This is why it’s important to support Palestine in our media, instead of just letting the narrative from the far-right Israeli government dictate how we discuss the issue.
Overall I think you’re right. Just like this whole shit is so sad. Both antisemitism and Islamophobia are on the rise.
Like I could give two fucks about how the governmental bodies and regimes involved are pushing any narrative, when we see the litteral human cost being reported constantly. But, I know I’m not well informed enough to have a good conversation on what should be reported and what is being reported is filled with fluff and skewed to support certain sides.
The only thing I have been able to tell concretely from the reporting is war is hell.
Yes, I think even people not well acquainted with all the history could agree that killing civilians is really not acceptable in any context.
In regards to Palestine and Hamas, some food for thought is that Hamas was elected in 2006, and the median age in Gaza is 18 years old. The vast majority of people in Gaza weren’t even alive or old enough to cast a vote for Hamas the last time the opportunity was there. Which I think centers the most important part of the conflict to understand; the majority of the people dying, whether they’re Palestinian or Israeli, should not be having to pay the price that they’re paying, they’re just people trying to live their lives.
You might be interested in this overview of the situation in Palestine/Israel by David Dole, I think he does a good job of framing it all with a humanitarian perspective that clarifies some of the moral confusion that plagues this topic for so many. What many don’t understand is that most of the Israelis and Palestinians don’t want the situation to be this way, it’s smaller groups of loud extremists that keep pushing violence.
Western media could start by grounding their information in less Islamophobic rhetoric for one.
I mean, I am certainly not a scholar of Islam, but I do know enough about it to understand that at least for Sunni Muslims, the actions taken by terrorists like Hamas are not condoned or supported. Too much misinformation in the West about mainstream Islam’s position on “Jihad” is also severely missing, and in the end we end up with extreme interpretations being touted as part of the central tenets of the religion and nothing but assumptions that ALL Muslims are anti-everything-not-Muslim and ready to kill us all at any moment. This is categorically false.
For another, not ALL Palestinians are Muslim. Christian Palestinians have been systematically victimized by Israel’s policies every bit as much as their Muslim brothers. For decades now, thousands of them have seen themselves forced to flee Gaza and the West Bank to other countries just survive. So it does get really irritating when you see arguments in Western media squarely blaming Islam or anti-Christian hate for the extremism of terrorist groups like Hamas when clearly, there have been (and continue to be) Israeli governmental pressure and policies in place to discriminate and displace any Palestinian, regardless of them being Muslim or not.
But you know, to talk about any of these facts means you are anti-Semitic so… it doesn’t happen anywhere outside of academia basically. Infrequently at that.
Agreed, but also importantly; one doesn’t need to support Islam as an ideology, or Judaism (the religion) in order to side with muslims who are suffering or israelis who are suffering etc. It’s very much contextual and about which groups have power in a given context.
I am, philosophically, very opposed to all the Abrahamic religions, but I will still argue for the rights and humane treatment of muslims in countries where they are a minority under the thumb of other groups and vice versa. For example, in the US there is an evangelical christian hegemony, which leads to frequent struggle with islamophobia, but also it is vice versa for Islamic majority countries.
So depending on the context, I might argue the cause of one or the other in regards to their rights to live and worship without oppression, because none of it is worth degrading people’s humanity or right to live a peaceful life even though we frequently see the ideologies themselves serve as catalysts for systems of oppression.
This is why it’s important to support Palestine in our media, instead of just letting the narrative from the far-right Israeli government dictate how we discuss the issue.
Overall I think you’re right. Just like this whole shit is so sad. Both antisemitism and Islamophobia are on the rise.
Like I could give two fucks about how the governmental bodies and regimes involved are pushing any narrative, when we see the litteral human cost being reported constantly. But, I know I’m not well informed enough to have a good conversation on what should be reported and what is being reported is filled with fluff and skewed to support certain sides.
The only thing I have been able to tell concretely from the reporting is war is hell.
Yes, I think even people not well acquainted with all the history could agree that killing civilians is really not acceptable in any context.
In regards to Palestine and Hamas, some food for thought is that Hamas was elected in 2006, and the median age in Gaza is 18 years old. The vast majority of people in Gaza weren’t even alive or old enough to cast a vote for Hamas the last time the opportunity was there. Which I think centers the most important part of the conflict to understand; the majority of the people dying, whether they’re Palestinian or Israeli, should not be having to pay the price that they’re paying, they’re just people trying to live their lives.
You might be interested in this overview of the situation in Palestine/Israel by David Dole, I think he does a good job of framing it all with a humanitarian perspective that clarifies some of the moral confusion that plagues this topic for so many. What many don’t understand is that most of the Israelis and Palestinians don’t want the situation to be this way, it’s smaller groups of loud extremists that keep pushing violence.
Western media could start by grounding their information in less Islamophobic rhetoric for one.
I mean, I am certainly not a scholar of Islam, but I do know enough about it to understand that at least for Sunni Muslims, the actions taken by terrorists like Hamas are not condoned or supported. Too much misinformation in the West about mainstream Islam’s position on “Jihad” is also severely missing, and in the end we end up with extreme interpretations being touted as part of the central tenets of the religion and nothing but assumptions that ALL Muslims are anti-everything-not-Muslim and ready to kill us all at any moment. This is categorically false.
For another, not ALL Palestinians are Muslim. Christian Palestinians have been systematically victimized by Israel’s policies every bit as much as their Muslim brothers. For decades now, thousands of them have seen themselves forced to flee Gaza and the West Bank to other countries just survive. So it does get really irritating when you see arguments in Western media squarely blaming Islam or anti-Christian hate for the extremism of terrorist groups like Hamas when clearly, there have been (and continue to be) Israeli governmental pressure and policies in place to discriminate and displace any Palestinian, regardless of them being Muslim or not.
But you know, to talk about any of these facts means you are anti-Semitic so… it doesn’t happen anywhere outside of academia basically. Infrequently at that.
Agreed, but also importantly; one doesn’t need to support Islam as an ideology, or Judaism (the religion) in order to side with muslims who are suffering or israelis who are suffering etc. It’s very much contextual and about which groups have power in a given context.
I am, philosophically, very opposed to all the Abrahamic religions, but I will still argue for the rights and humane treatment of muslims in countries where they are a minority under the thumb of other groups and vice versa. For example, in the US there is an evangelical christian hegemony, which leads to frequent struggle with islamophobia, but also it is vice versa for Islamic majority countries.
So depending on the context, I might argue the cause of one or the other in regards to their rights to live and worship without oppression, because none of it is worth degrading people’s humanity or right to live a peaceful life even though we frequently see the ideologies themselves serve as catalysts for systems of oppression.