The “TikTok War” – How Young People Continue to Fuel Conflict in the Middle East

Dead Israelis, dead Palestinians, burning houses, bombs, hits, shots, screams and children growing up in the middle.

An endless battle for a piece of land.

For some this area is sacred and for others it means home. For many both. Israelis and Palestinians have been fighting each other for so long it’s hard to keep up.

Guilt, hatred, terror and escalating violence – the conflict in the Middle East has become a complex feud. Generations are growing up that don’t know what peace feels like. Apparently, the young are already so attached to the conflict that it has become part of them – or literally implanted in them.

Palestinian children are “cut off” from Jews at an early age

“There are terror camps for students in the Palestinian area of ​​Gaza,” Arye Sharuz Shalicar said when asked by Watson. He himself lives in Israel and advises the Israeli government. According to him, Jew-hatred is indoctrinated in Palestinian children from an early age. In the terror camps, the story is spread that Israel is a colonial invention of European Jews. “We really shouldn’t be here. This is pure historical distortion,” says Shalicar.

In his book “Shalom Habibi” he talks about the tense relationship between Jews and Arabs – and the possibility of peace and friendship. According to the German-Persian-Israeli author, Israeli children are taught tolerance and mutual respect for all people in schools.

According to Shalicar, the Palestinian children are presented with a “very simple reality”: Jews are white Europeans who have no business here. They colonize, rob and kill – that’s what makes them enemies.

violence against the civilian population

But the reality of Palestinian children also includes violence on the part of Israel, which Shalicar fails to mention.

This is evident from the recent riots in the West Bank. A suspected Palestinian gunman killed two Israelis in Nablus. A mob of Israeli settlers then formed in the Palestinian town of Hawara. The attackers set fire to houses, shops and vehicles. The Palestinian Red Crescent reported more than 100 injured.

The SPD politician Sawsan Chebli is visibly shocked by the images from Hawara. “I can’t get these images out of my head,” she wrote on Twitter. While Israeli voices in Germany criticize the attacks, the German media, the German Twitter world and politicians remain silent, she says.

Several houses are on fire – Palestinian children are losing their homes. They may have already had to give up their house to a Jewish family for this.

Historical distortion in Palestinian schools

What about those Palestinian children who witness Jews knocking on their front door saying this is their home now? Shalicar understands the anger, he says. However, not a single Jew lives in the Palestinian villages. “We would be killed immediately,” he says. Jews lived in their own towns and cities.

For example, Palestinians are not taught in schools that Jews have always lived here. What is also not taught, according to Shalicar, is that in 1947 the United Nations had proposed to the Jewish and Arab parties that they each claim part of the land. “But the Arabs refused at the time,” says the Israeli.

The children are taught from an early age: In principle, the state of Israel does not belong here. Young people don’t just shake off this thinking pattern, says Shalicar. He says:

On such a basis, a rapprochement between Israeli and Palestinian youths is unthinkable. He himself would not send his children to joint projects at this time.

A wall of distrust, fear and violence

“The fear of them is too great, the trust in the other side too small for the Palestinians to welcome us with open arms”, he says. Only if a quiet life next to each other is made possible can young people meet again and make friends.

But it is not only the Palestinian side’s turn here. Israel also needs to lend a hand for peace, says freelance reporter Steffi Hentschke in the podcast “Zeit-Online”. “The Israeli government must definitely enter into dialogue with the Palestinian Authority,” she said from Tel Aviv. The Palestinians must be made to feel that they have at least partial control over the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Emotionalization of the conflict on both sides

The German-Israeli psychologist Ahmad Mansour also does not want to look at the conflict one-dimensionally. On both sides – Israeli or Palestinian – he sees increasing radicalization among young people. Last but not least, social media plays a role here.

“I see things on both sides of the conflict that worry me,” he told Watson. Mansour was born in a small Arab town in Israel. Today he fights against the radicalization of young Muslims. What is visible in this conflict: It is about emotions and not about facts. He calls it the “Tiktok War.”

The young generation celebrates its violence, its emotions and the role of victim on both sides. As a result, stones roll on a solution- and fact-oriented path to peace. According to the expert, the Palestinians in particular are shifting their propaganda to social media, so that sensible and solution-oriented voices don’t get a chance.

Tiktok radicalization: young people produce propaganda

It is a real Tiktok radicalization that the psychologist has not experienced with this intensity before. The video portal Tiktok is full of propaganda by young people for young people. Content is hardly questioned critically. The problem is exacerbated by one factor: the young generation now growing up no longer knows how brutal and bloody an escalation of the conflict can be.

“We have a generation of young people who were born in 2003/2004 and did not experience the ‘Second Intifada’ of 2000,” says Mansour. At that time, there was an armed uprising by radical Palestinian groups with suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.

In response, the Israeli army retaliated and destroyed much of the infrastructure in the Palestinian territories. That leaves traumatic experiences on both sides. And this is what the younger generation lacks. That is why their attitude is bolder and more uncompromising, says the expert.

He also sees less ideology on the Palestinian side. That is not the radical Islamic Palestinian organization Hamas, ie not a religious story. “It’s just petty criminals organizing and hoping for recognition in their community through this fight,” he says. Mansour tends not to believe that young people can help end the conflict in the Middle East.

The expert is particularly concerned about the approaching Ramadan. Mass riots have repeatedly occurred on these important holidays in recent years. “These are extremely sensitive times,” says Mansour. He feels that an escalation has become inevitable.