u/LuckyEducator8161

just wanted to share something positive about the other side, kind of getting sick of all of the negativity coming from people.

i live in columbus, the capital of ohio. in columbus there are many suburbs. one of them is called bexley.

during the segregation and redlining era of america, jews weren’t allowed to purchase homes in upper arlington (which is a neighboring suburb of bexley). only white people could live in upper arlington. so jews built houses next to upper arlington and formed a community which today is called bexley.

today bexley is around 25% jewish but it used to be much higher before columbus became more cosmopolitan. my husband who is jordanian/syrian used to live in bexley and went to school with a lot of jewish people. earlier this week we were helping his parents move out of their bexley home to retire and live somewhere that’s more eventful lol.

but being in bexley for the first time ever (i’m from michigan) was pretty cool. driving past stores i saw the star of david next to storefronts advertising kosher products, saw a lot of people wearing kippahs, etc. it looked very jewish.

what surprised me the most is that i learned the jewish residents of bexley are mostly democrats despite bexley being an affluent suburb. usually affluent suburbs here lean more republican/MAGA. but bexley is different.

driving around i saw homes with israeli flags and palestinian flags placed together on people’s lawns, anti-trump and anti-netanyahu signs, etc.

honestly it felt so inclusive and oddly felt at home.

i even had a nice convo with a jewish family at a grocery store there. when they told me i look arab, i said well indeed i am, i am palestinian lol. they were so kind and invited me and my husband to their home for dinner.

and another interesting thing about bexley. amy acton, the democratic candidate for governor of ohio running against vivek ramaswamy, is jewish and lives in bexley. and white supremacists in the surrounding suburbs are calling this election “the death of ohio” because it’s a jewish candidate running against an indian candidate and there won’t be a white governor for the next at least 4 years.

i like bexley and honestly i wish i knew more about bexley before my husband and i bought our house, bc i would definitely buy a house there.

i keep seeing the same woman standing in the median near Chuy's with a baby in a stroller, begging for money for baby formula and water. last week i also saw her near costco gas station, making two very young girls (like both have to be around 8 years old) approaching people with gas cans saying their parents were "stranded" and needed gas money. or trying to sell "gold" (the fake stuff from aliexpress) in order to "get back home".

has anyone else seen her? made a police report a while ago bc im concerned about the kids but i keep seeing her doing the same thing every week

im palestinian and have lived in detroit area for most of my life, so i know what a good shawarma is. i always try to support arab owned and other minority owned businesses so i was excited to try this place after hearing so much hype about it.

yeah well it was horrible. the chicken was dry, no seasoning, waited 30 mins for my food. i also overheard some employees talking crap about customers in arabic. so that was also offputting. i saw other arabs there but it was mostly white people.

im surprised no one in columbus talks about mr.mando restaurant. they have a basic jordanian style shawarma, it's basic but it is better than farooj and it is cheaper. and you get the jordanian hospitality, he gave me free fries with my food. big portions.

yeah, i give it a 2/5.

there is a lot of ignorance in this sub about the formation of palestinian identity, including from some pro-palestine people and arabs. some points zionists and israelis make about how palestinian identity developed are true, however most of the time they are followed by bigoted comments like "palestinians are fake", "palestinians are just jordanians and egyptians who should be deported" etc.

also there is a lot of ignorance in this sub mostly from non-arabs about arabism vs islamism. arabism was a secular ideology. i will start with arabism vs islamism.

how did arabism form?
arabism originated from arab christians mainly in lebanon, syria, and egypt. this was a response to how ottoman muslims treated christians, very oppressive and persecuted christians and caused christians to emigrate in large waves to the americas and the western world. the persecution was very severe especially in mount lebanon and damascus. arabism wasn't that popular until later in the ottoman empire, arab muslims started to feel the marginalization. ottomans were turkfying everything, banning arabs from holding high political positions and banning the arabic language in some aspects of life, etc. the idea was to unite all arabs regardless of religion, the idea that arabs shared more than just religion such as a language, culture, and history and therefore should unite politically to overthrow the ottomans. the movement was intentionally secular.

