hey. not sure if anyone will see this but just mostly looking to vent about a complex situation.
my partner (Jewish) and I (supportive goy atheist) have made a new friend (Arab Muslim), and we obviously have some different beliefs and opinions but also a lot of shared values, so the friendship has been strong thus far.
there are some instances where we have to bite our tongues, in regard to the I/P conflict mainly, though we are starting to push back in small ways such as, yes Hamas is an armed terrorist group, most Jews/Israelis don't support the government's actions, etc. this all came to a head last night when we made the *very* controversial statement: Jews are indigenous to the Levant.
I'm shocked at how she was unwilling to accept that, she became stubborn, defaulted to her mother's opinion, and started asserting that all Jewish prophets/architecture/holy sites are actually Islamic, and not Jewish, since they were sent/built/assigned by G-d. this, naturally, extends her opinion to that of modern day Jews being totally genetically unrelated to the ancient Israelites. blatant erasure and rewriting of Jewish history, centring Islam even though the Quran is demonstrably younger than the Tanakh. my partner understandably lashed out as their cultural ancestry was being disrespected. we tried to explain that there's a difference between respecting others' beliefs, vs one's beliefs directly erasing an entire group's existence from history, but she kept falling back on "history is written by the victors, we have no real way of knowing anything given that we didn't live back then".
it is the next day and there has been no hint of an apology, or even an acknowledgment. we left hers on good terms last night, but I know I need to bring this up with her, how the fuck do I even start. I just want to gently but firmly clarify that she is entitled to her beliefs, but her assertion that the Jewish prophets and architecture were simply Islamic all along is disrespectful and quite hurtful to Jews, particularly my partner
