Determined to Stay: Part IV–Afterword

Their comments reminded me that, along with providing a space for Palestinian youth to tell their stories, I needed to share ways that we in the United States can be in solidarity with Palestine.

From my own experience with Block the Boat, when we stopped Israel’s ZIM shipping line from using the Port of Oakland, I knew how powerful the campaign to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel could be.

For example, Veolia, an international water, waste, and energy corporation, closed all operations in Israeli-occupied territory. They were responding to a worldwide BDS campaign that cost the firm an estimated $20 billion.

A growing number of US churches—including the Episcopal, Presbyterian (USA), and United Methodist Churches, the United Church of Christ and the Quaker Friends—have divested from companies like Hewlett Packard, Caterpillar, and SodaStream over their role in Israeli violations of international law.

Refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.

Refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.

Refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.

But I wondered how Palestinians in the diaspora—those who had been forced out of their homes and out of their country in 1948 or 1967—felt about the right of return now.

His family fled Beit Iksa in 1948 when they heard about the Deir Yassin massacre, which was very close by. They assumed the same was going to happen to them if they stayed.

They were miles away before they counted the children and realized one of the daughters was missing. Frantic, they sent a few folks back to find her, and there she was, sitting alone in the house, crying.

I knew if I didn’t stand up for myself and assert my existence, I would be invisible.

“Aside from that second-grade teacher,” I asked, “did you face discrimination at school for being Palestinian or for being Muslim?”

The way that teacher described Iraqi people, all Arabs, was in stereotypes. ‘They don’t even use forks and spoons,’ she said.

When I got to fifth grade, I had a teacher who treated me like everyone else. That was the strangest feeling. Suddenly I was getting straight A’s and thriving in school.

In middle school, I joined MEChA. There was no Palestinian club or Arab club, so MEChA was the political club. It was a way to be engaged civically and to be connected to a political community.

Then, while I was at the University of California-Davis, the Second Intifada broke out in 2000. I was already part of starting an Arab organization there, and we decided we needed to support the uprising.

So the right of return means that all of us, no matter what generation we are, have the right to choose to go back to our original homelands to live, to visit, to cultivate the land there.

People should have the freedom to be wherever they want or need to be. And those who have been forced out have a right to return. That’s a fundamental human right.

In school I learned something about the horrors of slavery and I felt connected to Black students because of a shared, yet different, experience of oppression.

But slavery was treated in the classroom like it was something in the distant past, with no implications for now.

And then I realized: Wow, after so many years, here are Indigenous people maintaining their ceremonies and their cultures. Every year they’re here. Every day they’re still honoring their history and their indigeneity on this land.

That gave me so much inspiration, like they were saying to me, ‘We’re still fighting, we still have hope. So you should, too.’

It gave me a spark of hope and an understanding of what I want to fight for and against, lessons I wanted to learn from our Indigenous counterparts.

And then there are the ignorant comments. When you’re the one being targeted, it’s hard to even comprehend what’s happening. It’s like: ‘Are you serious? You’re speaking like that about me, about my people, right in front of me?’

So many people came, we soon spilled out the door and onto the sidewalk. Once we had a critical mass, we closed the street at both ends, and the whole celebration moved to the middle of the street.

We were suddenly told that schools were closed and we were not to go more than 100 meters from our houses, but we didn’t get any information about why. So in the beginning, many of us thought, ‘It’s another conspiracy.’

But when we organized to help each other, many people were arrested: Palestinians cleaning the plaza in front of al-Aqsa were arrested, medical workers who established a testing site in Silwan were arrested, people trying to distribute food packages were arrested.

It’s a dangerous route from our house to the center. I’m afraid they will be arrested or killed. I prefer them illiterate but not arrested.

All the schools were closed. What should we do? In the beginning, our decision was to keep the centers running so the children would have someplace to go. We were the last institution in Silwan to close our doors.

Our priority was providing psychosocial support to children and families. So we made video clips of art activities that children can do with materials available in their homes.