Nora Lester Murad - The View From My Window in Palestine

The Mapping Project is Not Antisemitic but it is Destructive Activism

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This opinion piece about The Mapping Project first appeared in Mondoweiss.

The Mapping Project is undermining years of social justice efforts to bring Palestinian rights into the mainstream. In greater Boston, where I live and organize, the folks I know can’t stop shaking our heads and asking “why?”

Palestinians and social justice activists have hard ideas to bring into the mainstream. We need to show how the state of Israel is allied with right-wing causes like policing and imperialism and that mainstream Jewish organizations are complicit with (and sometimes fronts for) pro-Israel political pressure. 

I suppose that’s what The Mapping Project was trying to do, to expose the system we’re up against, to bring into one place, for example, the way the ADL simultaneously promotes a militarized, racist Israel and militarized, racist policing in the US. This is true, but being right is not the same thing as being effective.

Protest in Boston, May 2021

Because of our opposition’s free wielding of false accusations of antisemitism and the confusion it causes among potential allies, the movement has spent much effort over the years being  intentional about how we communicate. We explain to policymakers and the public that there is nothing inherently pro-Jewish about supporting Israel, a right-wing, militarized, Apartheid state that does not embody Jewish identity. We explain that there is nothing anti-Jewish about fighting for Palestinian rights. We explain that one can’t be truly antiracist on behalf of any group without also standing up for the humanity of Palestinians. We work hard to distinguish between Judaism and Zionism because we support the humanity of Palestinians and Israelis (and everyone!) and believe that we are all  oppressed in some form until everyone is liberated.

Yes, it is exhausting and infuriating to have to work so hard to consider the comfort of (mostly white, mostly Jewish) people when the lives and rights of Palestinians and other people of color are being taken. But while Palestinians in Palestine fight for their land, their livelihoods and their security, we in the US are fighting for a narrative – a narrative that respects Palestinians as equal in every way, a narrative that will open policy options that aren’t available now. So, we are careful.

And then, out of the blue, comes The Mapping Project. 

Good, smart people can disagree, but it is my view that The Mapping Project, while a Herculean effort that provides lots of useful information, is a poor piece of research and a destructive piece of activism. If they intended it to be truth-telling, they didn’t implement it well.

The Mapping Project is Poor Research

First, it’s important to trace institutional and political relationships between pro-Israel and other military interests, like police, and creative to show links with other harms like medical apartheid. While many of the organizations identified by The Mapping Project are legitimate advocacy targets, it is unhelpful to throw random organizations like a disability rights group (even if they do advance Israeli interests) in along with major players like the ADL. Including every possible actor hides the important differences in their levels of influence, and it unnecessarily opens windows for attack.

Second, while the data is well-referenced, the conclusions drawn by The Mapping Project are not always supported. A single interaction between Facing History and Ourselves and AIPAC is not sufficient evidence to conclude the organizations are collaborators. Ironically, there is relevant information not included in The Mapping Project, perhaps because it didn’t lend itself to an easily linked data point, but rather requires the harder work of unraveling narratives and exposing distortions. Facing History and Ourselves is a good example. An influential educational nonprofit, they promote an understanding of antisemitism that considers some critiques of Israel to be anti-Jewish. This does show a convergence in narratives between Facing History and AIPAC that is useful to map. In other words, I think Facing History is a strategic choice for action and their narrative supports AIPAC’s pro-Israel agenda, but I don’t think you can conclude that from the data point that Facing History presented at an AIPAC event in 2019. The problem of selective data and weak conclusions is especially troubling in a project that presents itself as data-driven.

Third, I see no analytical value to presenting organizations on a geographical map. I understand that maps can be powerful tools for illustrating local-global connections and facilitating local organizing. But showing that an organization with offices on Arlington Street gets a grant from an organization on Tremont Street doesn’t add to their analysis.

The Mapping Project is Destructive Activism

Besides being poor research, The Mapping Project is a strategic mistake of incalculable proportions that we will pay for over many years.

First, the release of the Mapping Project, without the support of key antiracist groups working in the Israel-Palestine space, and without a clear call to constructive action, put activist groups in a bad position of catch-up. The ADL and friends were highlighted in media spaces that covered The Mapping Project with their anti-Palestinian spin, but no one was ready from the social justice community to step in and convey our message. Every time the media said “we reached out to The Mapping Project and other local pro-Palestinian actors and got no response,” it was a huge missed opportunity. 

