Happy Friday Reader!

Thank you for your patience, the newsletter is a bit delayed due to the fact that I’m still not 100% recovered from being sick. So I’ve been taking it slow.
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Never a dull moment though, the escalation of the Israel-Palestine conflict has taken up a lot of my time and made me write several new blogs. I lived in Israel for about five months after I graduated from high school and for the first time the positive perception of the state of Israel I grew up with, was slowly falling apart when I was there. It wasn’t until I started working in a multicultural media company with Muslim colleagues who sympathized with the Palestinian people, that I got to really learn about the other side of the conflict.
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And, interestingly enough, it took me even longer before I could confidently speak out about the issue. Even this week my mother said: “Be careful that you don’t talk about it as if you know it all”. It reminded me of what Jewish Israeli activist Ronnie Barkan said in an interview with Telesur in 2017:

And this is where the topic of Israel-Palestine is directly linked to systemic racism and decolonization. We don’t grow up being neutral in Europe (or the United States), we’re influenced by a Western narrative. And it will be a lifelong process to decolonize our minds. Nowadays on social media you’ll find a lot of content explaining how Israel is a settler colony, but Western mainstream media hardly ever question(ed) the existence of the Jewish state.
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Getting a good understanding of the root of the problem is important for the long term, but I also don’t think it’s necessary to know all the details of the conflict in order to speak out. The human rights violations by Israel should be enough reason to say: “This isn’t right”. As with racism we sometimes tend to overcomplicate issues. I’m not saying that the solutions are always easy, but attempts to organize peace talks should always be a more desirable option than endless use of violence.
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From a decolonial perspective, it makes sense to look at a country outside of The West to accommodates these talks, instead of trying to resolve the issue within a North American or European framework. China already offered to host Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and when I asked the question to my social media followers they suggested that New Zealand or Singapore would be good options to. There is an agreement of ceasefire so hopefully the negotiations will start soon.

- Sanne

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Blogs: the bigger context of Israel-Palestine

Even though social media gives access to a lot of useful information about the conflict, it also shows how easy we condemn each other without working on a solution for the long term. “Our hypocrisy on social media shows that our egos are still very big”, I wrote in a blog. There is clearly momentum though, not just because of the online activism but also because of the United States celebrities and politicians speaking out and six more reasons.
Black Lives Matter re-opened the discussion about objectivity in journalism last year and the Israel-Palestine reporting shows us again: If we want journalism to be more inclusive, the first step is to accept that journalists can strive for objectivity but can never be completely neutral.
​And just like journalism, the tech companies have the same responsibility. There clearly is censorship of Facebook and Instagram to posts with the hashtags #Palestine and #FreePalestine and from the perspective of decolonization that shouldn’t come as a surprise. It shows how necessary it is to discuss decolonization in The West and look critically at our own biases.

Journal prompt

Have you taken a position on the Israel-Palestine conflict? How did your opinion evolve over the years? What made you change your perspective (or not?)? Do you notice yourself being open to other points of view?

What am I reading or watching?

• The documentary “Born in Gaza” by war correspondent, writer and filmmaker of Italian-Argentinian origin Hernán Zin in 2014 (available on Netflix). It gives an insight into the lives of children in Gaza and the psychological damage these kids grow up with.

• ​“The science behind ‘us vs them’” by Big Think (as suggested by one of the subscribers to this newsletter!). The most interesting question to me in this video comes from neuroscientist Beau Lotto who says:

What can you do?

• It’s hard to keep up with the huge amount of content that’s daily been shared on social media. Sudanese political cartoonist, civil rights activist and freelance journalist Khalid Albaih does a great job curating, it’s worth to follow him on Instagram.
• Speak out about the issue. That doesn’t have to be in public or on social media. The most important conversations start at home, at the kitchen table with our loved one, at parties with our friends or in our workplaces. Don’t underestimate the power of these discussions.

I’m looking forward to seeing you again next week in good health. If you want to reach out to me in the meantime, please do! You can reply to this email.