Nora Lester Murad - The View From My Window in Palestine

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OPINION: Uplifting Palestinian American students makes everyone safer (Hechinger Report)

November 2, 2023 by Nora Lester Murad

This article was original published in The Hechinger Report.

In Newton, the liberal suburb of Boston where I live, parents of Palestinian, Arab and Muslim children gather weekly to discuss our concerns about how schools are responding to events in Israel/Palestine. We come together to find community and safety amid escalating hostility toward us because of a crisis we did not create and do not condone.

Schools should support the well-being of all students equally. They should help children develop a healthy sense of identity and belonging, encourage curiosity about divergent perspectives and teach the skills needed to constructively address conflict. Unfortunately, we feel that Newton schools, like others throughout the United States, not only fall short, but are complicit in perpetuating divisive anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment — and their complicity is not new.

When 9/11 happened, my oldest daughter was in school in Newton. The principal took great pains to tell the children that they and their families were safe. But it felt like she was only considering the white kids, oblivious to how others, especially Muslims, would increasingly be subject to suspicion. My daughter, just 5 at the time, got the message at school that being a Muslim Arab was something “different” and to be ashamed of.

Schools should support the well-being of all students. They should help children develop a healthy sense of identity and belonging, encourage curiosity about divergent perspectives and teach the skills needed to constructively address conflict.

Seeing the writing on the wall, our mixed American Jewish-Palestinian Muslim family relocated to Jerusalem so the kids could find pride in their culture. When we returned to Newton 13 years later, our youngest daughter found friends here, most of whom were Jewish. But the kids worried they would be ostracized if they spoke about Palestine at school, and when my daughter raised concerns about censorship with school staff, they dismissed it as a simple misunderstanding. She decided to leave the district and graduate from a school where kids from marginalized backgrounds were believed when they talked about their own life experiences.

Related: OPINION: Palestinian American educators deserve support from their peers

One year later, during the 2021 Israeli attack on Gaza, a teacher was dismissed from that same Newton school for writing a pro-Palestinian (not anti-Israel or anti-Jewish) statement on a white board. While we do not know enough about what happened in the classroom to determine if the termination was justified, the principal’s explanation to the community was definitely not appropriate. He wrote that “our students” had been put in an emotionally vulnerable position – but he certainly wasn’t talking about the district’s Palestinian students. My daughter read the letter and said it felt like being told that “others need to heal from your existence.”      

Now, in 2023, everything is exponentially worse.

In the last three weeks in Newton, as in other cities, the superintendent, school principals, PTO groups and a local antiracism group issued statements about the current violence. A few expressed compassion for all those affected by events in the Middle East. But those messages were quickly walked back under pressure and revised to clarify solidarity only with Israelis. To us, it felt as if our city was condoning the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians.

If teachers and students are too frightened to learn about Arabs and Muslims and too uncomfortable to discuss the role the U.S. plays in international affairs, how can schools help kids become informed, global citizens?

References to the historical context, including 75 years of Israeli expulsion, colonization and occupation of Palestine, were absent. Uninformed people were left to misunderstand that the deplorable violence against Israeli civilians on October 7th was motivated solely by some kind of innate or religious hatred of Jews.

False accusations of antisemitism make Arabs and Muslims targets, threatening their children’s safety, both inside and outside of schools. A six-year-old Palestinian boy was murdered, and his mother seriously injured, by their Chicago landlord who was motivated by anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim hate, fueled in part by media bias that relies on inflammatory words like “brutal” “and “violent” in relation to Palestinians. In Newton, a Palestinian American mother, who was fearful that flyers of Israeli hostages posted around the city would increase division between Muslims and Jews, removed them with the approval of city hall. She was subsequently doxxed, lost her job and now has police protection because of threats against her family.

Related: COLUMN: No son, war is not necessary

I understand why educators are scared to talk about the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. A few years ago, the Newton school district and several individuals were sued by the pro-Israel group Americans for Peace and Tolerance, which falsely asserted that the district’s instruction on Islam, the Middle East and Palestinians was antisemitic. Teaching accurate, nuanced history and providing unbiased context about the Israeli-Palestinian crisis has become dangerous for educators, not unlike the dangers they face from anti-critical race theory forces who seek to limit learning about the role of colonialism and slavery in U.S. history.

Unfortunately, that fear has led schools to avoid teaching about Palestinian experiences and narratives. To us, this censorship feels very much like blatant anti-Palestinian racism.

But it is not only Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students who suffer when fear and anti-Palestinian racism are normalized. All students do. If teachers and students are too frightened to learn about Arabs and Muslims and too uncomfortable to discuss the role the U.S. plays in international affairs, how can schools help kids become informed, global citizens?

The consequences of having an uninformed citizenry are dire. Without quality, unbiased information and antiracist education, U.S. citizens are less likely to support rational, humane policies and more likely to acquiesce to violent ones. As I write right now, Palestinian children are being killed in Gaza and Israeli hostages remain captive.