Second, while we all know that pro-Israel advocates would have attacked the project even if it had been good, their attack is stronger because the advocacy message of The Mapping Project is so unclear. Saying, “Our goal in pursuing this collective mapping was to reveal the local entities and networks that enact devastation, so we can dismantle them. Every entity has an address, every network can be disrupted” makes sense to me, a progressive in the movement who understands organizing, nonviolent action, and local-global connections. But any informed person could anticipate that these words would be interpreted by fear-mongerers and mainstream media as a call to antisemitic violence. If, as the developers say, the map “is intended first and foremost to cultivate relationships between organizers across movements and deepen our political analyses as we build community power,” the project should have been vetted more broadly and coordinated with other organizers, including ones positioned to bear the brunt of the pushback.

Third, and importantly, The Mapping Project alienates potential allies and upends rather than cultivates synergies between causes. A case in point is the inclusion of Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey on the map. While the information provided about them is likely true, some people would consider Warren and Markey on the right side of many other issues, and worthy of inclusion in the “need to cultivate” category – unlike others on the map, such as the Consulate General of Israel to New England. I’m not saying we should excuse or go easy on those who are “progressive except for Palestine,” but I do think each kind of actor needs its own strategy. And the left is hardly in a position to throw progressives under the bus for their imperfections, especially since we too are imperfect. The challenge is to learn how to hold tight to our values while building alliances, especially with people in positions of power who can move our policy aspirations forward.

The Mapping Project is not ideologically or religiously anti-Jewish as the ADL and other spokespeople for zionism claim, and those bogus accusations should be exposed for what they are–virulent, deceptive, anti-Palestinianism. But even though it is not antisemitic, The Mapping Project is still destructive to our public-facing work and to the movement.

Confusion Within the Movement

We have been asked to defend The Mapping Project because it has been attacked by the same forces that regularly attack us, and there’s some logic in that. For example, respected Mondoweiss activist/journalists Phil Weiss and Adam Horowitz doubled down on their defense of The Mapping Project, saying:

The attacks on one element of this analysis demonstrate a truth of the report and a problem we have long pointed out here. Israel lobby institutions have considerable political and cultural power in dictating the discourse of Israel/Palestine, and the resultant policy. But they are unaccountable. That power can never be pointed out. Because it’s supposedly a form of Jew hatred. 

But others point out, if not publicly, that while we’re used to having to defend against attacks on movement work, in this case we’re asked to do that with no preparation, context or collaboration on the content of what we’re asked to defend, and we don’t even know who is behind the project. This is an organizing problem that extends beyond The Mapping Project.

Damage Control

How do we know what is the most constructive stand to take in this situation? So much time and effort has already been wasted doing damage control, when a respectful, movement-grounded effort would have been better positioned to withstand the inevitable attack. Many activists feel derailed rather than helped by The Mapping Project, meaning that empirically, it’s not having the effect the authors likely wanted.

But let’s be honest, there are sub-par research projects and poorly conceived social justice  campaigns all the time. Why did this one garner such incredible visibility, to the extent that the city council in Newton, my Boston suburb, felt compelled to make a statement against it? Because we do not have the civic space to have open discourse around Israel-Palestine. Just last month pro-Israel advocates leveraged fear of Jew hatred to try to shut down and control an event sponsored by Families Organizing for Racial Justice that featured Palestinian-Americans in Newton talking about their search for belonging. But the Newton City Council didn’t make a statement against anti-Palestinian racism, no. They didn’t even respond to my invitation to attend the event. That’s my point: The civic space we have is small and precious and must be utilized wisely.

Pro-Israel actors have long searched for examples of “antisemitism from the left.” These examples are essential to their twisted logic claiming that “everyone hates Jews, including those who call themselves antiracist, so Jews are never safe, which is why Israel must be supported unconditionally or there will be another Holocaust.” Sadly, the Mapping Project has given those pro-Israel forces a gift and we, social justice movement actors, are left trying to mitigate the harm.

