student of mine and I would take for granted every
day.
The general argument is that all this
hardship would be fair since the Palestinian people are so evil.
All they want to do is kill those Israelis. I could use my
knowledge of 1948, settlement building, and other easily confirmed
facts to show that far more Palestinians have suffered and died in
this conflict than have Israelis. I could argue about many points
showing that it is the Israelis with their tanks and planes that
are being hateful and unjust.
But those numbers and figures are not the
first things that come to mind when a crying girl vehemently asks
why my people are cruel and hateful. Instead, I think about my
family, who in the face of all the hardships in front of them
continue to persevere, to smile, and to chant at weddings; sing
while they work; and to thank God every day for the good things in
their lives. I think of my grandmother who tells me stories of
harboring refugees in 1948 for what they thought would be a week,
maybe two. No one anticipated that they would be gone from their
homes for over fifty years. I remember how I was riding in a taxi
one day with my sister. We were sharing the taxi with a lady
wearing a hijab and a complete face veil, her four children sitting
beside her. She brought out several sandwiches from her purse, and
even before serving her own children, she offered some to my sister
and me. I was wearing a gold cross around my neck.
We are not barbarians. We are not hateful
toward each other or against the Israeli people as such. We resist
because on our side of the apartheid wall is rubble, stone, barbed
wire, with no way in and out, and on the Israeli side there are
flowers, grass, and paved roads, actual paved roads without any
large blocks or rocks in the middle.
This girl has no idea of all the peaceful
solidarity movements around the world, and in Israel itself,
organizations that bring people of all faiths and cultures together
to resist the occupation. She doesn’t know of the families
surrounded by the wall on all four sides, still refusing to leave
their homes, peacefully resisting the occupation. She doesn’t know
about the heart of the Palestinians, about our culture, about the
things that make us laugh, and the things that in turn make us cry
and how sometimes this constant unrelenting oppression drives
people to desperation. Yet she sits here and asks why we are so
hateful?
I hugged her. Hard. I’m not sure if I was
trying to comfort her or to slowly and painfully squeeze the
propaganda out of her. We stood like that until another teacher,
coming to see what the commotion was about, made a comment about a
Kodak moment, “Look at Shereen hugging that girl.”
I pulled away, gathered my stuff, gently
patted the girl once more on the back, and left the room. A Kodak
moment? Why, because a pro-Israeli and a Palestinian hugged? Is
that what needs to happen for Americans to think Palestinians are
not evil, and then the region will have peace? That we should all
hug and sit around a campfire and be merry and forget the pain,
forget the suffering? Forget that we are so embedded in each other,
Palestinians and Israelis, and that without justice there is no
peace for either of us, without understanding we will get nowhere?
Instead, “us” evil Palestinians should all just hug Israel and all
our problems will be over. We should just shut up and take what we
are given, and the world will love us again. There will be plenty
of Kodak moments to go around.
I will always feel like I should have said
something that day. Here my people were being called evil, and I
was the one doing the comforting. I could have gently reminded her
that she did not know the whole story, and I would love to sit and
talk to her more about how she felt and some reasons why maybe she
didn’t need to feel that way. I could have saved face in front of
the “Kodak moment” teacher and my own social studies teacher. But
it was almost like I
day.
The general argument is that all this
hardship would be fair since the Palestinian people are so evil.
All they want to do is kill those Israelis. I could use my
knowledge of 1948, settlement building, and other easily confirmed
facts to show that far more Palestinians have suffered and died in
this conflict than have Israelis. I could argue about many points
showing that it is the Israelis with their tanks and planes that
are being hateful and unjust.
But those numbers and figures are not the
first things that come to mind when a crying girl vehemently asks
why my people are cruel and hateful. Instead, I think about my
family, who in the face of all the hardships in front of them
continue to persevere, to smile, and to chant at weddings; sing
while they work; and to thank God every day for the good things in
their lives. I think of my grandmother who tells me stories of
harboring refugees in 1948 for what they thought would be a week,
maybe two. No one anticipated that they would be gone from their
homes for over fifty years. I remember how I was riding in a taxi
one day with my sister. We were sharing the taxi with a lady
wearing a hijab and a complete face veil, her four children sitting
beside her. She brought out several sandwiches from her purse, and
even before serving her own children, she offered some to my sister
and me. I was wearing a gold cross around my neck.
We are not barbarians. We are not hateful
toward each other or against the Israeli people as such. We resist
because on our side of the apartheid wall is rubble, stone, barbed
wire, with no way in and out, and on the Israeli side there are
flowers, grass, and paved roads, actual paved roads without any
large blocks or rocks in the middle.
This girl has no idea of all the peaceful
solidarity movements around the world, and in Israel itself,
organizations that bring people of all faiths and cultures together
to resist the occupation. She doesn’t know of the families
surrounded by the wall on all four sides, still refusing to leave
their homes, peacefully resisting the occupation. She doesn’t know
about the heart of the Palestinians, about our culture, about the
things that make us laugh, and the things that in turn make us cry
and how sometimes this constant unrelenting oppression drives
people to desperation. Yet she sits here and asks why we are so
hateful?
I hugged her. Hard. I’m not sure if I was
trying to comfort her or to slowly and painfully squeeze the
propaganda out of her. We stood like that until another teacher,
coming to see what the commotion was about, made a comment about a
Kodak moment, “Look at Shereen hugging that girl.”
I pulled away, gathered my stuff, gently
patted the girl once more on the back, and left the room. A Kodak
moment? Why, because a pro-Israeli and a Palestinian hugged? Is
that what needs to happen for Americans to think Palestinians are
not evil, and then the region will have peace? That we should all
hug and sit around a campfire and be merry and forget the pain,
forget the suffering? Forget that we are so embedded in each other,
Palestinians and Israelis, and that without justice there is no
peace for either of us, without understanding we will get nowhere?
Instead, “us” evil Palestinians should all just hug Israel and all
our problems will be over. We should just shut up and take what we
are given, and the world will love us again. There will be plenty
of Kodak moments to go around.
I will always feel like I should have said
something that day. Here my people were being called evil, and I
was the one doing the comforting. I could have gently reminded her
that she did not know the whole story, and I would love to sit and
talk to her more about how she felt and some reasons why maybe she
didn’t need to feel that way. I could have saved face in front of
the “Kodak moment” teacher and my own social studies teacher. But
it was almost like I
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