For all these reasons, Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and allied parents will continue to meet to support one another and the rights of all children. We will continue the important but often exhausting work of advocating for the recognition of Palestinian humanity in our schools and in Gaza and the West Bank. Only when U.S. educators stand bravely to uplift everyone – including Palestinians – can our schools ethically and credibly teach the next generation how to pursue justice and peace.

On the 7th day of the 2023 War…

October 14, 2023 by Nora Lester Murad

I’ve succumbed to my current irrelevance in the big project of peace with justice in Israel/Palestine. Please don’t email or text me messages telling me I’m a good person. I don’t feel bad about myself–I feel bad about the world. Even though I genuinely believe that crisis offers the most fertile opportunity for meaningful change in the mainstream narrative that constraints people’s understanding, I simply can’t make a dent there. Fortunately, there are those with the brilliance and the platform to make a difference. Follow these brave human beings:

https://www.instagram.com/motaz_azaiza/reels/

https://www.instagram.com/byplestia/reels/

https://www.instagram.com/wissamgaza/reels/

https://www.instagram.com/wizard_bisan1/reels/

https://www.instagram.com/ahmedhijazee/reels/

https://www.instagram.com/hindkhoudary/reels/

https://www.instagram.com/joegaza93/reels/

https://www.instagram.com/nouralsaqa/reels/

https://www.instagram.com/ajplus/reels/

https://twitter.com/m7mdkurd
https://twitter.com/PeterBeinart
https://twitter.com/iyad_elbaghdadi
https://twitter.com/theIMEU
https://twitter.com/palyouthmvmt
https://twitter.com/DecolonizePS
https://twitter.com/IfNotNowOrg

My niche now is smaller, but also important. To those of you who are only connected to the Middle East through me, I’m sorry I’ve been silent this week, leaving you to try to make sense of the senseless with few resources beyond the racist and distorted CNN and New York Times. I don’t imagine I can change your minds, but I hope that I can support you in your sincere efforts to learn, and I hope that by sharing my perspective and my anguish, we can at least stay in relationship. Or, dare I hope, perhaps we can work together to demand that world leaders end oppression and war?

-Nora

This video is long (26:42) and probably not interesting for those of you who are well informed about the Palestinian experience in Gaza, but I’m sharing my perspective nonetheless and welcome comments:

Some Articles I’ve Written Over the Years about Gaza
It’s 2020. Does the United Nations Care about Gaza? (September 6, 2020)

What Do I Say to Abu Fathi? (May 25, 2017)

Come With Me to Gaza (photo essay) (April 23, 2016)

One Year After Ceasefire, ‘Temporary’ Housing for Gazans Seems to be Permanent 
(August 28, 2015)

My Trip to Gaza 2015 (April10, 2015)

Israel Devastated Gaza, but “Aid” Helps Keep it That Way (April 9, 2015)

Malala, Where is Your Money? (December 16, 2014)

During Gaza, a poem (November 2, 2014)

Rant on Humanitarianism (September 18, 2014)

Guest post: “I thought I was going to die, but it turned out to be my cousin” by Ahmed AlQattawi (September 8, 2014

Guest post: “When the Gaza Sky Burst into Flames” by Mahmoud Khalaf (August 2, 2014)

US Complicity in Israel’s Attack on Gaza (July 11, 2014)

Gaza Under Fire: What Does it Mean for Philanthropy? (July 8, 2014)

B- for my Gaza Birthday Campaign but an A for Effort (July 4, 2014)
With links to tens of videos of interviews with friends in Gaza

How Can You Help?

Every time there’s an attack on Palestine, people ask me where to send donations. This is a wonderful but problematic dynamic. Palestinians need and deserve support, but real solidarity must be more than money. It must also be political. And donations and solidarity must be ongoing, not sporadic, emotional responses. Funding has to go to local organizations, not sent for convenience sake to international agencies that build capacity and credibility at the expense of Palestinian civil society. Also, support has to flow to all Palestinian priorities, not be diverted from Jerusalem or Hebron or Jenin just because Gaza is on the front page.

To explain, and to answer people’s frequent questions, I wrote a book chapter called “Aiding Liberation” (pages 396-409) in Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak Out edited by Ramzy Baroud & Ilan Pappé. Clarity Press and The European Centre for Palestine Studies, 2022. You can read it at https://www.academia.edu/105722870/_Aiding_Liberation_Book_Chapter.

How to be a friend to a family at risk of demolition?

April 24, 2023 by Nora Lester Murad

Nurredin Amro has been my friend for more than a decade. For the last eight of those years, he has been fighting to protect his home in Jerusalem from demolition by the Israeli authorities.

The Markaz Review has published my photo essay about Nurredin’s experience. Read it here. Please share it widely.

I’ve started a GoFundMe campaign to help raise funds for Nurredin’s legal and other expenses associated with being at risk of demolition. Support it here. Please share it widely.

