Israel and Palestine have been engaged in an ongoing war since Jerusalem was made the capital city of Israel in 1967. Both of these factions believe that the land currently known as Jerusalem is meant to be theirs. Due to these two factions being at odds for so long, people have been able to form their personal opinions of what they think is morally right, and recent events have influenced these opinions.
In 1967, Israel captured the Gaza Strip and West Bank as well as East Jerusalem. After East Jerusalem was captured, Israel made the entirety of Jerusalem its capital. Palestine did not like this because they were there first. A good percentage of Israelis are Jewish while a majority of Palestinians are Muslim. Jerusalem has important religious monuments for both the Jewish and Muslim people. Both Israelis and Palestinians are racist and harbor religious discrimination against each other. The whole reason that these two factions are fighting is because they believe that their religion, race, and country are better than the other. Systemic racism is a problem that has been highlighted in American society, but the people who have highlighted it in America are ignoring it in Palestine and Israel. The ongoing war has caused people on both sides of it to continuously teach their children that one side is better than the other.
In war, people choose who to side with for various reasons. Most of the time it has something to do with people’s political beliefs. However, in this war, people are choosing sides based on religion. For example, in the war between Russia and Ukraine, “the left” sided with Ukraine and wanted to send them money, resources, and troops. “The right” on the other hand said America needed to stay out of it. In this, it was easy to tell who believed what because people just sided with the people they politically aligned with. While there are other factors in this war, the major contributors are religious beliefs, social media, biased news, and propaganda.
The results were very telling in a survey of a mixed group of Santa Rosa High School students. There were a fair few students who held Jedial Christian beliefs and due to that, they sided with Israel. One student stated, “Historically the Jewish people have been a common scapegoat and victim of genocide.” However, this student has a biased worldview. They were told by a friend most of what they knew and then built their belief off of that. On the other side of the spectrum of this war, the students who are siding with Palestine have said that a good percentage of their information is coming from social media platforms. These students have a strong presence on social media and have a biased opinion because of the religious aspect. “Many people I follow on Instagram have posted evidence that Israel is killing innocent Palestinian children,” a senior at Santa Rosa stated.
Everyone has a biased opinion on this matter, no matter which side they stand with. The reasons they go with those sides may vary, but they are still biased. The people who side with Palestine, do so because of the influence of social media and propaganda that is being shown to them, as well as religious discrimination. The people who side with Israel, do so because of the influence of religious bias, social media, and propaganda. While most times people will side with certain things because of their political party this time it is different because most of the time religion and politics don’t mix well.
