“As the periodic bloodshed continues in the Middle East, the search for an equitable solution must come to grips with the root cause of the conflict. The conventional wisdom is that, even if both sides are at fault, the Palestinians are irrational ‘terrorists’ who have no point of view worth listening to. Our position, however, is that the Palestinians have a real grievance: their homeland for over a thousand years was taken, without their consent and mostly by force, during the creation of the state of Israel. And all subsequent crimes – on both sides – inevitably follow from this original injustice.”
Jews for Justice in the Middle East
For non-Palestinians in the U.S. and Israel. The starting point for the conversation is the #NakbaDay #Nakba.
Any story of oppression requires people to understand the story from the beginning based on facts and not personal stories of the holocaust and Israel becoming a ‘safe haven’ for Jews. This narrative robs a people whose land was stolen from them, and are victims of Israeli colonization. Palestinians should not be asked to prove their humanity to their oppressors or those that support them.
There are voices from various faiths demanding justice for Palestinians, and voices of various faiths defending Israeli colonization of Arab land.
We must put an end to ‘secondly’ conversations that begin at a time interval that robs the victim from their valid grievances.
Investigating the claim of ancestral homeland for Jews-only?
There is no denying that Jews were at some point in history present in pre-historic Palestine for some time. However, the story is distorted similar to the way Israel is being built today: Jews-only. I call it the Jews-only syndrome. There are Jews-only settlements, Jews-only bypass roads, Jews-only courts, Jews-only Prophets, Jews-only inhabiting pre-historic Palestine, etc., The other inhabitants, magically disappeared or were ethnically cleansed from history, as their identity is being erased today. Rewriting history and current day realities, to support a false fairy tale narrative, promotes further oppression, pain, and suffering.
The following has some historical information to answer the claims Zionists use to suppress the voices of Palestinians.
Suppressing stories on the Nakba enables a massive ignoring of history and sidelining of Palestinian voices. it also prevents peace. As journalist Gideon Levy wrote in Ha’aretz: “Peace is not going to be prevented because the Palestinians are insisting on the right of return. It will be prevented mainly because Israel is not prepared to internalize the historical starting point: A people without a country came to a country with a people, and that people experienced a terrible tragedy that continues to this day.”