Also…

It’s extremely helpful if you would contact your own elected officials (in the US, your congresspeople and senators) expressing your outrage and asking them to investigate and report back to you about Nurredin’s case. If you or they need more information, let me know. You may blind copy me if you’re willing so I can keep track of numbers, and if you get any reply, I hope you’ll let me know at nora@noralestermurad.com.

Sample text for you to pull from is below.

To Whom It May Concern,

I’ve become aware that the home of Nurredin Amro and his family in East Jerusalem has been completely surrounded by a wall, severely impeding entry and exit by Nurredin and his brother, both of whom are blind, and inconveniencing the other eight members of their family. Moreover, this escalation comes after eight years of harassment that started when the Amro home was partially demolished in 2015. During that time, many homes on the land between the vegetable market and the valley below the Mount of Olives have been demolished, the residents forced out of the neighborhood, ostensibly so that the Israeli Nature and Parks Authority can build a park.

As a justice-loving global citizen, I am appalled by Israel’s blatant disregard for human rights and morality in this case, and many others in which Palestinians are being forced out of Jerusalem, despite their demonstrated relationship to the land going back generations. East Jerusalem is occupied and forcible transfer within the framework of occupation is a war crime! I therefore call upon you to cease all harassment against the Amro and other families in the Sawanna area and allow them to live in peace and security with dignity.

Please respond to me with confirmation of what you intend to do in Nurredin’s case. I plan to keep members of my community and my elected representatives informed.

Thank you so much. Your support makes a difference. I promise you.

Book Review: The Waiting Place by Dina Nayeri with photos by Anna Bosch Miralpeix

January 20, 2023 by Nora Lester Murad

I received this large, square, hardback book with an eye-catching cover from i’m your neighbor books as part of Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2023. The title, The Waiting Place, lays in bright, red, capital letters over a photo of a scene that one might drive on the way to somewhere else. There’s a child upside down in an impressive cartwheel, evoking childhood joy, next to the incongruous subtitle: “When home is lost and a new one not yet found.” To be honest, the cover and its implications made me want to look away; it took a while for me to open the book.

The Waiting Place is a 64-page book of stunning photographs with limited words. Marketed for 12-17 year olds, The Waiting Place is a must read for everyone, regardless of age. It is compelling and disturbing, as it should be.

There are 82.4 million forcibly displaced people, author Dina Nayeri notes in the afterword. Some of them will experience part of their childhood in refugee camps, as Dina did. They will grow up, become writers and doctors and teachers and programmers. They are our neighbors. This book shows a slice of the experience that some of them have lived.

Nayeri personifies the refugee camp, the waiting place, and it becomes a predator: “At first the Waiting Place welcomes you. It has heard of the wars, the famines and the bombs in your home; it is very sorry. It has been waiting for you.” Then: “Inside its gated mouth is a dreary, lazy encampment where there is nothing to do but drift. Children wait, let time slip away. They forget things: first their sums, street names, their best books. Then beloved faces, stories. The Waiting Place doesn’t mind. It wants more children and mothers and fathers. It doesn’t want you to visit the nearby lake, to hike the frosted mountain, to learn your new language, or to work or build or learn. It craves your hours, weeks, years.”

But Nayeri relieves the reader by interspersing the chilling text with the most mundane, familiar details of life. Brothers fight. Kids make artwork. Families cook. And the photos are not sad. There is adorable, five-year old Matin from Afghanistan making a monster face. His ten-year old sister, Mobina is shown lost in her thoughts, examining a flower, in a field of weeds. Kosar, a Hazara girl from Iran, jumps on her bed in her striped pajamas. The raw description of the place alongside pictures of children being children left me disquieted. I can’t stop staring at the photos, completely taken in by the spirit in these children’s eyes–the same spirit I see in my own children’s eyes. I suppose that’s the point.

Nayeri doesn’t offer a sugar-coated ending because there isn’t one. We don’t know if these specific children are still at Katsikas camp in Greece, and if not, who are the children who might now be living in the lined-up shipping crates that they called home. From my own life advocating for Palestinian rights, I know the only way to process hard truths and still avoid despair is to take action. Candlewick Press offers a discussion guide and there are engagement ideas at https://imyourneighborbooks.org/waiting-place-engage/. 

But for engagement to be anything other than guilt-driven charity, readers of The Waiting Place will need to understand that while refugee camps may feel like perpetrators to children, it is people who continue to cause displacement through decisions that lead to war and other conditions that force people to run from their homes. And it is well-intentioned people like me who too often remain silent and let those bad leaders get away with it. As I recently posted in relation to Palestine, angst is not an act of solidarity. For me to live up to the expectation of this #MustRead book, I will have to take political action. I will have to do my part to influence my own government to stop creating the conditions that lead to the need for refugee camps that steal childhoods.

Later: I keep pondering this book! I’m thinking about Palestinian kids who are born, live and die in refugee camps just waiting. They go to school, waiting. They get married, waiting. They become grandparents, waiting. What’s it like when generations live without a home, without papers, without hope – waiting?