Since this article was published, I did an interview with KKFI’s “Understanding Israel and Palestine.” You can hear our discussion about The Mapping Project followed by an interview with Charlotte Kates of Samidoun. Also, Jewish Currents “On the Nose” podcast discussed The Mapping Project, and referred to my and other articles exploring various points of view.

Fragmented Love in Alison Glick’s “The Other End of the Sea”

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This Palestinian book review originally appeared in The Markaz Review.

It would be easy to focus on the Jewish protagonist in Alison Glick’s debut novel The Other End of the Sea. After all, it was the search for her roots that first took Rebecca Klein to Israel. But like the author, whose visit to Israel “opened her eyes to the realities for Palestinians living under Israeli control,” the protagonist, too, was captivated not by Israel, but by Palestine.

Palestinian Book Review: The Other End of the Sea - Alison Glick (Book Cover)
Available from Interlink

The premise — a US Jew who evolves to support Palestinian rights — is more than plausible. Increasingly, Jewish Americans are becoming informed about Israeli history, and they are more vocal in critiquing Israel’s policies — Peter Beinart being only one case among many who are speaking out and taking action based on the principle of liberation for all.

But The Other End of the Sea is not another pro-Palestinian screed, it is a bona fide love story, complete with the tenderness, pain, intimacy and miscommunication that define any romantic relationship.

In this narrative, Rebecca Klein meets Zayn Majdalawi in the early 1980s in a taxi cab as both try to find a way out of Gaza. Zayn is a refugee from Shati camp studying in the West Bank, where Rebecca works as a teacher in the Quaker school. Even this plot point — a US Jew falling in love with a Palestinian Muslim — is conceivable. In fact, I myself am an American Jewish woman who married a Palestinian Muslim, and in our nearly forty years together, we have met many other “mixed” couples.

The rest of the plot, however, is completely far-fetched. Despite already serving fifteen years as a political prisoner, Zayn gets exiled by Israel and over the next several years, the couple move between Egypt, Lebanon, Libya and Syria trying to find a safe and secure place to raise their daughter. On the way, Rebecca sees the inner workings of Palestinian families, refugee camps, the life of exiles, political strategizing, and so much more. The protagonist, Rebecca, takes the reader deep into places and situations that no non-Palestinian could ever see.

Except for one thing: The Other End of the Sea is a fictionalized memoir, based closely on the life of the author, Alison Glick. Those “far-fetched” events and forays into the depths of Palestinian experience really happened. It is a story that no one else could have told.

Glick takes readers through a unique and important experience — that of Palestinian exiles. Her masterful storytelling is gripping, pulling us fully into every scene. Over the course of the 30-year-long story, each historical event, place, situation and person erupts into Technicolor. Something as mundane as watching her husband eat melons is told in a way that makes the reader salivate:

In the late morning light, juice the color of a harvest moon ran in rivulets down his smooth arms as, one after the other, he sliced through the fruit’s flesh, scooped out the seeds, and quartered them, methodically eating each one down to the rind. The waiting garbage can registered each fruit with a clunk.

I related deeply to the charged moments at which Rebecca and Zayn just couldn’t understand one another. In one situation, Rebecca expresses her liberal values around gender relations, values that Zayn had always shared. But in a foreign country, and beaten down by his exile, Zayn is overwhelmed. He throws up his hands and says, “You just don’t get it, do you?” Neither is able to explain themselves across the cultural divide, widened by trauma and despair.

Like all good fiction — and effective memoir writing — Glick tells a story that is not only entertaining, but one that matters. Even though politics and culture pervade every aspect of the story, the book centers on one thing: The impact of Israel’s fragmentation of Palestine on a family.

Of course, the story of Palestinian fragmentation cannot be fully captured in a single novel, and it did not end on the last page of Glick’s book. With a population of around 13 million today, there are over 2 million Palestinians living as second-class citizens in Israel, 2.5 million under Israeli occupation in the West Bank, and 2 million living under Israeli siege in the Gaza Strip. Another 3 million Palestinians live in Jordan, with the rest scattered across the Arab world, Europe, Latin America and North America, each group with a different, often precarious, legal status. Nearly every Palestinian is touched by this fragmentation: grandparents are strangers to their grandchildren, aunts miss their nieces’ weddings, and brothers are absent from their brothers’ death beds.

