I am of Arab decent myself. An atheist though. I have lived in the middle east for half my life. Trump (as much as I despise him) seems to have a pretty good handle on this conflict compared with most western leaders. The truth nobody wants to hear is this:
For the sake of this I will refer to Israelis as Jews and Palestinians as Arabs sometimes, for the sake of simplicity.
Both Jews and Arabs have a legitimate claim to the area that was briefly known as "British Mandate Palestine".
Both have long ranging historical ties to the land, but there is no denying that Jews were there first. Not that who was there first truly matters, they are both connected.
However, it is simply a fact that Jews were made second class citizens in their own homelands by invaders. Not just Arabs, but multiple invaders. They were ethnically cleansed, exiled, and treated appallingly. Up until the day Britain took control of the land, Jews were legal dhimmi - second class under law to Muslims.
The fact they had a minority population by 1917 is evidence of the abuse they'd endured for generations - including it being illegal for them to buy land in their own homeland or hold jobs in government in order that they might have any hope of improving their lot.
People can't live like that enduringly, simple as.
So when the land was divided by the British, was it fair on everyone? No, it was not. Lot of land was divided in the past and it was absolutely never fair on everyone. In1916 life wasn't fair on most people actually.
The answer to the problem is simple acceptance.
The nakba was very sad.
The Jews being expelled similarly from their homes around the middle east and north africa was equally sad.
I am sure both felt the same sense of deep loss and injustice.
But one side decided to move forward and rebuild, and the other side devoted themselves ideologically to the destruction of the other.
Most people who lost a home in 1948 are now dead.
What is much more sad is that people are now fighting and dying and losing their homes NOW over a right which never belonged to them to begin with.
Many things play into the fact that these people, and only these people uniquely on earth refuse to accept things and move forward. One is that our institutions and well meaning westerners play into these revolutionary ideas that in practice just hurt people.
This idea that destroying Israel is some metaphor for capitalism or some other such nonsense has no relationship to reality. The very much capitalist terrorists have been thieving your tax money for decades and are abusing their citizens whilst flying around on private jets.
Religious zealots who believe once conquered Muslim land must always remain Muslim land even if millions of people die in the process do not help either.
And for obvious reasons, the terrorist leaders, who, like every oppressive regime have become very rich off the blood of their people are not in any hurry for the conflict to end!
Those westerners who think there should be one equal rights state are (I am sorry) very uneducated on the middle east.
One equal rights state requires shared values. Jews do not want to live in an Islamic state, and Palestinians do not want to live in a liberal democracy.
The Western idea of "equal rights" exists in your mind as the ideal, but you cannot transfer this to different cultures you know nothing about.
If the citizens of the Palestinian territories wanted gay rights, women's rights, freedom of press, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, the right to fair and public trials, democracy or any of the things that factor into your fantasy of equality then absolutely nobody has been stopping them for decades now.
Their concept of human rights is different to yours. In fact, on the Arab Declaration of human rights one of the first things on it states that all people have a right of self determination. The item directly under this excludes Jews and only Jews from that definition!
My family in some oppressed societies where being gay is considered an abomination and women have to wear hijabs are happy to do that. Do I agree with it? No, I hate that for centuries religion has been used as a tool of bigotry and oppression of women. But that's their choice. Do I think it's justice if that choice is foisted on others? No.
Portraying Israel as the bogeyman, much as people to America, is easy to do, but at the end of the day it's a country like any other. It has had good leaders, bad leaders and some very bad leaders. But they are ultimately no worse than whatever country you live in, and certainly I would not stand for people calling for your destruction any more than I stand for people calling for theirs.
I believe, with all my years of knowledge and experience in this conflict and the parties involved that peace in the middle east will happen when there is acceptance from both sides that the other has as much right to be there as they do, and they make a positive decision not to try and annihilate anyone or kidnap anyone or start wars.
I feel quite shattered thinking of the innocent lives caught up in all this. Those kids living in tents with gunfire everywhere, taught to hate and believe this is the best life has for them. The orphans, the injured, the disabled - it must be horrific. I also feel shattered when I think of the victims of 7 Oct and all their families have endured, as well as the hostages still in Gaza.
What a terrible mess, and really all for absolutely nothing.
I really, really hope those people here who walk around in their keffiyehs are really able to thing about what "Free Palestine" really means. For me it means Hamas and all similar groups are gone and Palestinians are giving normal, happy, safe lives where their reasons for being isn't martyrdom nor murder.
As an Arab person, I strongly feel that Jewish people are my cousins, and that we have so much in common. I hope those calling for violence at music concerts or those harassing Jews around the world realise soon that they are part of the problem.
Any ceasefire will begin when people around the globe truly call out for peace, truly FUND peace and truly help work for peace. And peace cannot exist on the terms many of you demand.
And in the words of Donald: Thank you for your attention to this matter.