The Waiting Place

Dina Nayeri with photographs by Anna Bosch Miralpeix

Candlewick Press, 2022

978-1-5362-1362-1

“Ida in the Middle” Book Launch at Brookline Booksmith with Areen Bahour

November 23, 2022 by Nora Lester Murad

A lovely conversation with Areen Bahour at Brookline Booksmith on November 16, 2022. We talked about growing up #Palestinian, “Ida in the Middle” and the importance of books about Palestine for both Palestinian and non-Palestinian kids. (1:05)

“YA Arab American novels: Bringing Palestine into our fictional world” by Nada Elia

November 22, 2022 by Nora Lester Murad

This brilliant analysis of Palestinian children’s literature and teaching about Palestine includes a review of Ida in the Middle. It originally appeared in Middle East Eye.

One of the courses I regularly teach at my university is “Introduction to Arab American Studies”. Most students take it because it fulfills one of the university’s “diversity” requirements, not because they are invested in the topic. 

We get to read about the strong sense of community that sustains Palestinians as they navigate life in these extremely difficult circumstances

For me, the course is a window into mainstream America’s glaring lack of exposure to any Arab-American issues in the K-12 curriculum. It has been sobering to realise that most Americans can go through their entire school education without reading a single novel, or social studies chapter, about the diverse Arab American communities that are part of the fabric of broader American society. 

For most of my students, there are Arabs – swarthy foreigners living in inhospitable countries half a world away – but no Arab Americans; the doctors, teachers, cab drivers, grocery store owners and neighbours who may live next door to them. 

They have even less awareness of the effects of US foreign policy in the Middle East and the experiences and stories this policy shapes among immigrants from these communities.

What it means to belong

A new young adult novel, Ida in the Middle, by Nora Lester Murad, explores the deeply unsettling feeling that members of these communities’ experience, as they are told in both subtle and overt ways that they do not belong in the United States, even when it is the only country they have ever known.

In this debut novel for Murad, Ida, a bashful Palestinian American teenager, is dreading the final class project: discussing her “passion” with the rest of the class. 

Her anxiety skyrockets when the school principal informs her that she will be representing her school in this eighth-grade capstone for the entire region.

She is terrified at the thought that someone in the audience will shout out “terrorist” as she ascends to the stage, just as someone had scribbled that insult on her school desk. Home alone one afternoon, as she worries yet again about that presentation, she reaches for her comfort food, green olives sent by her aunt all the way from Palestine. 

Olives, as every Palestinian knows, are not just a savoury snack; they encapsulate our culture in each dense nugget. When they are cured by a favourite aunt, they can have magic powers. As she eats the olives, Ida is transported to her parents’ village, Busala, just outside Jerusalem, where she immediately feels at home. 

In this alternate reality, her parents have never left Palestine, and she has grown up with feelings of belonging amid kids who look like her, speak Arabic, and can pronounce her name correctly: ‘Aida, with an ‘ayn.

But life in Busala is also unpredictable, scary, and dangerous because of Israel’s occupation. Here, Murad skilfully weaves the narrative between Ida’s fantasy and the all-too-real events of life under occupation, as Ida has to brave Israeli military raids, curfews, and home demolitions. 

We get to read about the strong sense of community that sustains Palestinians as they navigate life in these extremely difficult circumstances. We witness the immense courage of Palestinian children – including Ida herself – as they dodge the occupation forces; and we hear discussions about survival and resistance, including the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. 

There are some exhilarating moments, such as when Ida carries a terrified three-year-old boy to safety, telling him his name, Faris, means “knight,” and that he is their leader, while he explains that her name means “Returning,” and he knows she will not leave him behind, as she scouts their whereabouts for a safe path home. 

And there are heartbreaking moments, as when Ida watches Israeli bulldozers demolish her friend Layla’s family home. This experience transforms Ida and, after having eaten more green olives, she is transported back to Boston, where she gives an impassioned presentation about the hardships that Palestinians endure under Israel’s settler colonialism. 

A resource for educators

As I put down the novel, I went over to the website that accompanies it, and where Murad, a longtime educator, has compiled a wealth of useful teaching resources. Murad addresses questions that other educators may have as they teach a novel about Palestine, linking to dozens of websites categorised by who compiled them (e.g. librarians, the Institute for Palestine Studies, the Middle East Children’s Alliance, and many more). 

There are lesson plans, Palestine-centric resources, resources about the Middle East and Muslim issues, and more valuable information than any book review can do justice to, all superbly organised and easy to navigate. 

In his endorsement of the book, publisher Michel Moushabeck wrote: “I have been waiting for this YA novel to be written since I founded Interlink 35 years ago.”

As for me, I can enthusiastically say this is the resource website I’ve been waiting for. But please don’t take my word for it, explore it for yourselves. Whatever your level of knowledge about Palestine, there will be something for you there. 

A seasoned activist, Murad knows there will be pushback against her novel. Ida in the Middle reminded me of Ann Laurel Carter’s The Shepherd’s Granddaughter about a young girl whose family home near Hebron is being threatened by encroaching Jewish settlements. The book won eight awards, including the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year Award for Children, and the Society of School Librarians International Best Book Award. 

