Opening social media: one moment you see a child being carried from rubble, face bloodied, families weeping. Then, within a single swipe, the Israeli flag appears, reposted by someone you know – someone you find kind, and approachable. This is an experience many of us share, and it’s jarring. How can one possibly look at the same images and still choose, of all things, to repost that flag?
It’s a question I’ve wrestled with because it feels personal. What goes through their minds when they see the same violence I do? How can they justify it? And how can I separate the “them” and “us” when the parallels of our faith are right in front of me?
As a Muslim, Palestine is more than a political issue, it’s a moral one, rooted in faith. The connection Muslims have to Masjid Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem is woven into our beliefs, just as Zionists connect with Israel: Our first Qiblah, the sacred ground where all the prophets joined together to pray. Many Jews are taught that Eretz Yisrael – the biblical Land of Israel – is their God-given right, not too far from what Muslims are taught about Mecca and Medina. To some Jews, Israel is not just a religious claim, it’s survival. The trauma of the Holocaust fuels the belief is that without Israel, Jews could face another genocide. Yael Zerubavel, in Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition, talks about how Israeli identity is built around this trauma. The land isn’t just holy; it’s their defense, their protection.
This column isn’t about arm deals or Western Influence. It’s about understanding why students my age, who, like me, have no financial or political stake in the conflict, yet still see Israeli sovereignty as more vital than the lives being lost.
At first, I thought maybe they’d been brainwashed. But if that were true, couldn’t the same be said about me? I was raised with certain beliefs about Palestine, just as they were raised with theirs about Israel. But an important realization stops me: if justice is relative, why do Jewish groups like Jewish Voices for Peace stand in solidarity with Palestinians? Why are there cross religious movements against Gaza’s suffering? It seems that there’s an intuitive sense of justice that transcends the divide. There’s no “Muslim Voices for Israel” because, fundamentally, something about what’s happening feels universally wrong.
To understand this divide, we need to do more than just acknowledge belief, we need to explore cognitive dissonance. Psychologist Leon Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance explains that when faced with conflicting information about their beliefs, people will adjust their thinking to reduce discomfort. Political psychologist, Daniel Bar-Tal, calls this a “siege mentality,” where people believe they’re constantly under threat, justifying almost anything for self-preservation.
So, when I see Israeli flags on my feed, I realize they’re not seeing what I’m seeing. The violence, the bloodshed — it’s not registering the same way because, to them, it’s necessary. It’s survival.
To get to the root of the problem: we need to identify the driving mindset that has been reinforced by centuries of conquest: possession is power. Israel isn’t alone in interwinging land and religion; we see similar claims across major religions today. But must religion rely on possession to be powerful?
Native American perspectives offer a powerful alternative. Author of God Is Red, Vine Deloria Jr., contrasts this indigenous view with colonialist thought: “the earth does not belong to us; we belong to the earth.” This view, centered on stewardship rather than ownership, contrasts sharply with Zionism’s territorial claims. Shifting to see land as a shared space transforms the narrative entirely. This isn’t just airheaded optimism; cities like ancient Jerusalem and Damascus, although now getting destroyed, prove that coexistence happened once and can happen again.
Historian Nurit Peled-Elhanan, in her book Palestine in Israeli School Books, shows how Israeli education depicts Palestinians as existential threats, framing Israeli actions as justified defense. This shapes young minds to internalize these portrayals, without ever questioning the larger context of occupation, displacement, and suffering.
But where does Israeli and Jewish education come in with the random, non-religious Americans that also support Israel? The U.S. education system tells a similar story. Gary Nash’s The History Wars highlights how American textbooks sanitize and whitewash the violent history of colonization, and instead emphasize a glossed-over version of American resilience and progress.
Israel’s story mirrors that of the U.S. itself. The Manifest Destiny mindset — settlers believing America was divinely destined for them — resembles Zionist claims over Palestine. When we’re not taught to question our own nation’s history of violence, it becomes easier to overlook the same patterns elsewhere. Unsurprisingly, we’re conditioned to value sovereignty and security—two pillars of Zionist discourse — above all else, even at the cost of human lives. As well as see colonialism as a necessary evil, one that it is inevitable in the rise of a nation. To admit Israel is wrong, for many Americans, is to confront their own country’s dark history.
Often a key point in my columns: our solution is education. When we talk about reforming education, the focus often falls on adding forgotten topics or strengthening neglected information, But the real gap isn’t in what’s missing — it’s in how we’re conditioned to respond to what’s already there.
Sophia Dasser is a freshman Computer Science and Philosophy major in the College of Arts and Sciences. Her fortnightly column Debugging Ethics explores the intersection of technology, ethics, and social justice, with a focus on the overlooked and underrepresented. She can be reached at [email protected].
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