I am a Palestinian American who is tired of stupid people. I wanted to share a (not exhaustive) list of 50 useful and indisputable facts on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
FACT No. 1.
Some Jews are shitty and awful people.
FACT No. 2.
Some Muslims are shitty and awful people.
FACT No. 3.
Some Christians are shitty and awful people.
FACT No. 4.
Some Arabs are shitty and awful people.
FACT No. 5.
Some Americans are shitty and awful people.
FACT No. 6.
Some Israelis are shitty and awful people.
FACT No. 7.
Some Palestinians are shitty and awful people.
FACT No. 8.
Not all Jews are Israelis.
FACT No. 9.
Not all Israelis are Jews.
FACT No. 10.
Not all Jews are white.
FACT No. 11.
Not all Israelis are white.
FACT No. 12.
Not all Muslims are Arabs.
FACT No. 13.
Not all Arabs are Muslim.
FACT No. 14.
Not all Palestinians are Muslim.
FACT No. 15.
Not all Arabs are Palestinian.
FACT No. 16.
Not all Palestinians are Hamas.
FACT No. 17.
Texans are not Arizonans.
FACT No. 18.
Germans are not Dutch.
FACT No. 19.
Palestinians are not Jordanians.
FACT No. 20.
Egyptians are not Palestinians.
FACT No. 21.
Where you are born does not actually determine anything about you.
FACT No. 22.
Your passport is not your political beliefs.
FACT No. 23.
Your government is not your morality.
FACT No. 24.
Not all Jews like the Israeli government.
FACT No. 25.
Not all Israelis like the Israeli government.
FACT No. 26.
Not all Palestinians like the Palestinian government.
FACT No. 27.
Israeli governments have committed acts of terror and violence against the Palestinian people.
FACT No. 28.
Palestinian organizations have committed acts of terror and violence against the Israeli people.
FACT No. 29.
US leaders do things that I do not agree with (e.g., 2016–2020).
FACT No. 30.
Israeli leaders do things that Israelis do not agree with.
FACT No. 31.
Palestinian leaders do things that Palestinians do not agree with.
FACT No. 32.
What happened to the Israeli civilians on 10/7 is fucking awful, and Hamas has earned every fucking thing that the Israeli military throws at them.
FACT No. 33.
What is happening in Gaza to civilians is fucking awful, and not the smartest thing for Israel to do, and some aspects of Israeli military activity may be war crimes, and it doesn’t have to be genocide for it to be tragic.
FACT No. 34.
You can advocate for Palestine without being a racist, antisemitic piece of shit.
FACT No. 35.
You can advocate for Israel without being a racist, anti-Arab piece of shit.
FACT No. 36.
People like to have sex with each other, and they sometimes procreate with people outside their tribes.
FACT No. 37.
No one in the Levant is indigenous. Every fucking empire in history has fucked their way through the Levant. There is no pure indigeneity. And let’s be honest: The entire planet has been colonized by hominids from the Great Rift Valley.
FACT No. 38.
Palestinians and Israelis share paternal Bronze Age DNA. Yes, even Ashkenazi Jews.
FACT No. 39.
Stop with the fucking history lessons about what the Israelites did, or what the Ottomans did, or what the British did, or whatever. IT IS FUCKING IMMATERIAL. There is a pile of dog shit in the living room. Instead of arguing about whose dog took the bigger shit in the living room, maybe focus on how we clean up the dog shit, and maybe we keep the dogs outside.
FACT No. 40.
Any people have a right to group together and self-identify as whatever-the-fuck-they-want-to-self-identify as. When they get large enough as a group, those people have the right to self-determination and self-respect and a state where they can control their own destinies.
FACT No. 41.
Whether you like the idea or not, the Israeli state exists. It will also continue to exist until the ISRAELI people decide they don’t want it to exist. Your opinion on this matter (if you are not Israeli) is fucking immaterial.
FACT No. 42.
Whether you like the idea or not, a Palestinian state will exist at some point, and it will continue to exist until the PALESTINIAN people decide they don’t want it to exist. Your opinion on this matter (if you are not Palestinian) is fucking immaterial.
FACT No. 43.
You cannot bomb a people into true submission — the Blitz did not soften British morale.
FACT No. 44.
You cannot fight a war and kill a people’s desire for safety, freedom and self-determination. You can stifle it. You can try to ignore it, but one way or another, you will have to deal with it. This is as true for my Israeli friends as it is for my Palestinian ones.
FACT No. 45.
The solution to the Middle East conflict will not be found on Threads, or TikTok, or in the streets of any city that isn’t within a two-hour car ride from downtown Jerusalem.
FACT No. 46.
If you want to be an ally to Palestinians, please feel free to continue to advocate for peace, security and self-determination, but do it without dehumanizing or stereotyping Israelis and Jews.
FACT No. 47.
If you want to be an ally to Israelis, please feel free to continue to advocate for peace, security and self-determination, but do it without dehumanizing or stereotyping Palestinians and Muslims and Arabs.
FACT No. 48.
If you just want to advocate for peace, try to be a voice for reason, and don’t inflame or over-simplify an already chaotic, complicated and deeply emotional issue. Help people find common ground and help bring the temperature down. You can be moral and stand up for what you believe in without being an asshole.
FACT No. 49.
Yes, an amazing one-state liberal democracy where Palestinian boys and girls could fuck Israeli boys and girls and make cute babies, and everybody spoke Hebrew and Arabic and we all agreed that hummus and falafel are delicious and Palestinian and sufganiyot are delicious and Israeli would be awesome. But this wonderful future has about as much chance of happening in the near term as this 5’8″ 53-year-old Palestinian has being a starter for the Golden State Warriors. A two-state solution is the only workable one.
FACT No. 50.
Hummus is Palestinian. I am immovable on this.
Mo Hussein is a Palestinian-American creative with a filmmaking background interested in the intersection of experience and technology. This list originally ran on his Medium blog.
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