But the Zionist advocacy group B’nai B’rith objected to what it described as its “anti-Israel propaganda”, and the novel has not been included in any Canadian school curriculum. 

Will Ida in the Middle suffer a similar fate because it mentions Israel’s demolitions of Palestinian homes – an absolute reality, yet one of Israel’s many crimes that are apparently taboo in American discourse? 

Pushing back

Murad was a speaker on the Boston Book Festival panel “Pushing Back Against the Pushback: Uplifting Marginalised Books for Young People in an Age of Censorship”, where she addressed the importance of assigning such novels in literature or social studies classes across the US, a topic she also discusses on the book’s website. 

On the FAQ page, the author addresses her identity as someone who was not born Palestinian. One of the questions she answers is: “You’re not Palestinian, shouldn’t people read books written by Palestinians?”

Her answer is an unequivocal “Yes”, and she lists some of the Palestinian authors she recommends: for children, Randa Abdel-Fattah, Ibtisam Barakat, Ahlam Bsharat, Susan Muaddi Darraj, Sonia Nimr, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Wafa Shami, among others.

For adults, some prominent fiction and non-fiction writers available in English are Susan Abulhawa, Hala Alayan, Ghassan Kanafani, Sahar Khalifeh, Edward Said, Adania Shibli, among many, many others. 

Educators have no excuse not to assign the wonderful books available to them about young Arab Americans
 

Murad herself is married to a Palestinian, lived in Palestine for 14 years, and mothered three Palestinian girls. Her sensitive portrayal of Ida is certainly that of a loving parent, steeped in Palestinian culture not as a tourist, but as an engaged member of a Palestinian family. 

Given her background, it is perhaps not a coincidence that the protagonist in Murad’s novel, like Susan Muaddi Darraj’s fabulous series, Farah Rocks, and The Shepherd’s Granddaughter, is a young girl, rather than a boy. 

Certainly, girls need all the empowerment they can get in our exceedingly misogynist, patriarchal world, and these books offer that needed boost. However, my wish is for the next YA novel about a Palestinian American child to feature a boy, even as I fully appreciate the present offerings, and would welcome more.

But a lack of narratives around young boys being sensitive, caring, or protective of their friends and siblings could inadvertently risk perpetuating the myth that Palestinian girls are redeemable, while Palestinian boys are always dangerous. 

For now, however, educators have no excuse not to assign the wonderful books available to them about young Arab Americans. And with the holidays fast approaching, everyone can push back against censorship by gifting precisely those novels that artfully inject our cultural and political experiences into the broader American landscape. 

Nada Elia teaches in the American Cultural Studies Programme at Western Washington University, and is currently completing a book on Palestinian diaspora activism.

Middle East Eye delivers independent and unrivalled coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. To learn more about republishing this content and the associated fees, please fill out this form. More about MEE can be found here.

Rockstar Palestinian Educators Discuss Teaching Palestine in US schools

November 19, 2022 by Nora Lester Murad

A #MustWatch presentation! The Palestinian Museum US in Connecticut hosted a launch of “Ida in the Middle” and Luma Hasan, Sawsan Jaber and Mona Mustafa talked about the experiences of Palestinian students, Palestinian teachers and the challenges of teaching Palestine in US schools.

Censorship of Palestinians is So Normal, Even Antiracists Don’t See It

November 9, 2022 by Nora Lester Murad

This guest post exploring censorship of Palestinian children’s books was first published on Betsy Bird’s blog on School Library Journal.

www.IdaInTheMiddle.com

I started researching censorship of Palestinian children’s books out of concern that my forthcoming young adult novel, Ida in the Middle, could be attacked or banned because the protagonist is a Palestinian-American. Ida is an 8th grader who faces ridicule and bullying at school and finds her strength by connecting with the struggle for self-determination happening in Palestine. Ida’s experiences in her Massachusetts school are loosely based on my youngest daughter’s junior year about which she says, “I didn’t feel like they kicked me out because they had never included me in the first place.” I later spoke with many Palestinian kids with shocking stories of racism, exclusion and invisibility in US schools all of whom thought they were the only one – because no one talks about anti-Palestinian racism.

Palestinians aren’t on the radar of most advocates for marginalized books

What I’m finding in my research about censorship of Palestinians is concerning. Although advocates of intellectual freedom, freedom to teach and the right to learn stand up (appropriately so!) for books about Black, brown and queer communities, the intense, multilayered censorship of Palestinians goes virtually unchallenged – and, in fact, unnoticed. Simply put, Palestinians and their literature are invisible to organizations like the American Library Association, National Coalition Against Censorship, and the National Council of Teachers of English, among others. A good example of this is PEN America’s oft-cited report, America’s Censored Classrooms, which doesn’t even mention Palestinians, although there is a barrage of legislation targeting them, and overwhelming documentation of censorship of Palestinians.

