism, apartheid, etc) before we found out that one of us was Arab Muslim (Kuwaiti) and the other was non-Arab Jew (cultural ties to Lebanon) which instantly put us on the level with each other (about both of us having irrational bias despite sort of both believing in a single state solution). It was such a relief to know we were actually working off the same set of facts.
Please listen to me. What this boils down to is that Arab Muslims think that Israel would literally conquer and genocide the entire Middle East if they could, and Israeli Jews think that the Arab Muslims would literally genocide Israel and all the Jews if they could. Both of these views are simultaneously ridiculous and totally reasonable.
When people say it’s like siblings fighting, it’s not because Jews and Muslims have been fighting throughout history, because they haven’t; the British brought antisemitism in the late 1800s. It’s because Jews come from the Middle East and never fully integrated anywhere else so never really lost their Middle Eastern-ness. (This is also true genetically; Ashkenazi Jews have the same levantine-european genetic composition as Christian Syrians and Lebanese; this is why you can’t tell them apart.)
So this shared culture along with both ancient and modern context means that this conflict is in fact NOT easy for you to understand. It IS in fact nuanced. And you HAVE to “both sides” it in order to understand what’s going on.
And the only way to truly “both sides” this issue is to observe both sides talking to each other, not talking to you.
So stop talking about colonists and terrorists and apartheid and anti-semitism and white vs brown, just stop it and listen to both of them being on the level with each other - you’ll notice none of those ideas come up because they’re not talking to Western people who can only relate to those arguments.
You’ll also notice that there is a kind of kinship wherein it is simultaneously possible to want to kill each other but also do business with each other.
Also, stop ruining the Hummus Wars by calling it cultural appropriation by Israelis. There is literally a recipe for Hummus in the Torah.
Also if you’re Arab or Jewish and are gonna reply about how no it totally is a white and brown and colonist and apartheid and etc issue, go talk to your parents/grandparents or to your family who lives in the region.
catigereptile
seidanguard
hankhill420
tastefullyoffensive
quietlyglittering
gayocats
wizardshark
cosmonautroger
weaverworks
caterpie
probablyasocialecologist
gay-jesus-probably
16woodsequ
spoonie-isms
portaltwo-deactivated20231028
fallingtowers
daolunstranslations-deactivated