We’re a group of activists in a Western country where most have been brought up with either “Israel = good, Hamas = bad” or “It’s a sad, but unsolvable conflict between two equal sides”. The media heavily skewed to the Israeli perspective, and our politicians want to condemn protests in support of Palestinians. Therefore, unless you purposefully seek out information on what’s going on in Palestine, you won’t really encounter information about the occupation, the apartheid or the human rights violations. There are a lot of gaps in people’s information and understanding of the situation.
Atm there’s a lot of dehumanization, a lot of “Well, what can you do? Hamas keeps attacking Israel, what are they supposed to do?”. I think the Israel=Good is deep-rooted in a lot of westerners. I know it was in me.
We’ve asked ourselves and each other what finally broke through our previous perception, so we could see the inequality and realize that what’s happening is not right
One mentioned seeing a journalist in the back of an ambulance being handed a one-year-old that had passed
One mentioned seeing a video of a caring father saying goodbye to his little girl, kissing her eyes before she was wrapped in the materiale they wrap their dead. The father clearly in denial, smiling and wishing for her to wake up.
A big one for me was being told that it’s not an equal fight. It’s not two equally strong countries. It’s one country with a huge military, and another with barely any. Another was hearing about the human rights violations that’s been going on for decades - the fabricated water shortage, the children in Israeli jails.
I believe these are the moments we need to collect and present to those who are still wary on where they stand.
What broke through to you?
One of the local businesses I frequent is owned by an Israeli man and he was telling me they all deserve to die, all of them, men, women, and children. He believes the world needs to be rid of all Palestinians.
I had been hanging out all night with a few israelis who were really nice and cool, and they were kind of hippies and were telling me how it was so cool how traveling made them feel so open with other people, and how the world was one, so I was like well but it’s kind of difficult with Palestine right?
And immediately one of them said “well not Palestine, Palestinians are animals.”
Another one you could tell by her face knew he shouldn’t have said that, and explained to me that nothing would ever work out Palestine because they were completely unreasonable and she paraphrased what he said but in less explicit language.