islamists are not secular. they want islam to dominate all aspects of life. they do not want to separate islam from the state. this is where arabists and islamists conflicted. after arab nationalists overthrew or replaced european monarchies and governments in egypt, syria, and iraq, the arab nationalist governments suppressed islamists and political islam. this led to violence between islamists and arabists, and islamists "protesting" against arabist governments. see the luxor massacre in egypt and the grand mosque seizure in saudi arabia as examples of islamists "protesting" against arabists and secularism. so saying that arabism and islamism are the same things is pure ignorance. yes arabism did lead to oppression against some minority groups such as copts, assyrians, etc. but it wasn't due to religion.

palestinian identity, how did it form?

before the british and the european powers divded the arab world after the collapse of the ottoman empire, most arabs in the levant were arabists and syrian nationalists. yes there was not a fully hardened or universally dominant palestinian national identity in the modern sense. most palestinian arabs identified irst as arabs and were arabists, the christians were syrian nationalists and supported the idea of "greater syria", which does not just include the modern syrian state, but the entire levant including some parts of mesopotamia/iraq. yes some palestinian arabs did want an independent palestinian state during the british mandate period but most palestinian arabs wanted unity with other levant states. the goal was to restore arab political power after centuries of ottoman rule and european colonialism. the development of palestinian identity was gradual not exactly non existent. the splitting of the arab world and separation of palestinians from other arabs did create the palestinian identity.

i really dont see anything wrong with saying this because it is history. but palestinians were still a people fighting for self-determination, dignity, and rights for arabic-speaking people in their homeland. i think some pro-palestine people do not want to acknowledge this because arabism has a more negative connotation today than it ever did. especially with the propaganda from some zionists that "all arabs originated from the same place" or "originated from the arabian peninsula" just because they speak arabic and wanted to unite. it's bogus. if you hear arabs especially arab christians talking about arabism nowadays, it's extremely negative. as for arab muslims, islamism is the dominant ideology nowadays. most arab muslims do want an islamic state and want to be governed by sharia. so what some zionists/israelis say about palestinian identity is correct. other times it's ignorance or bigotry.

"in november, my great aunt Elham, she was sheltering at the churches too, but she decided to try to go back to her house. she didn't tell anyone that she was leaving the church. she snuck out and she found somebody to take her back to the house.

maybe it was a taxi or something, and the driver actually didn't go all the way to the house, he stopped before the street, he said this area is too dangerous, i'm not going to drive in. she got out of the car and kept going on foot. and then when she approached her house, she noticed that there were israeli snipers on the rooftop. and one of the snipers shot her in the leg. she collapsed on the floor and screamed in pain and her cell phone was working so she was able to call the family members back at the church. and they couldn't do anything. they panicked of course, they called the Red Cross to see if the Red Cross can reach her. The Red Cross said that they have to get permission from the israeli army and that the israeli army was not responding to their calls.

she was bleeding from her leg and it was a slow bleeding. so she was able to make some calls before she died. she called the priest back at the church, she called my mother here in canada. they had a brief conversation. my mother told her: "hold on, just keep holding on. they'll get to you". and then the Red Cross couldn't get permission. the neighbors in Gaza they saw her body on the ground outside. they couldn't go to help her because the snipers were all over the rooftops. nobody dared to go and try to retrieve her.

they could hear her screaming in pain all night, actually. and then in the early hours of the morning, the israel army decided to run her over with a tank, and just finish her off. she was still alive, from what i know.

they found her purse squished over her head, over her face. which indicates she put her purse over her face as the tank was approaching. and the neighbors could hear her screaming until the tank ran her over. then the screaming stopped. and that's how she was killed."

https://x.com/anadoluagency/status/2047685800842694910