Person uninterested in Middle East conflict

A Yorkshireman has publicly confessed to be ‘entirely uninterested’ in the Israel-Palestinian issue and to having no clear opinion on the rights and wrongs of the conflict.

Ben Adams, a 36-year-old surveyor from Leeds, admitted to a complete lack of interest in the issue and admitted that he just read and heard a series of counterclaims from people with clearly ill-informed or heavily biased preconceptions about the conflict.

Mr Adams told the OMS:

“I've perfected the art of just about giving the other person the impression that I vaguely agree with them, even though sometimes I can't quite interpret their ranting in sufficient granularity to identify which side they are actually on. I do wish they'd just shut the fuck up”.

Apparently, Mr Adams first realised the seriousness of his condition when colleagues discovered that he had no idea what the phrase ‘from the river to the sea’ actually meant.

“Apparently there are two interpretations, although as far as I can tell there are actually about seventeen. I asked which river and which sea and that seemed to make everyone angry.”

Attempts to educate himself have so far been unsuccessful.

“I read something about the history of the conflict and got back to about 1948. Then someone told me you can't possibly understand 1948 without understanding the British Mandate. So I went back to 1917 and the Balfour Declaration. Then someone said I needed to understand the Ottoman Empire.

“At that point I realised I was reading about something that happened before Leeds United existed and decided I'd probably gone far enough.”

Adams accepts that his position leaves him dramatically less informed than many of his friends, several of whom have developed comprehensive solutions to the conflict after watching approximately forty-five minutes of TikTok videos.

His friend Sophie, 31, an HR consultant from Headingley, said Ben's unwillingness to take a position was becoming increasingly problematic.

“Silence is complicity. Ben says he doesn't know enough about the conflict to comment, but that's just not good enough in 2026. You have to educate yourself.”

Sophie explained that she had educated herself extensively on the issue since October 2023, principally through Instagram infographics produced by people she already agreed with.

Adams has also been criticised for refusing to describe either side as Nazis.

“That's another problem. One person tells me Israel is literally Nazi Germany. Then somebody else tells me Hamas are literally Nazis. I was under the impression the Nazis were literally Nazis, but apparently the franchise has expanded considerably.”

As a professional surveyor, Adams says he finds the confidence of other people particularly confusing.

“If you asked me whether there was subsidence in a semi-detached house in Wakefield, I'd want to inspect the property before giving you an opinion. I'd look at the cracks, the foundations, drainage, local geology, all that sort of thing.

“But apparently if somebody asks me to determine the legitimate territorial boundaries of two peoples with competing historical, religious and national claims going back generations, I'm expected to have the answer immediately.”

He has experimented with saying “it's complicated”, but discovered this merely causes both sides to assume he secretly supports the other one. He therefore developed a range of neutral responses which allow him to survive conversations without acquiring any actual knowledge.

These include “it's absolutely terrible”, “something has to change”, “I just feel sorry for the ordinary people caught up in it” and, for particularly difficult situations, slowly shaking his head and saying “unbelievable”.

“The last one's brilliant because you don't even have to know what they've just told you. They say something about Netanyahu, Hamas, settlers or the UN and you just shake your head and say ‘unbelievable’. Works every time.”

Unfortunately, even this strategy has recently begun to fail.

At a dinner party last month, Adams responded to a fifteen-minute monologue about Israeli settlements by saying “there are obviously legitimate concerns on both sides.”

He was subsequently informed that this was an unacceptable position.

“So I apologised and said there were illegitimate concerns on both sides instead. Apparently that was worse.”

Adams insists his lack of an opinion should not be mistaken for apathy towards human suffering.

“Obviously I don't want anybody killing anybody. That seems a reasonable starting point. But beyond that, I don't really know what I'm talking about. The strange thing is that this apparently makes me uniquely unqualified to discuss the subject, whereas knowing fuck-all about it but being incredibly angry makes you an expert.”

He says he remains open to eventually developing a position on the conflict, but only after completing sufficient research. Based on the reading lists supplied to him by friends, he estimates this will take approximately eleven years.

Until then, he intends to concentrate his attention on subjects about which he feels sufficiently informed to hold strong opinions, including Leeds United, potholes, the price of a pint and whether the council deliberately synchronises traffic lights to piss him off.

“I'm extremely well informed about that last one,” he added.

“And they're definitely doing it.”