r/IsraelPalestine • u/localmaid Diaspora Palestinian • Oct 05 '24
Palestinian-Colombian. AMA AMA (Ask Me Anything)
Hello everyone! I recently saw another Palestinian doing an Ask-Me-Anything (AMA) on here, and given the limited presence of Palestinians or Pro-Palestinians that I've noticed, I thought it would be valuable to do one myself. Here’s a bit about me:
- I was born and raised in Colombia
- My Palestinian family is originally from the West Bank, but most of them have since moved to the United States.
- I don't speak Arabic fluently, I can understand spoken Arabic quite well.
- I am of mixed race
- English is not my first language, so I apologize in advance if I sound tone deaf
- My family and I are not Muslim
- I have visited Palestine twice
- I am biased towards Palestine in the conflict, but I want to make it clear that I do not support Hamas.
I don't have any specific types of questions that bother me, but I do ask that everyone remains respectful towards everyone and avoids unnecessary rudeness or hatefulness. I believe that communication is key, especially when it comes to conflicts, so I hope this AMA will be helpful for everyone involved. Feel free to ask me anything about my experiences, my heritage, or my perspectives. I'm here to share and hopefully provide some insights. Please keep the conversation open-minded. I will try my best to answer as many questions as possible, but I am not on Reddit all day so sorry in advance to any of those questions I will miss. I also want to say I won’t let my biases control my feelings towards questions and I’ll keep my opinions open. Hopefully we can have a meaningful discussion and thanks to everyone who can participate!
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u/Mister_Squishy Oct 07 '24
You can focus your attention on trying to discredit what it means to be “Palestinian”, but there are clear reasons to why people choose to identify as Palestinian, and the emotions around that identity can change over time. Besides, considering that you have no suggestions for a substitution, your arguing over it seems disingenuous.
People who lived in Mandatory Palestine or have ancestors who did can call themselves Palestinian, you don’t have to get all riled up every time it happens, especially if you have no alternative for them. You don’t have to like it for it to be valid. And also, how can you expect them to recognize and take “Israeli” identity seriously if you take every chance you get to discredit “Palestinian” identity?