Palestine and Israel: Prejudice on Steroids

Mistakes enable learning… normally. So, I hope I can learn from my own polemic on social media with respect to this painful conflict. The rapid and fierce escalation of hostilities in early May at al Aqsa mosque exposed some hard truths, which are as painful as they are possibly irresolvable. I thought that sharing my own personal lessons might be useful for others, perhaps raise their personal play by an inch or so.

Let’s start with some basic facts. I am no expert on this Palestinian-Israeli conflict. I’ve read maybe a dozen or so books on it in the last decade, there’s the daily flick through The Financial Times and I also have a mild awareness of the dispute’s context. I am no expert. There are specific subjects which I’ve read hundreds of books on, written a PhD and a couple of books, and some of that occasionally dances into Palestine and Israel, but that’s neither hither or thither in this context.

That’s not all. I’ve not been to Israel or Palestine for thirty years. So, not only do I lack meaningful intellectual, textbook knowledge of the conflict, I also have not lived, visceral knowledge. I don’t really get how Israelis and Palestinians on the ground see things. Or for that matter, what the diversity of perspectives within those identities is. Emotions play a huge part in deploying the theories, which in turn create the facts. The notion that we look at facts independently from some kind of sub-theoretical framework, or theory, is frankly crap.

If we needed a final nail in the coffin, it’s that my social and social media newsfeed is dominated by Arabs, Palestinians or Muslims – overwhelmingly sympathetic to one side. Not the Israeli one. Everyone around me is upset with Israel, with the exception of a small minority. The data selection is overwhelmingly bias. WhatsApp messages, Facebook posts and even e-mail campaigns on a ratio of something like 50 to 1 slanted in one direction.

Despite knowing little, I slipped the slippery slope – firmly advocating for one side in the dispute. The onslaught of fake, real and somewhere-in-between news, of pain, anger and fear, got the better of me. Reading and sharing post after post which spoke to the suppression and injustice against ordinary Palestinians, without diving equally deep into what inspires my pro-Israeli friends, good human beings, people whose humanity I’ve learned to trust over decades, to see a different reality.

There are two mistakes in all of this. First, the certainty of my perspective, grounded by a remarkably poor knowledge base, a high-level awareness without a grasp on the details and subtleties. Put simply, I was sure while knowing little. The second problem is as painful – the siding towards the group which shared my own Muslim identity. I know I do this in other contexts – Arsenal fans are shite. Of course. Chelsea fans are shite too. Nothing controversial in either statement. Spurs fans in contrast are pretty decent folk.

I could blame social media for presenting information to me which validated my perspective. Or blame my selection of friends, a group, nudge nudge, wink wink, dominated by Muslim pro-Palestinian voices. If there’s a growth opportunity here, it’s to be had in taking ownership of the two mistakes. Perhaps in doing so, and sharing with others, we can all self-reflect a wee bit more, which in turn might help adversarial groups transition into communities that want a better reality for all those on the ground, irrespective of their identities. That’s not easy – that demands a real bloody effort. The alternative, a global amplification of division and bitterness doesn’t do anything for those on the ground.