The state of Israel currently controls an area of land comprising four distinct regions: the 1948 green line territory (what could be considered “Israel proper”), the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights.
In total, about 14.8 million people live in this combined area, with a plurality (but NOT a majority) of them - 7.2 million - being Israeli Jews. That means that the rest, the majority, are non-Jewish - they include Gazans, West Bank inhabitants, and non-Jewish Israeli citizens (aka ‘48 Arabs).
Are Americans aware of this? It doesn’t get brought up very much, but to me this seems like a pretty significant fact. We’re sending billions of dollars a year to Israel so that a minority of the people who live there can have a special set of rights over the majority.
I did not know this prior to October 7th. I was pro-Palestinian prior to that anyway, but I mistakenly thought that Israel was, at least, oppressing a numerical minority rather than a majority.
What happens is the israelis play a shell game where whenever something good happens in the occupied territories it's because of how benevolently they're treating the Palestinians, but whenever something bad happens Palestine morphs into a sovereign nation that is failing to provide for its people and israel has no control over them.