What’s your take on the Palestine situation as a political science grad and middle eastern woman
there is a significant imbalance and abuse of power — international human rights law and UN agreements have been repeatedly violated. news outlets have made it out to be this stressful, complicated, complex issue, but i'll break it down for you like this: this is modern day colonization and genocide. there is no “conflict” because there is no “both sides” to the issue. plain and simple, there is one side with an incredible amount of weapons, power, and global influence which is never held accountable for its actions, and then there's palestine. this represents a humanitarian crisis. isr*el is the oppressor, palestine is the oppressed. these human rights violations are outlined by the human rights watch organization as “The Crimes Against Humanity of Apartheid and Persecution", “Intent to Maintain Domination”, “Systematic Oppression and Institutional Discrimination”, and “Inhumane Acts and Other Abuses of Fundamental Rights”. source in the link above with detailed info.
PLEASE READ before i get into specifics: there are good people and bad people in every country. there are good arabs and bad arabs, there are good israelis and bad israelis. any mention of isr*el is referring to the “state”, not the general population. i condemn those who group all jewish people and all israelis together and refer to them as bad people or derogatory terms, this is simply untrue. there are many groups of israeli and jewish people who are organizing against what their government is doing, and who disagree with the settlements, human rights violations, and violence. i am not defending the “state”, only the innocent, good people because as an arab, i’ve seen these blanket statements thrown around. i’ve rejected them irl and i feel it’s my responsibility to say something about it here, too. if you have this view, please, i encourage you to take a look at the sources linked above and to reach out and have productive conversations with members of your community. there are better ways to express your anger and disdain, this is unproductive.
one could argue: but palestine is sending rockets! yes, this is a fact, but considering the iron dome’s effectiveness (isr*el’s rocket/missile defense system—you can read up on it), the few attacks palestine resistance manages to carry out are either shot down or do very little damage in comparison to the massive firepower of isr*el’s to a state with no defense. think of it like tiny little pebbles compared to isr*el’s massive boulders. palestine does not have the budget of $20.46 billion dollars in military defense and spending that isr*el does. but it’s still wrong! absolutely, the taking of any innocent lives is not right. civilians are just going about their lives and don’t have a hand in major political moves, they don't deserve to pay the price. however, this is brought to your attention to further illustrate the point that the two parties are not on equal footing by any means. the data speaks for itself: 251 vs. 5,590.
completely innocent adults and children are being murdered, tortured, and imprisoned, electricity is shut off for most of the day, any aid or humanitarian help is blocked from entering, medical supplies and medical help is extremely limited (due to the blockades and also due to the fact that palestinians are barred from accessing certain [isr*eli only] roads), they are dealing with a water crisis, access to food is limited, and regardless of how many generations a family has lived there, isr*el will still force them out of their home. they are known to bulldoze families’ houses, torch crops, shoot parents in front of children and children in front of their parents, and intimidate and bully palestinians as if the mental anguish of being colonized and living in fear isn’t enough. statistics & sources can be found here.
the idf is happily livetweeting and admitting to their crimes, and this is all backed and cosigned by most of the developed world due to influence and and lobbying. its biggest backer ($146 billion to date) is the united states and this connection goes all the way back to the cold war, you can read up on that as well to understand the history and why their crimes have been and continue to be covered up by the international community.
anyway, i’m tired. i could go on about this for much longer but i’ve seen too many horrifying videos and read too many articles and i’m all cried out. my heart hurts the same way it did when i saw that video of a father protecting his son from isr*eli soldiers back in the early 2000s. if you’re feeling helpless like me, please read this article on how you can help and check out these links. i also encourage you to write your local representative/MP and encourage/pressure them to speak out and publicly condemn isr*el’s actions. attend your local peaceful protest and do so while taking precautions and with a mask on. i encourage you to think critically and consider the facts and statistics, not only in this situation, but whenever you're consuming media.
thank you for asking. free palestine. 🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸
