Before we get into this opinion piece, I’d like to present you with a story. Please know I have not left out any hidden perspectives (for now). In this fictional world, treat everything you read below as true.
A Blue-Green world
Imagine we lived in a Blue-Green world. Everyone we have ever known is Green. This world is divided in two. The Blues live on one side and the Greens live on the other side. The two groups never interact with one another. Why? Because the Blues are dangerous. They are greedy, aggressive, and backwards people. They live in an upside-down society, think the Greens should follow them, and punish anyone who thinks otherwise.
One day we hear a section of the Greens, The Emeralds, have saved the harmful Blues. They made their way into Blue territory and saved the Blue from their backwards ideology. The heroic Emeralds removed the unfit Blue leaders and placed more peaceful Green leaders in charge.
The Greens are happy for the liberation of the Blues. The Blues will benefit greatly from the guidance of the Greens.
Then something odd happens. At school our friend comes up to us and presses a phone to our faces, “Look at what the Emeralds are doing to them.” The video is horrible. It shows death, blood, tears. I assert, “There is no way we did that! The Blues are angry and dangerous, they’ve surely done this to each other.”
The video shows it clearly, the Blues have not done this to themselves. Now, you’re faced with an impossible choice: Take the side of the Greens, your family, who you’ve always known to be kind, peaceful, equal people? Or side with the suffering Blues and all the inequality they stand for?
Now let’s imagine the Blues are not actually all “bad”. In fact, most of the information the Greens have is over-dramatized.
Sadly, for some Greens, the true nature of the Blues’ will not affect them much. Why? Because fear has already settled in their hearts.
The problem is the Greens have never questioned what they know about the Blues. All they have ever known is that the Blues are dangerous, and so fear has caused them to distance themselves. Even though the Blues are now the victim of oppression, the distance between the two groups makes it difficult to feel deeply empathetic or motivated to help. The most the Greens can do now is offer an impassive hand of neutrality.
How is the Blue-Green World Manifested in our World
In the real world, things can never be as Black and White as the Blue-Green world is. We never know for certain who is “right” and who is “wrong”, if there even is a “right” or “wrong” group. Yet, I still see a lot of similarities between their world and ours.
The fear the Greens have for the Blues is a similar fear we see projected in our world. It has been directed to people of color, to religious communities, sometimes even to women. Now I see it directed towards the Palestinian people. Putting aside the different viewpoints on this topic, I want instead to show you how Western biases against Muslims may be driving neutrality on the subject of Israel and Palestine.
The society around me knows little about true Islam and I feel that these misconceptions are fueling the Western fear of Muslims and Arabs. Take a look at this TikTok that shows exactly my point. Now, as a Muslim, Arab, who has lived in the Middle East for most of my life, I can tell you for a fact that we don’t actually “throw gay people off of buildings”! In fact, 80% of what is mentioned in that video is false, 10% is taken out of context, and the last 10% is overdramatized. Yet videos like these plant seeds of fear in our minds. The biggest issue is, this fear is leading to serious harm against Muslims and Arabs in the west.
Perhaps it is all these stereotypes surrounding Muslims and Arabs that makes it so hard for people to pick a side when discussing Palestine and Israel. Even though we can see the harm directed towards Palestinian people, perhaps people do not want to take a side for fear of sounding homophobic, misogynistic, or whatever else.
On the other side, this fear is also harming Jewish individuals living outside of Israel. For the past few months (or years for those who have been keeping up with the conflict), Palestinian supporters have watched the incessant suffering in Palestinian mothers, fathers, and children. Growing fear for the Palestinian people has made it easy for some groups to unintentionally unify the Israeli state with followers of the Jewish faith. As a result, some of us are becoming neutral towards the growing Antisemitism in our communities.
I know people on either side of this neutrality. I have friends who choose to remain neutral during this time because they find the topic and its history to be “too complex”. have grown detached from the Palestinians, saying “it’s too complex”. I also have friends who are so focused on Palestine that they have almost become blind to the suffering in Jewish communities. The impact of Israeli occupation is not black and white, even if it may sound like it is to some of us. Not all Arabs are misogynistic extremists. Not all Jews agree with Israel. A few outliers do not represent the whole group. We cannot use our perceived opinions of a group as a means to be complacent in the face of prejudice.
You might have figured it out yourself but the question posed to the Greens does not represent the truth of the problem. The Greens do not have to pick between their “peaceful” people or the “backwards Blues. All they have to do is educate themselves and do what is right regardless of their feelings towards the Blues. You, both as a Green and as a real person, can disagree with the beliefs of a group and still stand against oppression.