Jasmine Mei, Period 6, 12/01/23

 Jasmine Mei 

Modern Mythology 2024 

Period 6 

Socio-political Consciousness 

    The Israel-Palestine situation that’s taken over the world in recent weeks has been an event that I find myself thinking about daily. When I first started seeing media coverage about the war, I didn’t know whose side I was meant to support. I was embarrassed to ask people around me about it because I felt as though this was something I was meant to be knowledgeable about if I had paid enough attention to the news. I would try to research articles from reputable sources and read up on those, but each article would just leave me with even more confusion. I decided to muster up the courage to ask one of my friends, Max, who I assumed would know about the war and could explain it to me. Max is a Jewish-American and said himself that he was biased because he has family back in Israel and feels he has an obligation to both his religion and his people to side with Israel. Unlike others who side with Israel, Max tried to educate me from an unbiased perspective, not trying to sway to either side but simply gave me the facts of the ordeal and let me decide for myself what I stood for. After the conversation with Max, I still didn’t stand with one particular side. I saw the arguments and points of both Israel and Palestine. I understood that the Israelis wanted land to call their own, especially after the Jewish community’s history with exile and the Holocaust. However, I also didn’t see why innocent Palestinian lives had to be sacrificed. Hospitals, filled with women and children in critical conditions, were bombed. Though I was able to recognize each side’s standpoint, I couldn’t back up a state which is actively harming and endangering millions of innocent people.

    Standing with the Free Palestine movement, I tried to play my part and do what I could to raise awareness for the Palestinian people. Posting my own take on the issue and reposting posts of journalists on the other side, I noticed that I was losing followers with each post. I was upset, not at the fact that people were unfollowing me, but that there were people who were so close minded as to only listen to one side of the problem. A common factor that I’ve seen from people who side with Israel is the argument that supporting Palestine also means supporting the Holocaust and hating the Jewish community. I think that once people break away from that mindset and see that those two views have no correlation, they’re one step closer to seeing the larger picture. I believe that a majority of the people who condemn the actions of the Israeli government only show support for Israel because they’re Jewish and feel an obligation towards their people and ancestors - if they were to show support for anyone other than Israel, it would be like they’re turning their backs on their own people. There’s a possibility that I’m wrong and that’s not one of the cases at all. Deep down, I know that this is something I’m coming up with because I want there to be a justification to people trying to condemn a genocide. It’s hard for me to imagine that there are people who genuinely support the killing of innocent people. People are associating the Palestinian people with the terrorist group, Hamas, even though Hamas is its own organization entirely and has no connection to the Palestinian people. It’s ironic then, because looking at the actions of Israel, I would argue that they are the ones terrorizing Palestine. The continuous terror reigned on the state of Palestine can be seen as ethnic cleansing - since Israel can’t justly obtain their single Jewish state (due to the majority of Palestinians vs Jews), they’re taking it forcefully by getting rid of the majority population. 

    The most horrific thing that I’ve learned of late is that Palestine had to end their school year because there were no more children to attend school; they were all killed. Everything that I’ve learned about Israel v. Palestine has been heartbreaking but this really opened my eyes to the severity of the situation. I tried to imagine myself in that situation, if everyone I knew, including myself, could no longer go to school because we were all dead. To be frank, I tried to reword that last statement because it sounded too harsh and blunt, but in this case, maybe that’s what we need to see the bare truth. Additionally, I’ve come to think of the duality of the world; how there could be first graders in America enjoying their lunch and not having to worry about the deafening sound of bombs and then halfway across the world, there are children of the same age who have to worry about survival and the safety of their family. This has made me appreciate the life that I have and realize that the problems I often complain about are, in fact, first world problems. This short blog of mine just barely covers the surface of the issue; the war is much more complex than I’ve led on but I hope that this was informative and raises awareness to those who come across it.