Robyn Read (she/her) أُعيد تغريده
People often ask why this conflict is so intractable. And I think there are two reasons, one “simple” and one more complicated. The simple one—simple only in that it’s easy to describe and agree on—is that this is not a traditional “border dispute,” like most international conflicts.
Instead, you have one piece of land being fought over by two groups, and, almost uniquely in the world, significant numbers of people on both sides believe that the *whole thing* is exclusively theirs, and that the other group should either leave or remain as second-class citizens.
This is made even worse by the fact that many of the people holding these extreme positions (on both sides) believe that God is literally on *their* side.
The more complicated reason is that both sides have a story, a “narrative” as they say, for why *they* belong there, and why that place belongs to them.
And this is where it gets tricky. The easy route is to pick one narrative over the other. “We are right! They are wrong!” But the hard and challenging truth is that *both* stories are legitimate, and which one you happen to support is often simply the one you heard first, whether from your parents, or from anyone else.
Now, unless they hold back, you will soon see people from both sides jumping on me with, “No! The Jews are European settlers who should go back home!” And… “No! The Palestinians have never existed! They are a recent invention created to attack the Jews…”
Okay. Whatever. The challenge, again, is that both national stories are long, rich, tragic, and legitimate. And the ONLY way this conflict will end is when enough people on all sides accept that the other story also has merit, that we are all here to stay, and that the only way forward is by finding a way to share this place we all love so dearly and painfully.
Thanks for reading. If this makes sense to *one* person, this will have been a good day.
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