Holy crap! You are on a roll with this piece. Sadly - as a Jewish Canadian - I would have to say I agree. The history that has been shared was woefully one sided on all counts. True confession, I grew up with only Israel's side of the story. I knew nothing about the Palestinian experience until the last two years. I made an effort to seek out to try and understand their experience. And to be fair, finding history that is not shared in a blatantly biased way is challenging. I now better understand the ME, which also includes an understanding as to why peace is so elusive. Many want to identify the good guy and the bad guy in these situations. Sadly, like in most human experiences, there is a little of both on all sides. More important than the history is promoting the capacity for critical thinking and a fulsome understanding of the importance of nuance in almost every situation.
Agree it’s difficult to wade through the bias and to recognise our own! Critical thinking is a must.
Years ago a polisci prof told me you can’t know your position without studying the opposing side. That was a golden piece of advise and so there’s merit in reading the obviously biased Arabist Hamasnik stuff, if only to strengthen our capacity to tolerance difference in thinking and learn about our own viewpoint.
Yes, I’m on a bit of a roll, the Spirit moves me of late. 🙏🏽
Fun story: one my of dearest friends is a Jew who was kicked out of Hebrew as a youngster because he gave a speech on the Israel Palestine conflict. 😆
Holy crap! You are on a roll with this piece. Sadly - as a Jewish Canadian - I would have to say I agree. The history that has been shared was woefully one sided on all counts. True confession, I grew up with only Israel's side of the story. I knew nothing about the Palestinian experience until the last two years. I made an effort to seek out to try and understand their experience. And to be fair, finding history that is not shared in a blatantly biased way is challenging. I now better understand the ME, which also includes an understanding as to why peace is so elusive. Many want to identify the good guy and the bad guy in these situations. Sadly, like in most human experiences, there is a little of both on all sides. More important than the history is promoting the capacity for critical thinking and a fulsome understanding of the importance of nuance in almost every situation.
Agree it’s difficult to wade through the bias and to recognise our own! Critical thinking is a must.
Years ago a polisci prof told me you can’t know your position without studying the opposing side. That was a golden piece of advise and so there’s merit in reading the obviously biased Arabist Hamasnik stuff, if only to strengthen our capacity to tolerance difference in thinking and learn about our own viewpoint.
Yes, I’m on a bit of a roll, the Spirit moves me of late. 🙏🏽
Fun story: one my of dearest friends is a Jew who was kicked out of Hebrew as a youngster because he gave a speech on the Israel Palestine conflict. 😆