Social Media, Palestine, and the Power of Crowdsourced Reporting
I’m a Palestinian-American. Many people know their heritage but few get the privilege of being able to visit where they came from. I was one of the few that got to see the place where my ancestors lived. This happened when I was a kid, 10 years old to be exact. But like all things when it comes to Palestine, there was some complexity to this trip.
As both a Palestinian and an American citizen, I could see the Palestinian and Israeli realities in the region. This experience was a true twilight zone. Where the Palestinian side was laced with poverty and crumbling buildings, Israel felt like a scene from a fun movie set in Europe. This sort of difference is something that still sticks with me, even today.
The conflict between Palestine and Israel is something that I was taught early in life. My father and, by extension, his entire family were very passionate about being Palestinian and our Palestinian roots. My grandmother would often tell me stories of her childhood before the occupation and tales of the atrocities that Palestinians experienced as a result of the creation of the Israeli state.
Yet as an American I also saw the way that the American media has covered the conflict in my lifetime. As a kid, I was exposed to both CNN and Al-Jazeera, and the way they reported the same…
