The state of Israel currently controls an area of land comprising four distinct regions: the 1948 green line territory (what could be considered “Israel proper”), the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights.

In total, about 14.8 million people live in this combined area, with a plurality (but NOT a majority) of them - 7.2 million - being Israeli Jews. That means that the rest, the majority, are non-Jewish - they include Gazans, West Bank inhabitants, and non-Jewish Israeli citizens (aka ‘48 Arabs).

Are Americans aware of this? It doesn’t get brought up very much, but to me this seems like a pretty significant fact. We’re sending billions of dollars a year to Israel so that a minority of the people who live there can have a special set of rights over the majority.

I did not know this prior to October 7th. I was pro-Palestinian prior to that anyway, but I mistakenly thought that Israel was, at least, oppressing a numerical minority rather than a majority.

  • CoolerOpposide [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    18·
    7 months ago

    I don’t think pro-Israel Americans know this and I also don’t think pro-Israel Americans would really care all that much/believe you if you told them.

    The average American who supports Palestine is relatively well read on the issue, or at least knows that fundamentally what Israel is doing to the Palestinian people is wrong. They are smaller in number than the Pro-Israel crowd but have way more passion for the issue.

    Whereas

    The average American who supports Israel does so because that’s what the default opinion is supposed to be. They know little to nothing about the situation on the ground. The most the average Pro-Israel American can tell you is: ”Israel is our closest ally in the Middle East.” and ”Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.” and they don’t particularly care about these issues all that much. Generally, they aren’t vocal about the issue at all unless some outside force intentionally riles them up, but the support does quickly as interest wanes.

    That’s why I think this moment for Palestine is huge, but even bigger than most people realize as it pertains to the future of young people in America. The media and government both tried very hard to get American conservatives and liberals aligned and galvanized on the issue by stoking the coals that burn under each side and generally grab their respective interests.

    The media/government tried to galvanize liberals through the traditional method of pinkwashing, espousing Israel’s so-called liberal social beliefs, and advocating for a two state solution so that Israel can appear to no longer be oppressing Palestinians.

    The media/government tried to galvanize conservatives via Islamophobia, “invasion” rhetoric, freedom and democracy rhetoric, badass military rhetoric, etc.

    Historically this has worked well enough, even with younger demographics, but this time it fell flat on its face because the United States and Israel are incapable of adapting this strategy in a way that effectively utilizes the historic method of suppressing information about what exactly Israel is doing. The average nominally pro-Israel American just stopped caring and the issue lost their attention at the same speed it always has. This differs immensely from the pro-Palestine side, which not only sees the ongoing issue with Israel’s actions, but also the issue of the combined effort the media and government are utilizing to suppress the issue/obscure the truth as much as possible.

    I may be jumping to conclusions when I say that Tiktok has been an enormous catalyst in regards to galvanizing young people to be pro-Palestine, but at the very least it has been an incredible tool to study this conflict as a social trend amongst its primary user base. Pro-Palestinian content on Tiktok occurs at a rate 2000% higher than pro-Israeli content. A recent study, conducted by computer scientists at Northeastern University who specialize in mass online sociological patterns, determines that “The pattern of pro-Palestinian posts is consistent with a prolonged social movement… while the pattern of pro-Israeli posts is typical of what follows a major news event.” and we can see that demonstrated in the way support for Palestine has remained steadfast no matter what major news event the combined propaganda departments of the United States and Israel try to throw at it.

    This is an absolutely unprecedented shift. In my opinion, when accounting for the dual issue of the Israel-Palestine conflict and subsequent obvious bias/obfuscation regarding the conflict, this is potentially the largest mass deprogramming/radicalization event for young Americans I can think of in any stretch of American history. I do not see any major event that touches the speed and depth of which young people have turned against a combination of domestic, international, and media dealings AND narratives. I do not believe that even the events surrounding the George Floyd Uprising (and potentially even the Vietnam war) will have such lasting impacts as the shift in young peoples’ opinion on the issue of Israeli settler-colonialism and apartheid; in each of those corresponding issues, never was the entire government, its international allies, and private media propaganda so completely aligned while being so thoroughly rebuked.