This year has been a year of heartbreak, a year of fear, and a year of hell. I know I’m not alone in saying this has been the worst year of my life. I lost friends, job opportunities, and most of all, I lost faith in humanity.
But before we get into it, let me do my duty as a good diaspora Palestinian and say the obligatory mantra. “I blame Hamas, I blame Hamas, I blame Hamas.” We Palestinians are not allowed to open our mouths unless someone demands that we condemn the violence and condemn Hamas. And while the very same people who demand we condemn violence salivate over our deaths and glorify murder on an unimaginable scale, we remain silent. It is said. Israelis kill people in self-defense. When Arabs kill people, it is an act of terrorism. These are rules that we all must abide by.
America has never been shy about how much it hates Arabs. But since October 7th, that hatred has reached new levels that are so disturbing that I no longer feel at home in this country. If it wasn’t for the fact that I’ve built a life and family here, I would have left. Elected officials like Sen. Lindsey Graham can fantasize about dropping atomic bombs on Gaza (a place where half the population is children) without facing any meaningful criticism. Why would I want to stay in a country where Palestinians are treated so inhumanly? Where is it that my senator, John Fetterman, openly mocks pro-Palestinian protesters and appears to take great joy in our suffering?
And there is also the fact that just by paying taxes, I am complicit in the genocide and starvation of my own people. I am finding it increasingly difficult to rationalize living in a country where such a large portion of taxpayer dollars is spent on war funding and what Kamala Harris gleefully describes as “the world’s deadliest fighting force.” are. I live in Philadelphia, where schools are severely underfunded, only 4 of over 200 schools have full-time librarians, and 98% of school drinking establishments are lead free. The test has come back positive. There is no funding for schools in the United States. There is plenty of money to support the bombing of schools in Gaza.
Again, the US has never been shy about how much it hates Arabs, especially Palestinians. Well before October 7th, I was exposed to a lot of racism on that front. There are countless people who say I can’t be Palestinian because Palestinians don’t exist. Still, even though I thought I was numb to how inhuman we are, the bloodlust shocked me. At the time of the Hamas attack, I had taken a break from my column for the Guardian to work on a corporate copywriting job with a major advertising agency. The agency’s internal Slack channel quickly filled up with people cheering for the bombing of Gaza. I was too shocked to say anything to the higher-ups at the agency, and to be honest, I was too cowardly. It’s difficult to make a living as a freelance writer, and I typically rely on a few corporate jobs a year. I didn’t want to lose any future opportunities by speaking out, so I kept my mouth shut, kept my head down, and waited for the bombing to stop.
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But, of course, the bombing did not stop. 10,000 Palestinians dead. 20,000 Palestinians died. 30,000 Palestinians died. 40,000 Palestinians died. There don’t seem to be enough Palestinian deaths to satisfy Israel or to force U.S. politicians to finally say “enough is enough.” For a while, I was delusional enough to think that Harris’ rise might signal a change for the better. However, the vice president refused to change Joe Biden’s unconditional weapons policy. She refused to recognize international law. When she was chosen as the Democratic nominee in August, party leadership refused to allow Palestinian Americans to take center stage for even a moment. That’s how little the Democratic Party thinks about us.
As the death toll rises and the humanitarian situation in Gaza and now Lebanon becomes increasingly desperate, politicians on both sides of the U.S. are telling Palestinians that our suffering is all our own fault. I keep saying it. Let’s remember where this all started. It’s October 7th. Harris repeated this line during her debate with Donald Trump. Tim Walz repeated this line in a debate with J.D. Vance.
However, that line is a lie. History did not begin on October 7, 2023. That day may have meant tragedy for Israel, but for the past 76 years, every day has been some kind of catastrophe for Palestinians. My paternal grandparents originally lived in Haifa. They were among the 700,000 Palestinians forced to flee or be expelled by Israel during the 1948 Nakba. Their house was demolished. they lost everything. They eventually returned to the West Bank, but in 1967 my father had to flee again. He became a refugee and could never return to the country of his birth. But he took me for another visit. I returned to his village when I was just six years old and got a small taste of what a Palestinian childhood was like. I mean, Israeli soldiers fired tear gas at me and stormed our village to burn the Palestinian flag.
History did not begin on October 7th. But as the world pauses to mourn, it will forever be a reminder of whose lives matter.