It’s not surprising, then, that love, no matter how strong, can choke from the toxicity of this fragmentation. This shows up poignantly, and tragically, in Glick’s life and her brilliant novel. At one point in the story, Rebecca returns to the house in Gaza she shared with Zayn, a house to which Zayn can no longer go. She says:

“Standing in that hushed house, I understood that it wasn’t the Palestine Street chickens or leftovers that shifted the course of our relationship. It was the realization that despite all we had lost — friends, family, our home, our work — there was still more left to lose.”

Aiding Liberation, a book chapter

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“Do non-Palestinians only stand in solidarity with the struggle against Israeli settler colonialism? Or do we recognize that the struggle for actual liberation is bigger than statehood? Does our understanding of Palestinian liberation include a critique of racial capitalism and neoliberal globalization and the ways they too perpetuate exploitation, inequality and injustice? If so, how should liberation-minded activists interact with Palestinians whose interests diverge, like those who aspire to build a Palestine that is allied with US and European corporate interests or those who want to establish another Islamic state?”

Our Vision for Palestinian Liberation book cover

This is an excerpt from my chapter, “Aiding Liberation” in Ramzy Baroud and Ilan Pappe’s edited volume, Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders & Intellectuals Speak Out.”

Get your copy from your favorite independent bookstore or from bookshop.org.

Pushing back against right wing attacks on education by centering Palestinian voices

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This book review was first published by Mondoweiss on March 24, 2022

Determined to Stay: Palestinian Youth Fight for Their Village by Jody Sokolower is one of the rare non-fiction, young adult books that center contemporary Palestinian experiences and voices.

Teachers and students will quickly recognize that this valuable resource was written by a skilled educator, and one with deep knowledge about how to teach social justice issues to youth. After working as a classroom teacher in middle and high school settings, Jody spent eight years as managing editor of the social justice publisher Rethinking Schools, during which she edited two groundbreaking books. She now works as co-coordinator of the Teach Palestine Project at the Middle East Children’s Alliance and helps lead the National Liberated Ethnic Studies Coalition.

PALESTINIAN YOUTHS CONFRONT ISRAELI SOLDIERS DURING THE CLASHES IN THE EAST JERUSALEM NEIGHBORHOOD OF SILWAN, WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 22, 2010. (PHOTO: MAHFOUZ ABU TURK/APA IMAGES)

The structure and content of Determined to Stay utilize and model best practices in teaching material that is unfamiliar to students and about which there are different and potentially conflicting perspectives. For example, a compare-and-contrast approach is woven throughout the book enabling readers not only to learn about Palestine, but about their own communities. This starts right at the beginning with a framing introduction by Nick Estes (Lower Brule Sioux), co-founder of Red Nation, a Native American resistance organization. Past and current examples of US colonialism are integrated throughout the book, giving readers a home base from which they can venture out to understand what’s happening in Palestine. She also includes the stories of Palestinian-Americans, who only infrequently get to see themselves in books. The inclusion of Palestinian-American stories helps non-Palestinian readers understand that the issues in the book are relevant in the US, not just “over there.”

The bulk of the content is Palestinians telling their own stories. The reader “hears” about Palestinian youth’s lives in their own words. Sokolower does not explain what Palestinians say or give her own opinions. She lets Palestinians’ voices stand on their own. She models self-reflection for the reader by gently commenting on her own experiences in light of what she learns from the Palestinians she interviews. She also models for readers the importance of considering one’s own social location and biases. She reminds the reader that she is an older, white, Jewish woman from the US, and that reality shapes her experiences and perspective.

The chapters are short, between 5-10 pages, and can be easily woven into lessons in various disciplines at different levels. Given that the material is heavy and may be new to readers, these short bites are perfect for taking in an aspect of Palestinian youth’s lives, and connecting the learning to previous chapters and other material they are discussing in school.

Available from Interlink Books

It is refreshing that Determined to Stay starts small. It doesn’t try to explain the entire background and history of what’s going on. Context and history are included in reference to Silwan, the village that is the subject of the book. Most importantly, it doesn’t try to “balance” what Palestinians say with opposing views, a tactic used in US media and educational settings to undermine Palestinian voice.