For example, earlier this month, Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) released a detailed, 97-page study of harassment, intimidation and repression against Palestinians in education that includes interference in hiring, classroom surveillance, restrictions on campus groups, demands for the censure or dismissal of pro-Palestinian faculty and students, and obstruction of pro-Palestinian events. They found that the constant and increasing harassment creates a “chilly” environment which threatens academic freedom, muzzles scholarly production, obstructs academic careers, encourages mendacious and malicious discourse, and stifles legitimate protest. More than that, they paint a picture of life for many Palestinian teachers and students that is painful and unfair.

The IJV report focuses on Canadian higher education.  Here at home, Palestine Legal, a Chicago-based nonprofit co-published a study with the Center for Constitutional Rights in 2015 called, “The Palestine Exception to Free Speech” showing the same tactics are used in the United States. In nearly 100 pages and with accompanying videos, they explore a range of silencing tactics that are pervasive across US higher education institutions, including monitoring and surveillance, falsely equating criticism of Israel with antisemitism, unfounded accusations of support for terrorism, official denunciations, bureaucratic barriers, administrative sanctions, cancellations and alterations of academic and cultural events, threats to academic freedom, lawsuits and legal threats, and more. In the US, as in Canada, simply being Palestinian seems a provocation, which is hard enough for adults, but imagine being a Palestinian student facing this type of racism in school?

Information about attacks on Palestinians in education is anecdotal but abundant

Although no one seems to be systematically tracking the impact of censorship of Palestinians in K-12 education in the US, there is abundant evidence of harassment aiming to censor Palestinian and pro-Palestinian voices. For example, the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium (LESMCC) has been slapped with a lawsuit because of their inclusion of Palestinians in the curriculum, and teachers not limited to the LESMCC teachers are experiencing administrative harassment in the form of tens if not hundreds of public records requests, not to mention threats to individuals and institutions.

In a separate incident, Palestinian-American teacher, Natalie Abulhawa, was fired from a private, all-girls school called Agnes Irwin for social media posts that were nearly a decade old and were found on a known Islamophobic site, according to the Council on American Islamic Relations. 

Attacks on Palestinian books also happen. In a well-known case, a NY bookstore was attacked  for their support of the picture book P is for Palestine (Bashi Goldbarg, self-published), and a Hannukah reading of the book organized by anti-zionist Jews was attacked by right-wing Israel supporters. 

More recently, Kayla Hoskinson, a librarian in Philadelphia was disciplined for an antiracist post that mentioned Rifk Ebeid’s picture book, Baba, What Does My Name Mean? (self-published) and references to Ebeid’s book and the works of Palestinian poet laureate Naomi Shihab Nye were censored.

Another recent library censorship case occurred in San Francisco over ideas about Zionism and racism. San Francisco Public Library canceled an art exhibit and public event when organizers refused to remove text that ACLU lawyers said was protected by the First Amendment. The library’s explanatory statement said: “… the Library retains the right to determine the suitability of any proposed exhibition to be included in the Library’s exhibition program. The Library also reserves the right to reject any part of an exhibition or to change the manner of display.” But if a library has the right to reject any part of an exhibition, they also have the right to include it, despite pressure from politically-motivated interest groups.

Librarian Kayla Hoskinson talks about the chilling effect of this kind of censorship. 

“Attacks against librarians and teachers for including Palestine in their curriculum are definitely noticed by our colleagues. Some are unafraid to move forward with me to plan and host programs about Palestine. More colleagues, though, see what happened to me and don’t want the trouble. Even if they agree, they know they will not be supported against attacks. ALA really needs to re-develop policies and guidelines about neutrality in the field.”

Very few children’s books about Palestine are being published

But when it comes to traditional bans–the listing of books that are forbidden in schools and libraries–attacks on Palestinian books seem more opportunistic and ad hoc rather than systematic and ambitious like the ones directed against Black, brown and queer books.

This may be because there are so few books about Palestine. For example, the Diverse Book Finder studied over 2000 picture books published since 2002 and found only 3% fell into the broad Middle Eastern category. How few of those are Palestinian?

In a study I’m currently doing with several Palestinian teachers to produce a framework that educators and librarians can use to evaluate books involving Palestine, we found that a full 40% of our sample of books about Palestine authored by Palestinians were self published, indicating that censorship is happening before publication. This means that fantastic children’s books like Tala Fahmawi’s self-published Salim’s Soccer Ball get only limited visibility and lack the library-attractive credibility that comes along with being traditionally published.

Sadly, the problem is not merely one of oversight or negligence. In a webinar called “Translating Palestine,” translator Sawad Hussain said she had been told outright by some editors that they are afraid to work with Palestinian authors lest they be seen as too political or publishing “too many Palestinian authors.” Translator Marcia Lynx Qualey said that even books accepted for publication are often “bulletproofed,” which she described as scrubbed of content Palestine’s opponents would claim is offensive.  

