"Your name is so unusual! Where are you from?"
Sirens go off in my head as I think of how to best answer this anything but casual question, aware of the dangerously fraught ways the conversation can proceed. Being second-generation American, I am tempted to align with a state or hometown and nothing more. Another part of me wants to face the question of my ancestry proudly but knows the answer will come out in a stutter. Still, another says to feign ignorance or lie entirely.
Answering such a simple inquiry should not be this scary. However, since the official declaration of war between Israel and Palestine and the resulting news coverage, I no longer feel safe to say that I am Palestinian.
My hesitancy does not stem from any shame or guilt for my culture but concern over media characterizations of Gaza and fear for Palestine's future.
On Oct. 8, 2023, the Israeli government officially declared war on the militant group, Hamas, following its terror attack against Israeli soldiers and citizens. Israel's bombing campaign has since caused the deaths of over 13,000 Palestinians and the displacement of more than 1.4 million civilians in Gaza. While this situation seems to have escalated at a rapid pace, the present opposition between Palestine and Israel holds roots in 1967, when Israel began its illegal occupation and appropriation of Palestinian territory and resources. The weeks following the declaration brought Israel's 56 years of illegal occupational force over Palestine to a devastating climax that the United Nations fears will result in genocide for Palestinians.
All the while, I watch these horrors unfold from a seat of relatively privileged safety as an American citizen. My life, filled with the blissful routine of classes and extracurriculars, is only interrupted by Instagram streams of Gazan parents holding tight the bodies of their children, caked in dirt and blood, as the world they know is kicked out from under them. I cannot feel their pain or fear but merely cry at its sight. I am consumed by guilt over my own safety here in Westwood and anger at my inability to share that safety with them.
I have always tried to do my part in advocating for the oppressed, especially when it comes to Palestine. As a teenager, I marched the streets of San Francisco demanding the right to a home for Palestinians, just as I now stand with fellow students on Bruin Walk, demanding a ceasefire for Gaza. Though I remain steadfast in my advocacy by sharing factual information about Palestinian history and donating to relief efforts, nothing seems to counteract the devastation in the Middle East.
I feel crushed as the American government and major conglomerates funnel billions of our dollars to support Israel, despite adamant protests by Americans of all backgrounds. On Nov. 2, the U.S. House passed an almost $14.5 billion aid package to Israel. At the same time, Gazan refugees lacked basic resources such as clean drinking water. I'm left wondering how I, as a Palestinian American, can trust my country when it won't acknowledge the suffering of those that share my ancestry.
I no longer feel safe to say that I am Palestinian because I no longer feel there is logical hope that our leaders will include Palestinians under the values of truth and freedom for all.
This lack of safety reminds me of previous times I felt the need to obscure my identity. When I first started at UCLA last fall, my Palestinian heritage was not a prominent aspect of how I defined myself. I was the only student with Palestinian ancestry at my suburban elementary and high schools, making me view my culture as a source of isolation and confusion. Being Palestinian was unheard of by my peers and a crime in the eyes of many adults. I wanted to blend in and never spoke about Palestine outside of my home.
It was not until I met other Middle Eastern students in the UCLA dorms and in organizations like Students for Justice in Palestine that I began to feel a greater connection to my heritage. I found a community that shared my unique traditions and favorite meals of warak dawali and knafeh. They understood the boisterous songs and dances from family weddings and acknowledged the strength it took for our ancestors to survive.
Reconnecting with my culture also came in the unexpected form of journalism. On a whim fueled by the desire to meet new friends, I joined the Daily Bruin last fall. After completing my first article, a review of a Middle Eastern student's short film on isolation from home abroad, I became hooked on telling the stories of wide-ranging communities. Seeing my name printed in the byline of the article, I didn't feel self-conscious anymore: I was a journalist with the power to show people the realities of our world with truth and my unique perspective.
Given that journalism helped guide me home to my Palestinian identity, it pains me to see major media outlets covering the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza with less care than I give my craft. For example, in response to the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion on Oct. 17, which Gaza officials report killed several hundred civilians, Politico implied Palestine's involvement with the strike. In one of their newsletters published Oct. 18, Politico writers suggested Hamas has an "interest in painting Israel as brutes who don't care if they kill civilians." This quote was published prior to the release of any solid evidence implicating Palestine or Israel. While the cause of the explosion remains inconclusive, President Biden has warned Israeli forces against following military action on other hospitals in Gaza, including Al-Quds and Al-Shifa.
The impact of this misinformation has even seeped into the collegiate level, with the Anti-Defamation League accusing campus chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine of supporting Hamas. The ADL's accusations have led to the suspension of SJP chapters, including that of Columbia University, end the groups' university funding and ability to facilitate on-campus protests. In an interview with CNN, Columbia's chapter stated that the ADL "demonizes nonviolent tactics by Palestinian activists."
