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Comment by brailsafe

2 years ago

The alternative explanation seems unlikely. I'd think that if it were true, there'd be even one single instance of that having come up in conversation prior to bad graffiti and printed propaganda showing up all over my neighborhood. Getting a glimpse of what people allow themselves to be subjected to on the various platforms seems to indicate it's younger, easily influenced, volatile reactionary people suddenly being inflamed by whatever hot conflict of the day it is; people I wouldn't normally talk to anyway and who wouldn't have any authentic connection with it. The only time it's come up in real life was when I bumped into some Israeli guests at a hostel, and they were talking about what their families were going through and whether they'd have to go back and serve.

It doesn't come up on my Instagram presumably because I had previously unfollowed everyone who posted about whatever other injustice they'd been told to be pissed about, and shockingly I don't feel the need to go and vandalize property to spread the word.

You've specifically isolated yourself from people who would talk about the issue, so you're not in a position to determine whether or not people have been talking about it. In my social circles, the conversation about injustice in Palestine is over a decade old.

  • > In my social circles, the conversation about injustice in Palestine is over a decade old.

    Indeed, I would say that anyone older than 10 has participated in such conversations. The person you're responding to makes it sound like it's a new thing.

    • It's clearly not a new thing, and it's clearly something that people should have likely been vaguely aware of for decades, but it's not really important for anyone not directly connected to the conflict, territory, or heritage to be actively concerned with on a moment to moment basis, and it's not something that's ever organically come up, at least beyond acknowledgement that some conflict is always happening. That's not to say it hasn't come up in any circle, but it does seem to be a suspiciously recent topic, and I'd simply argue that people tend to subject themselves to arbitrary issues to be consumed by regardless of the bearing it has their life, and largely influenced by media.

      When I had the conversation about it in real life, I expressed sympathy and discussed a few aspects that they informed me of since I hadn't heard about the instigating attack, and then I went on about my life, thankful that my family and nobody I know personally is on either side.

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