Showing her expertise in social justice education, Sokolower addresses hard issues like arrest of youth, demolition of homes, harassment by Israeli soldiers, the lasting effects of trauma, and more. But in every instance, she highlights the way that Palestinian youth cope, find agency, support one another and resist.

In this way, the difficult aspects of life under military occupation and siege do not define Palestinians, nor do they overwhelm readers. They are actors who think and act and offer hope for change. Seeing them act inspires us to consider how we, too, can act to improve our situations.

There are some maps, artwork and photos. The most important photos are of young Palestinians in a variety of settings, including dancing and playing as well as being arrested and resisting. Since many US readers never meet a Palestinian, they are subject to the ways Palestinians are framed, often as “terrorists,” in US media. Humanizing images are critical for young readers to be able to relate to and connect with the stories of their counterparts in Palestine.

Although Determined to Stay: Palestinian Youth Fight for Their Village is clearly about youth, it is not immediately obvious from the cover that it is for young readers. Adult readers, including teachers, will also benefit from the book, but there are plenty of other books for adults that address Palestinian topics. Determined to Stay: Palestinian Youth Fight for Their Village fills a void because it is aimed at youth readers, and it raises the bar for forthcoming books for this audience.

Sadly, despite increasing interest in Palestine and Palestinians in the US, it is getting harder for K-12 teachers to bring Palestinian perspectives into the classroom. Attacks on what is erroneously called “Critical Race Theory” are the most recent indication of the politicization and divisiveness of public discourse around education. Educators with social justice sensibilities, however, understand that the key to constructive civic discourse is not banning certain books or ideas, but rather prioritizing skills in listening, evaluating facts, analyzing different narratives, forming opinions, and engaging in civil discussion across lines of difference. Determined to Stay: Palestinian Youth Fight for Their Village is a valuable resource for all of us who want to keep education relevant, honest and effective in our struggle to improve the world in which we live.

My people are from…

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My people are from the front of the march, where signs are held high

cardboard in sweaty hands

slogans universal, historic

pockets bulging with snacks for the children in tow

My people are from the ache of knowing how it feels and the

contradictory science

of self-preservation

My people got lost when the protest turned left at the corner

when the police stepped out of their cruisers

when the reporter tapped a young guy wearing a kuffiyeh to speak about

liberation

and his words were “insufficiently nuanced”

My people stopped at a sidewalk cafe on the way

back to the car parked under a tree

and got a mocha latte in a to-go cup

with a plastic top

Can a body?

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Can a body feel too much?

Can a body experience the panic and the desperation and the fear and the coldness and the gunshot and the anger and the guilt and more fear 

and still breathe and beat?

Can a body be pulled simultaneously up toward the light of radical love 

and down into throbbing memories — without ripping?

Can a body face hate and hate and more hate and still find compassion?

Can a body violated open again to embrace?

Can a body sense the totality of powerlessness and still rise in the morning to the sun?

Can a body feel clean after bathing in dirty water?

Can a body stay present in this reality and still imagine a better one?

Can a body ever rest?

Fiction, reality, the US police, the Red Cross & Palestinians

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TV commercials showing beautiful people with windblown hair driving along the California coastline in a convertible have a disclaimer in small print at the bottom of the screen that says something like, “Professional driver on a closed course. Do not attempt.” Why do they say this?

Clearly, some people do not understand the difference between fiction and reality. In his brilliant commentary-comedy (8:06), Trevor Noah demonstrates how some people develop opinions about the police through cop shows. He acknowledges that police are often portrayed as breaking the law, but rather than come away with the impression that police misconduct should be addressed, viewers see police as good people who only break rules when necessary to promote the common good. In other words, police misconduct is justified and even glorified.

Apparently, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Israel and the Occupied Territories had similar concerns. In a series of recent tweets, they creatively showed how the Israeli TV drama series, Fauda, portrays violations of international humanitarian law in ways that the common viewer might not recognize as illegal.

But the twitterverse did not approve. There were literally hundreds of replies calling out the ICRC for reflecting on representations of Israeli behavior on a fictional show. The replies were defensive, as if the ICRC were accusing Israel of committing these crimes when they are, in fact, only fictional.