Palestine is a taboo topic due to fear and politicization

My publisher, Interlink Books, founded by Palestinian-American Michel Moushabeck has provided a much-needed pathway for Palestinian books and books about Palestine to reach US readers, yet he too has faced challenges. Most recently, Malak Mattar’s Sitti’s Bird: A Gaza Story (2022) has been unable to get a single mention or review in trade publications and mainstream media, unlike all the other picture books he’s published. Moushabeck says, “It’s because it’s a Palestinian story of trauma. We knew this would happen because the same thing happens to all our titles written by Palestinians. Some editors do not assign books by Palestinians for review–especially ones they deem controversial or think can get them into trouble.”

The consequences of the censorship of Palestinian children’s books goes far beyond the impact on Palestinian authors and Palestinian children. As the ALA’s Unite Against Book Bans campaign says, without books:

“Students cannot access critical information to help them understand themselves and the world around them. Parents lose the opportunity to engage in teachable moments with their kids. And communities lose the opportunity to learn and build mutual understanding.”

American Library Association

Applying principles of intellectual freedom, freedom to teach and the right to learn to Palestinian topics

For the ALA and other librarians and educators who advocate for intellectual freedom, freedom to teach and the right to learn, Palestine should be with others at the frontline of the struggle. Some even argue that Palestine is the litmus test of antiracists’ commitment to rights for all. For this reason, I hope organizations like the American Library Association, the National Coalition Against Censorship, PEN America, the NCTE and others who librarians and educators look to for leadership will become proactive in rejecting the violent silencing and criminalization of Palestinian voices. I hope they will step forward to demand intellectual freedom, the freedom to teach and the right to learn not only for some, but for those who most need to be uplifted in order to be heard, including Palestinians.

Narratives of Belonging: A Convo at the Build Palestine Summit 2022 among Nora Lester Murad, Aline Batarseh and Besan Abu-Joudeh

October 22, 2022 by Nora Lester Murad

This 30-minutes conversation is a warm exchange about the complexities of living in relation to Palestine for Palestinians who live in the diaspora and non-Palestinians who have joined the community (like me!). Aline Batarshe, Executive Director of Visualizing Palestine, Besan Abu-Joudeh, Founder of Build Palestine, and I speak personally about the challenges and joys of staying being part of the Palestinian struggle for visibility, dignity and rights in the United States.

Interview with Ahed Tamimi, an Icon of the Palestinian Resistance

October 15, 2022 by Nora Lester Murad

This review of They Called Me a Lioness and interview with Palestinian heroine Ahed Tamimi and Dena Takruri was first published by The Markaz Review.

Ahed Tamimi, an icon of Palestinian resistance is presently studying law at Birzeit University. She travels and speaks to activists and supporters around the world, always sharing the Palestinian demand for liberation.

They Called Me a Lioness: A Palestinian Girl’s Fight for Freedom; memoir/biography by Ahed Tamimi and Dena Takruri; Penguin Random House 2022; ISBN 9780593134580

By Nora Lester Murad

Ahed Tamimi and Dena Takruri’s book, They Called Me a Lioness: A Palestinian Girl’s Fight for Freedom (One World, 2022) quotes an Israeli interrogator trying to coerce information from stoic, 16-year-old Ahed: “Who? Is your father behind you? Or is it your mother who’s behind you?” “Who? Who is behind you?”

In 2017, Ahed was charged with assaulting an Israeli soldier, though family members point out that she wasn’t arrested until the video went viral, so she was most likely targeted because she humiliated the Israeli government.

Once the video of Ahed slapping and kicking a soldier went viral, two previous videos of her standing up to soldiers in her West Bank village of Nabi Saleh got new circulation, including one of 11-year-old Ahed threatening soldiers after her big brother was arrested and one of 14-year-old Ahed biting a soldier who attacked her little brother.

Ahed had become a heroine, not only in Palestine, but around the world.

When I talk to Ahed, she deflects all questions about herself, always using the pronoun “we,” referring to the collective Palestinian people.

“A reluctant heroine,” Dena Takruri corrects me when we talk about her experience co-authoring the book. “It was never about her. It was about the message.”

They Called Me a Lioness is published by Penguin Random House.

It’s true. When I talk to Ahed, she deflects all questions about herself, always using the pronoun “we,” referring to the collective Palestinian people. (We spoke in Arabic, with me apologizing several times. I recorded our interview and my husband, who is Palestinian, translated it with me.)

“‘Hero’ is a big word,” Ahed says, “and it comes with lots of responsibility. You can’t just say it casually. It’s a word that can change your life. But all of us in Palestine are heroes. We all live under the same occupation, the same injustice, and we all resist. Every single one of us is a hero inside, and that hero comes out when the time is right.”

Ahed’s videotaped interrogation shows the Israelis finally realized the threat posed by the heroine Ahed Tamimi. They were no longer laughing the way they did when she fake punched soldiers at age 11.

Though only 16 at the time, she was interrogated without the presence of her parents, lawyer, or even a female soldier. They inappropriately commented on her appearance and threatened her family and friends, but Ahed refused to talk.

