Unsettling Events by John Na'em Snobar - January

How Palestinians view the Jewish Worldview

Demographic reversal, done through the first Palestinian Exile of 1948AD (known to Arabs as the 'Nakba') heavily shapes how Palestinians engage on the Jewish worldview.

The way that the 'Jewish State' - whose national emblems, courts, and character could not have been achieved without the demographic reversal of the Palestinian people – was created is the main reason most Palestinians feel unable to engage on Jewish perspectives. 

Anecdotally speaking, Palestinians reject the Jewish biblical historical frame due primarily to trauma from loss of land, genocide, and erasure, and due to enduring Palestinian nationalism. 

Indeed, it has taken me a two decades’ long career in politics and Western diplomacy, to begin to meaningfully engage on Jewish perspectives - and even so, only recently. 

While there is no doubt that the State of Israel’s behaviour since October 8 has made engaging even harder, there are also particularities concerning the Jewish worldview, which are misunderstood – though rest assured, I understand them completely. 

For example, to confirm their suspicions of antisemitism, and given the long history of this phenomenon, some Jews are engaged in the Pro-Palestine space. Others are engaged in genuine anti-Zionist or peacemaking endeavours. 

A recent emotional exchange I had with such a Palestinian ‘ally’ resulted in the retort from the 'American Muslim', who shot back, ‘engaging means you need to listen, as well as talk’. Touché.

The Prophet Jeremiah warns of the Lord’s anger, and the harm that certain people can bring upon themselves. But turning away from evil ways and evil practices does require a certain faith – thankfully, some of us have it.

The question for emerging leaders is therefore how to build empathy, in circumstances that some may call emotion, and others may call emotional manipulation. 

Acknowledging humanity, without qualification, or nationalistic tendencies during an ongoing war which some term a genocide, and others call bombing families in tents, and yet others call a fight for their existential existence, is a challenge – to say the least.  

For me, this is a challenge in faith, and truth-telling, all the while mindful of the great gift of sight that the Lord bestows on some of us. 

What an incoming Palestinian leader must do is look is therefore to seek to create empathy, among Jews for Palestinians, and among Palestinians, for Jews – that is what I intend to do.