Unfortunately, Israeli violations of international humanitarian and human rights law is not fictional and police misconduct is real. The only question worth asking, then, is whether or not creators of fiction have an obligation to at least consider the social impact of their portrayals. We know, for example, that representations of women in children’s literature and television have a dramatic impact on how girls see themselves (not to mention how boys see girls).

The problem can go the other way too. Reality can be presented in ways that are problematic. Just last week, in fact, I tweeted about a fundraising commercial (ironically for the American Red Cross). In it, a woman plays “What the world needs now is love” on a piano in a demolished house. Her husband and daughter find a teddy bear in the rubble. The October 26 commercial is touching, and no doubt, many viewers pull out their check books to support the disaster relief work of the Red Cross.

But this commercial is no mere fictional scene pulled from the head of a creative advertiser. It is nearly identical to an August 5 home video taken just after the Beirut explosion and circulated by the Guardian. And this is not okay. The American Red Cross should not fictionalize reality for the sake of profit. This is exploitation and definitely (IMHO) crosses the line of acceptable humanitarian communications.

What, then, can we conclude? Viewers should consume all kinds of media with healthy skepticism. We should not assume that what we see in the media is “true.” We should definitely ask what interests benefit from a certain portrayal. In the case of police, viewers should believe what Black and other people of color share about their real experiences with police. Centering and amplifying BIPOC voices will put fictional portrayals into context and provide depth to our analysis of media coverage of the police. As for Fauda, we should respond to those like the ICRC who call on us to go beyond TV drama for information about international humanitarian law. But that’s not enough. We must center and amplify the voices of the people who experience the violations of international humanitarian law — in this case, Palestinians. Until Palestinians are heard, seen and believed, the rest of the world will be susceptible to Israel’s portrayals of them, whether in drama or the news.

نورا مراد: فلسطين بعين أجنبيةكلمات نشاط سياسي زياد منى السبت 28 تشرين الثاني 2020

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This review originally appeared in Al-Akhbar.

نورا لستر مراد محرّرة كتاب «وإذ بي في فلسطين» (منشورات أوليف برانش ــ 2020) الفريد كتبت: «لقد تبلورت فكرة هذا المؤلف أثناء تناول فنجان من القهوة في رام الله، وعملية إتمامه لم تكن علمية أو صارمة. لقد تواصلت مع أشخاص من مختلف أنحاء العالم متزوجين من فلسطينيين، أو عاشوا في فلسطين لفترة طويلة، أو لديهم خبرة طويلة وعميقة في ما يتعلق بفلسطين، فوجدت نفسي أبحث عن نوع معين من «الأجانب»، النوع الذي يدرك أنه في ظن العديد من الفلسطينيين يعني «الذين يستفيدون من معاناتهم». أشير إلى هؤلاء المتخصصين في المساعدة الدولية والدبلوماسيين الذين تحركهم الاهتمامات المهنية أكثر من التضامن. إنهم يثيرون غضب الفلسطينيين. لكني أردت في المقابل تسليط الضوء على قصص الأجانب الذين عملوا بجدّ وبتواضع وصدق لأجل الفلسطينيين ومعهم. هم نوع مختلف من الأجانب الذين يمكن أن يصبحوا جزءاً من المجتمع الفلسطيني ويتغيرون بواسطته. بعض من دعوته اعتذر عن عدم المشاركة وقال: على الفلسطينيين التحدث عن أنفسهم، لكنهم ساعدوا باعتذارهم هذا في تشكيل رؤية المشروع واتجاهه. «وإذ بي في فلسطين» ليس مؤلفاً عن فلسطين، وإنما مجموعة من تأملات غير فلسطينيين تعتبر قصصهم أيضاً هدية من هذا المكان».

