Musings of a Settler

 I don't for a second consider myself an expert about the Palestinian - Israeli conflict.  My understanding is limited to what I've heard and read which may or may not put me in the know, though I want to know ... both sides, versus refusing to know because I think I already know, like some who have already chosen sides. 

In the last few weeks my Instragram feed has been full of images of conflict between nationalist Israeli settlers and Palestinians being encroached upon.  

Here's what I think I know ... 

Israeli nationalists believe the land is theirs; that they inhabited it first as promised by Yahweh, and that the only reason they weren't in it until roughly the 1940's,  was because they were dispersed out of the land by conquering Christians hundreds of years ago.  They believe God has beckoned them back to the land of promise and anyone who took up residence while they were dispersed need make room for them. Hence, they are justified to settle in areas deemed Palestinian, whether sanctioned by international law or not; it is their "God given right".  This is a deep-seeded belief that goes to identity, religion and livelihood, all very cherished domains that when threatened, causes even the best among us to vilify and dehumanize whom ever is causing the threat.

The Palestinians meanwhile say they have always lived in the land too, that they descend from the ancient Canaanites who, the Israelis believe, Yahweh wanted gone.   In the late 19th century, around 1850, some 350,000 Palestinians lived in the land; by 1900 the number had grown to 600,000, comprising of 85% Muslims, 11 % Christians and 4% Jews, though upon the rise of Zionism post WW1 and 2, the Jewish population grew exponentialy as persecution and the horrors of the Holocaust compelled many to return to the land.  This mass return displaced many Palestinians who had been there for generations, and Palestinians continue to view the land as "occupied" by oppressors. This perception is equally deep-seeded and plays to the victim-oppressor narrative that re-energizes us-v-them conflict on a seemingly endless loop.

Both are as convinced of the "right" of their position as they are that there is a moon in the sky at night and a sun in the sky by day.

So yesterday, today, tomorrow,  there is conflict - Palestinians decrying illegal settlements in their shrinking, occupied territory, while Jews assert rights and demand justice for terrorist attacks launched and directed by Hamas, out of that territory, as they remember the promises to Abraham and the command to Joshua to "take the land".

And so today, as I watched yet another video of violence between polarized and hostile sides, I thought of Canada and the fact I am a settler descended from settlers,  in these lands.  And I imagined - what would happen if after wiping out entire Indigeous nations with small pox, clearing the plains, forcing children in to residential schools and their parents onto remote reserves on unproductive land, we settlers decided to start building homes on those reserves?   After having taken all that they had, what if we settlers decided to take what little was left?  

I'm sure some will argue the distinctions between Israel's positioning in the "settler wars" and an imagined encroachment by North American settlers onto reserves, though my viseral response just from imagining it tells me no such distinction exists.   I can't help but think that no fair minded Canadian or American would even attempt to justify wrenching a reserve out from a First Nation so they could build their own house on it, so then why do so many Canadians and Americans, particularly those of the conservative evangelical sort,  not have a problem when Israeli nationalists do the same in Palestinian territory?