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Almost any Palestinian can tell you that history has not exactly gone our way over the past century. The land we called home during and prior to the British Mandate of Palestine has been partitioned and transformed beyond recognition. Our people have been scattered by wars and their aftermath. Some now live under military occupation, others in exile, and many in places that evolved over generations from refugee camps that began as tent cities and are now built settlements.

The traumas of displacement and statelessness have shaped our national consciousness. They affect where we live, the conditions of our lives, our interactions with family, our personal safety, and our sense of self. Many have been physically injured in the present conflict and have seen their houses destroyed and their family members killed.

It is within that context that I have sought to understand the conflict: how it started, why it continues, and—most importantly—how to end it. For much of my childhood, I was presented with a single narrative: that historic Palestine—i.e. all the land that is now part of Israel and the Palestinian Territories—is ultimately Palestinian and Arab land, and that Zionism is a foreign colonial project cruelly imposed upon us by European powers at our expense, via the Balfour Declaration and the United Nations. According to this argument, Israel was financed by Americans and Europeans, and even today it functions as something of an American colony in the Middle East. This is the dominant Palestinian narrative, which has spread like wildfire on social media.