I personally feel very odd in discussions like the one you mentioned: Israel/Palestine. For those 99% of people with strong opinions but aren't impacted, 99% of them have based their strong opinion on information that's at best incomplete and most often wildly biased.
At best, you can hope for a genuine conversation where two extremely incomplete views come together to produce a state that is merely quite ignorant. That's an improvement, I guess. But I have a hard time getting enthusiastic about it. Especially since, if they did indeed come in with "strong opinions", the best case seems unlikely.
I myself have tried to aim for "weak opinions strongly held". Which is to say, recognize both my ignorance and the large amount of effort it would take to produce a state of genuine knowledge. I'm not kidding when I say that I have little interest in the opinions of anybody on the state of Israel and Palestine who doesn't speak at least one of Hebrew or Arabic fluently... and preferably both.
It's far from sufficient, but I find it weird how few people consider it necessary for holding strong opinions. As you say, these are real people, and if you're not able to speak their language, anything you know about it is at least one step removed -- and likely more.
At best, you can hope for a genuine conversation where two extremely incomplete views come together to produce a state that is merely quite ignorant. That's an improvement, I guess. But I have a hard time getting enthusiastic about it. Especially since, if they did indeed come in with "strong opinions", the best case seems unlikely.
I myself have tried to aim for "weak opinions strongly held". Which is to say, recognize both my ignorance and the large amount of effort it would take to produce a state of genuine knowledge. I'm not kidding when I say that I have little interest in the opinions of anybody on the state of Israel and Palestine who doesn't speak at least one of Hebrew or Arabic fluently... and preferably both.
It's far from sufficient, but I find it weird how few people consider it necessary for holding strong opinions. As you say, these are real people, and if you're not able to speak their language, anything you know about it is at least one step removed -- and likely more.