Ask Lemmy

Regarding (Palestine|Isræl) being "just a too complex situation for us westerners" :

"Why is it so incredibly complicated?"

When traced back to its roots, the Palestinian question is a remarkably simple story of settler-colonialism and resistance to it. Naturally, it is just as complex and worthy of study as any other anti-colonial struggle, however, the claims of exceptional complexity are often employed in an effort to obfuscate the reality on the ground and limit discussion. The question of Palestine is not exceptional in its complexity, we can trace its origins, chronicle its events and trajectories and analyze its politics all quite well. There are decades of scholarship on the matter for reference. The appeals to complexity often arise when attempting to justify actions or policies that would be deemed unjustifiable in another context, for example, arguing against the right of refugees to return home.

[You can read more about this here]

-- DecolonizePalestine FAQ

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read the news regularly. you'll catch up real fast.

If you want to understand conflicts, you need to read about their history.

I don’t. I deliberately avoid news of any kind. It’s either too depressing or none of my business. I do not take sides. I neither condemn nor condone, I merely acknowledge that someone or something exists or that some event is occurring.

It’s not necessarily that I don’t have opinions on what I do learn through osmosis, just that I realize they’re futile or unlikely to be convincing so there’s no use discussing them. I merely exist and the rest of the world happens around me whether I like it or not.

Unhealthy? Probably, but this is the only way I have found a measure of peace.

don't… there is nothing but despair in here

If you want to stay sane; do not.

Wikipedia’s current events portal covers current events and conflicts with links to plenty of background info.

Forget all daily news. Read the deeper articles, only from high reputation sources.

TLDR News. They usually have a sub 10 min YouTube video that will get you up to speed on the facts of the matter on one of their channels. Either TLDR News Global or TLDR News EU in most cases. It's almost always a good place to start at least.

I don't think about it. I'm not rich enough to influence it.

I mean, sure, I feel sad about the middle east, but there's also Ukraine, also human trafficking in Southeast Asia and around the world, human rights violation and cultural genocide in Xinjiang and Tibet, also dictators around the world, + every other problem in the world. The fuck can I do? I'm just some broke ass peasant with severe depression.

The moment I read more news is the moment I'd just breakdown in tears about the suffering around the world and wanna swallow a bottle of pills... so I can't. I don't even have the guts to watch Schrinder's list, because the trailer is already too depressing for me.

Memes are enough, make fun of autocrats as stress-relief...

Once upon a time, there was a man named Abraham, who beget two sons, who each beget one of two shitty peoples, who both claim some mystical sky daddy gave them the right of land ownership. And they've been fighting ever since, barring an occasional peace that always got broken. But now, one side is curb stomping the other hard, largely in part due to outside aid.

Just pay attention and whenever you see or hear something that Makes you say "wait what?" Go look it up and educate yourself.

You don't necessarily need to participate in the conversation, observe it, gather opinions and cross reference with trusted sources.

Of course in person you can't just whip out your phone and look stuff up, or shit I guess you can, but you can always say "I'm not informed enough to speak on this, can I get back to you?" and in my experience people will respect that, giving you a chance to go educate yourself on whatever the topic at hand was.

Frankly, I would like to know the secret to the opposite. 🤢🥹

search for News articles, or posts online. maybe "aggegate sites are not the best" but its basically like wikipedia, piqued you curiostiy to search more sources. of course many "news" are often just propaganda articles, often times its opinionated, reads like a gossip, or have ragebaity title. sources like "Faux, cbs, ,,,etc" are mainstream and have right wing biases. more independant would be sources that arnt controlled by MSMs type syndication.

It’s not going to be updated with daily events, but simple Wikipedia has background and fairly up to date info on major conflicts. Regular Wikipedia is more frequently updated, but simple will give you the basics without over complicating and is a quick read.

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93Palestine_conflict

When you start a new job at a big company, you feel really incompetent and self-conscious because everybody else has been there so much longer, yet little old you know nothing about how any of it works or what’s going on.

But then you go walking around talking to people, and you realize nobody actually knows what the hell is going on, and they just pretend they do.

It’s kinda like that.

But sometimes you meet some really competent and knowledgeable people who seem to have a better grasp and perspective on things. It’s good to not just listen to these people, but to bounce questions off of them. They don’t judge, because they know.

Like we'd ever let having no understanding of a topic get in the way of having an opinion on it...

I think mistepping generally just gets you in trouble if you try to act like you know what you're talking about or insist that a given position is correct. Just say you're not the most informed and are looking to learn more or understand people's perspectives rather than assert one thing or another.

Never let Zionists gaslight you about this being a complex issue.

Chomsky's UN speech on Palestine is a good starting point in my opinion.
Afterwards look up "Nakba" and read up on the Balfour Declaration and Theodor Herzl, the inventor of Zionism.

Chomsky and Illan Pappé's joint book On Palestine is a great read. My introduction on the conflict was Alan Dowty's book Israel/Palestine which was very insightful to me. I read it around 2010(?) though so maybe there's better more recent works.

Norman Finkelstein is great. Finally, BadEmpanada on YouTube

I like readtangle.com

It's an independent newsletter that tackles a major US news item each day, compiling views from across the political spectrum, without engaging in click bait or hyperbole. Every newsletter ends with a feel-good story.

I don’t really see how it’s that complex. Israel is genociding the Palestinian people for their land because they feel entitled to it because of their religion.

I get most of my news from Seth Meyers. I operate on the Robinhood men in tights theory of receiving bad news in a funny way so it's easier to take.

Lots of time.

I'd highly recommend starting by searching and sorting sources into categories by trust and quality then work from there.