“Who? Is your father behind you? Or is it your mother who’s behind you?” “Who? Who is behind you?”

The interrogators could not have known the significance of their question.

If the Israelis were to read Ahed and Dena’s book, they would understand that behind the lioness, Ahed Tamimi, stands an entire pride.

“Ahed mentions many girls and women in the book, and she credits all of them for their resistance and for enabling hers,” Dena continues.

I ask Ahed who is behind her, and her voice gets even stronger.

“Behind me? Behind me is the natural response to occupation — to reject it. Behind me are my mother and father who taught me to resist the occupier, and my grandmother who instead of telling me fairy tales about Layla and the wolf told me stories about how to resist the occupation. Behind me are the people all around me, the people I love, who I can lose in any minute. Behind me is an entire generation that I don’t want to live through the same experience that I did.”

Ahed is proud of her pride.

Nariman, Ahed’s mother, has been arrested more than six times and has held the family together during her husband’s more than nine arrests. Nariman was arrested and served eight months along with Ahed for incitement, since she filmed and shared the video of Ahed that went viral.

“If I hadn’t seen my mother demonstrate, get arrested, and be wounded, maybe I wouldn’t have done what I did and maybe my brothers and I wouldn’t be the way we are. Seeing my parents confront the soldiers helped us to believe that like them, we can defend our land and our country,” Ahed says.

Then she quickly adds: “But all Palestinian mothers are like mine, and all Palestinians are like us. Of course, there are some people who are controlled by fear. But most people are active and do things to resist the occupation, and this is not limited to our village, Nabi Saleh. Nabi Saleh just gets more media attention. But really, the same thing that is happening in Nabi Saleh is happening all over Palestine.”

Marah, Ahed’s best friend and cousin, was beside her throughout her growth. In the book, Ahed described how Marah was there at age six when the two girls joined a large group of kids running away from Israeli soldiers to Marah’s house where they packed themselves in a closet trembling in fear, only to tumble out onto a soldier’s combat boots when the house was searched. She was still there a decade later, the day Ahed  emerged from her eight months in jail to a heroine’s welcome.

Janna Jihad, Ahed’s younger cousin, started reporting from Nabi Saleh and Palestinian cities across the West Bank when she was just seven years old. She has amassed hundreds of thousands of supporters across various social media channels. In the book, Ahed says, “The sight of an innocent little Palestinian girl reporting on the suffering of other children and adults under occupation moved people. It compelled them to open their eyes to the countless injustices perpetrated by Israel.”

Ahed credits Palestinian activist, academic and elected representative Khalida Jarrar, who taught classes to all the young Palestinian girls in prison, for her successful graduation from high school. More importantly, she credits Khalida for helping her develop a larger vision and strategy for Palestinian society. In the book, Ahed says:

We must ensure that when we finally do achieve liberation [from Israel], we’re not left with a society that’s full of corruption and inequity. It’s imperative that we fight for women’s rights, to ensure that we have full equality between women and men. We need to get rid of traditional mentalities that judge girls and women through the lens of shame. We also need to fight for better employment opportunities for our youth and find ways to get them involved in the political process. Why should those holding political office be predominantly old men? They’ve consistently proven themselves incapable and irrelevant.

Ahed’s aunt, Manal, an early and consistent leader in Nabi Saleh’s popular resistance, has been arrested multiple times, shot, beaten and strip-searched, yet she continues to speak out about feminist resistance.

Even Ahed’s grandmother, Tata Farha (to whom the book is dedicated), features prominently in her political development. In the book Ahed says:

Tata Farha’s bedtime tales were all real-life stories that taught us the history of our family, of the village, and of Palestine. Many reflected the hell and heartbreak she and our people had lived through. All of her stories were educational. They not only shaped my imagination, but also revealed to me the generational trauma that’s embedded in our DNA.

There was no way I could get Ahed to speak about herself or acknowledge anything significant about herself, her family or her village. Even when I asked about the challenges of being labeled a hero, she gave others credit, uplifting those around her.

“Maybe in other parts of the world, people get upset and they go to a psychologist. For me, I don’t go to a psychologist, I go back to the people who understand me because they are living the same experience and they have seen it and already know all the details. They stand by me and help me more than anyone else. I get my strength from them. Wherever I go, I find them next to me.”

After all she’s been through, she still has hope. Ahed lifts everyone’s spirits. —Dena Takruri

Even if Ahed won’t admit it, there is something particularly inspirational about her. I ask Dena, who has spent years following Ahed and countless hours co-writing the book with her, to explain what it is.

“As a journalist, I’ve interviewed many people, and it’s rare that I feel electrified. It’s her poise, conviction, power and strength. After all she’s been through, she still has hope. Ahed lifts everyone’s spirits.” Dena Takruri, a prominent journalist and proud Palestinian in her own right, has also become part of Ahed’s pride, standing with her to protect the group and its territory. The book they’ve co-written is a kind of roar, one that the rest of us creatures in the forest would be smart to heed.

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