وجهات النظر الـ 22 الممثلة في هذا المؤلف تعكس آراء كُتَّابها، وهي مجموعة معبرة وغنية بالمعلومات ومأساوية ومناصرة ومدهشة وعالمية، لكنها لا تستطيع أبداً رسم صورة كاملة. تجارب الأجانب تتغير باستمرار، والمحررة نورا مراد تقول: «لا أستطيع أن أتخيل فلسطينياً يقول اليوم: إن الإغلاق أو حظر التجول هو خطئي لأنني أميركية، مع أنه بالتأكيد أكثر صحة اليوم مما كان عليه في أي وقت مضى. لقد عانى الفلسطينيون عقوداً من الاستهداف على أيدي الأجانب، لكنهم شهدوا أيضاً عقوداً من التضامن». «وإذ بي في فلسطين» مجموعة من الروايات من مختلف القارات التي تستكشف مفهوم كونك أجنبياً في ما يتعلق بفلسطين، جنباً إلى جنب مع الشعب الفلسطيني الذي يتم تصويره على أنه أجنبي في أرضه. بالنسبة إلى الفلسطينيين، للغربة معانٍ مختلفة. المستوطنون هم الأجانب الذين يشاركون في سرقة فلسطين ويجعلون الفلسطينيين أجانب من خلال التهجير. هناك أيضاً الأجانب الذين يتعاملون مع الشعب الفلسطيني، وكذلك «الأجانب المحترفون الذين يأتون إلى هنا ويبنون وظائف على حساب نضالنا».

يجمع المؤلف مجموعة من القصص من أشخاص تتشابك حياتهم مع حياة الشعب الفلسطيني بطرق مختلفة. ومحررته، نورا لستر مراد، وهي أميركية متزوجة من فلسطيني، كتبت في مقدمتها «الفلسطينيون مجتمع منفي، لكن الكُتَّاب الذين ظهروا في هذه المجموعة ليسوا كذلك»، وتشرح كيف بيّنت مجموعة الروايات المباشرة عن الأجانب للفلسطينيين «ليصبحوا جزءاً من المجتمع الفلسطيني ويتغيروا بواسطته».

قصص الأجانب الذين عملوا بجدّ وبتواضع وصدق لأجل الفلسطينيين ومعهم


تم سرد تجارب مختلفة في هذا المؤلف. يعتزّ البعض بالتقاليد والالتزامات الاجتماعية للانضمام إلى عائلة فلسطينية. بالنسبة إلى الأجانب الآخرين الذين يتزوجون من عائلات فلسطينية، يُنظر إلى التقاليد على أنها خانقة ومتناقضة مع ثقافة وطن الآخر. على سبيل المثال، تقول البوليفية كورينا ماماني، التي تعيش في فلسطين منذ 25 عاماً: ترتبط التقاليد والثقافة بالضغط الاجتماعي. لكن سميرة الصفدي، وهي ألمانية من أصل فلسطيني، تتماهى مع فلسطين وكونها فلسطينية على مدى فترة طويلة من الزمن. «لا أستطيع أن أقول إنني فلسطينية عندما لا أشعر أنني كذلك». بالنسبة لها، لم تكن الثقافة الموروثة هي التي روّجت للهوية، بل بالأحرى تجربتها في العيش في فلسطين والاجترار حول هذه الفترة بعيداً عن فلسطين في بلغاريا. «العيش في فلسطين له معنى الآن. إنه يعني صموداً ومقاومة».
تجربة معاكسة تماماً لتجربة فلسطين من المنفى قدمتها الفلسطينية التشيلية نادية حسن، التي شكل سعيها للعودة إلى وطنها بعد تجربة في الجامعة معنى لمفهوم «العودة». بعد العديد من المحن، تمكنت من جعل

فلسطين منزلها.
في أوقات أخرى، تؤكّد العادات والتوقعات المجتمعية الفلسطينية الغربة، كما في حالة زينة، وهي امرأة سودانية متزوجة من أرمل من الولايات المتحدة. تقول عن دورها المهني في عيادة السرطان: «إنهم يرون في

مقدمة رعاية، وامرأة، وأم أخرى تشعر بألمهم».
بالنسبة للأشخاص الذين لم تطأ أقدامهم فلسطين أبداً، والذين تعتمد معرفتهم أساساً على الأخبار والتحليلات، فمن السهل بناء مفهوم محدود عن الفلسطينيين وماهية فلسطين. من خلال روايات مثل هذه، أصبحت إنسانية السكان المستعمَرين ملموسة، ولم يعد يُنظر إلى الفلسطينيين على أنهم بند في الأخبار أو جدول الأعمال الدبلوماسي فقط.

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