As I comb through research to draft my own article, it is difficult to shake from my mind the biased portrayals of Palestinians that flood my laptop's newsfeed. The passive-voice ridden headlines and paragraphs painting my people as inherently violent stand in stark contrast to the journalistic standards and the Palestinian community that I know. I see media posts of both Israelis and Americans describing Palestinians as 'animals' and 'rapists.' I hear about unidentified people confronting Bruins at a teach-in webinar and at the UCLA Cultural Affairs Commission office to call students "terrorists." But my memories of Palestine are of childhood summers spent playing among the grapevines of my tata's – my grandmother's – home in the West Bank. The Palestine that I know is not an illegitimate collection of brutes and terrorists but a country of rich history, beautiful art and generous, intelligent human beings.
With the news accusing Palestinians of the devastation in Gaza, I am brought back to the declaration of the 2014 Gaza War, when my third-grade self inherited the classroom blame for conflict in the Middle East. Just as now, news of the conflict circulated through every household in my Bay Area hometown, making the war an interesting "grown-up" topic for my schoolmates to discuss. Stirred by a mixture of fear and curiosity, I confided my concerns about Israel's airstrike to a friend in study hall. His response held a blunt tact typical of those my age: "You guys shouldn't have bombed them first."
At that moment, I was struck by guilt that I didn't understand and confusion for how my classmate's claim could be plausible. As a child, I remember my perception of being Palestinian was accompanied by the understanding that I was foremost, like everyone else, a human being. My parents raised me to see culture and religion as means of expression and education, emphasizing that I was my own person and not just a part of any monolith.
It was my classmate's implication that I personally shared responsibility for the destruction continents away that compelled me to ask my father about our heritage later that night. I wanted to hear if I was unknowingly responsible for the needless deaths of thousands, and if not, why did people think that?
While I sat on the edge of my parents' bed, he explained to me that my classmate's comment came from not understanding the over 40 years of history leading up to that current newscycle. He told me that other students did not know about our experiences anxiously passing through the armed Israeli security checkpoints at Tel Aviv and the Jalazone refugee camp. They did not understand our fear that we would be detained, like my grandmother who was held while in labor with my aunt in 1967. He told me that my schoolmate's not knowing did not make my life experiences – or those of other Palestinians – any less real.
In high school, I found that my family's human-forward perspective on identity did not always align with my peers, whose views were shaped by negative stereotypes of Arabs. My teen years overlapped with the era of the television series "Homeland" and the video game series "Call of Duty," both popular media franchises filled with harmful Arab caricatures. As a high school sophomore, I recall that the labels of "terrorist" and "bomber" at times eclipsed my academic reputation. One student in my biology class even went so far as to tell my classmates that I was in possession of a bomb, believing that such comments held no gravity outside of the fictitious worlds we see on screen.
My parents' teachings about identity meant that I no longer questioned my truths, but the verbal assaults from peers instilled in me enough concern for my well-being to hide as much of my culture from the public eye as possible. Now, I worry this steady diet of dramas and first-person shooters framing Arab people as inherent enemies has bred apathy toward the civilians of Gaza.
As a young Palestinian American, I am not new to the sting of dehumanization. Those comments in class primed me to understand the framing of the current "Israel-Hamas war." When I read headlines using this phrase, I see through the media-made blindspot that obscures how the persisting violence impacts more than just Hamas or the Israeli government but millions of innocent people. I think of all of the Palestinians who share similar experiences to me and my family and how a narrative that solely focused on the actions of extremist organizations such as Hamas excludes their stories.
I was not raised to identify myself or others by the color of my skin or the god that I worship but by the air in my chest and content of my character. Nor was I trained as a journalist to report a perspective that revokes the humanity of a person and desensitizes the public to oppression. I know that coverage of the crisis in Palestine and Israel should not imply that there is a side more worthy of survival. It should compel us to find an equitable solution toward peace for every individual at stake.
As I find myself once more grappling with what it means to own my name, to be unapologetically Palestinian, I find myself again turning to bylines. I look up to the writers currently risking their lives in Gaza to provide reliable information to the global population and assist those in need at the scene. Reporters like Motaz Azaiza with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and Motasem Mortaja of Record Media, who have worked through unlivable conditions in the war-torn city to ensure the safety and recognition of its citizens, stand as pillars of justice that I aspire to emulate as a journalist. The news they provide is meant to empower us to take informed action, bringing an end to the violence and aid to those in need. They will not allow the Palestinian country, culture or people to be erased from this world, and neither will I. Of this, my name in the byline is a solemn promise.