So my uncle just called me and we began talking about Palestine. He was claiming all the usual “anti-violence” points and such. Condemning both sides yadayada. Perpetuating the war propaganda about eating babies and shit. But then he began saying that the conflict is super complex and saying it’s gone back millenia and that it’s about religious land and stuff. I personally don’t know much other than 1947 to now, and that seems to be a problem because I can’t refute or agree with anything he was saying.
It’s making me feel like I’m uneducated and shouldn’t be supporting Palestine. He was saying that they both have legitimate claims to the land and many other things I can’t quite remember.
He said that my argument that the Palestinians were being oppressed worse because they are dying at such a greater rate is the same as saying the South in the American Civil War were the oppressed because most people who died were in the south.
He’s a very staunch catholic liberal but he delivers things pretty well and is older than me so I feel stupid around him lol. Basically I’m just kind of unsure about my position now? Do I not know enough? Can anyone validate or invalidate what he was saying or give an explanation and sources for what the history is?
I thought I knew enough but clearly not.
https://youtu.be/m19F4IHTVGc?si=tPm9RN5YhfWyoNJZ
He linked this video. Haven’t watched it but he says it’s unbiased. I don’t necessarily believe that.
Help
I’m taking a look through the link that @GrainEater@lemmygrad.ml stickied on c/GenZhou. I’m also trying to learn more about the early history of the region, as I also mostly only know about the more recent history. So, take my post as someone else also learning about this too and sharing my notes, not as someone well-versed on the topic.
Here’s a page from there: Myth: My people were here before your people.
Key points from the page:
A point regarding the historical issue of the population (read the whole page for more info about that):
“Jewish history … forms a part of the Palestinian past and heritage, just like every other group, kingdom or empire that settled there does … These positions can be maintained while simultaneously rejecting Zionism and its colonialism”
Another page: Myth: The “conflict” is ancient
Since iirc the video you linked mentioned this: Myth: The name “Palestine” was a Roman invention
As I said, I am also learning more about the more distant past history of this region, and at the moment I am in the phase of just gathering information and reading up, not yet at a phase of fact-checking certain details (though, as the pages above importantly point out, certain facts are moot points in regard to justifying settler colonization–nonetheless it’s good to be aware of factual historical information).
I’m going to be taking the information on the above pages as a jumping off point as I learn more about it. I noticed that each page in their myths section contains a list of sources, so maybe you (and I) could start looking into those. I know you said you know about the more recent history but I thought this Empire Files video was informative due to containing several quotations from Zionists before and throughout the history of their colonization of Palestine and context about European colonial projects: How Palestine Became Colonized.
Again, this video, like the above website, and also like the video you linked, are all media intended to quickly introduce information to a mass audience, so we should always be taking them as a starting point for more detailed research. As someone else in this thread mentioned, keep learning about the history, keep expanding your knowledge of the context. Read widely with a critical mind and with a materialist analysis and keep wary of the imperialist point of view being the default in many sources. Explicitly Marxist histories of events can help very much in orienting your research but you can also do your best to make that kind of analysis yourself as you become more informed using sources of all kinds as long as you remain critical.