Nora Lester Murad - The View From My Window in Palestine

  • About Me
    • Bio
    • Contact Me
    • Sign up for updates
  • My Writing
    • Life Under Occupation
    • Video/Radio
    • Guest Posts
    • Aid and Development
    • Gaza!
    • Palestinian Literary Scene
  • My Books
    • Ida in the Middle
    • Rest in My Shade
    • I Found Myself in Palestine
  • Shop
  • Email
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Reflections on Gaza: The Day After

March 22, 2024 by Nora Lester Murad

This article was originally published on on January 3, 2024 in American for Middle East Understanding’s The Link (scroll down or download issue).

“There won’t be a ‘day after’ this genocide,” a friend in Nablus tells me on Signal. “The bombing may stop, but the project to erase Palestinians will persist in one form or another until Israel either wins or loses.”

True. We are in an existential fight against White Empire, and it won’t end just because Israel needs a bathroom break. 

As an anti-Zionist Jew, it is crystal clear to me that if the Jewish supremacist colonial regime of Israel wins, both Palestinians and Judaism will be annihilated. Since I married a Palestinian and have Palestinian daughters, my mama bear energy is fully invested in the scenario where we all live together in equality with dignity, rights, and security for all.

But first, we must stop this goddamned genocide. 

Like everyone, I’m running 24/7 with the heavy, sharp pieces of my broken soul dragging behind. Contemplating the “day after” feels like a Herculean task of acumen at a time when I can barely fathom reality.

Today, a friend in Rafah texted me on WhatsApp that he was depressed. What could I say? I replied, 

Coming from someone who takes a hot shower every day, it sounds ridiculous. If I see him again when this is over, how will I look him in the eyes? I am overcome with shame about my powerlessness while he literally protects his small children with his body.

Yesterday another friend called me on Messenger from Khan Younis, chaos in the background. His daughter said, “Auntie, please tell Baba not to make us walk to Rafah.” My friend explained they are being forced to move from their shelter. He can’t afford a donkey cart, so the family of eight would have to go on foot, carrying whatever belongings they have left. 

I didn’t know what to say.

Before this genocide, I stood on one side of a huge chasm. On my side were people who cared about houselessness, mass incarceration, discrimination, censorship. But many of those people have since planted “I Stand with Israel” signs on their lawns. I am dumbfounded! How can intelligent, decent people argue against a ceasefire? If it was wrong for 1,200 people to be killed, then isn’t it also wrong to kill 25,000? 

How will I continue to work for social justice when I have lost faith in people?

Yet there are people who care:

When I read this tweet to my grownup daughter, her response surprised me. “What the fuck is the point of apologizing?” she erupted. “Palestinians never asked for pity.” 

But I am sorry, I tell her. I’m so sorry. I’m so very, very sorry.

She says that like the woman of color in Samer’s tweet, my pain is from empathy not sympathy. “It’s happening to you too, mama,” she consoles, and I am momentarily relieved. But seconds later, an old colleague sends me photos of the shelter in Nuseirat camp. Feces is everywhere, and there is no water to clean up. How can I face her on the “day after” when all I have are empty platitudes like “May God protect you and keep you?”

My daughter reminds me that faith is inextricably ingrained into the Arabic language. The culture of collective care is upheld in every phrase. The idioms and invocations are not platitudes, she explains patiently. They manifest our hopes for others. The obligatory response, which is nearly always “praise to God,” shows how gratitude breeds strength. “Even during a genocide, every hard day lived is a privilege,” she tells me.

“Never hesitate to look them in the eye and reassure them, even though their wellbeing and liberation are not in your hands,” she says.

I nod, and I’m sure she feels my commitment across the long-distance phone line.

Because no matter what I do or don’t do, on the “day after,” whenever it comes, Palestinian steadfastness will be stronger than ever. And if my faith falters, my friends in Gaza will reassure me.

Anas Abu Jamous is 10-years old and Paralyzed

February 4, 2024 by Nora Lester Murad

It’s hard to visit the Gaza Strip and not fall in love with the people. Sadly, very few people get the opportunity to visit. Israel has controlled the checkpoints with a heavy hand since they imposed a siege and blockade in 2007. They only approve a small number of permits to enter and exit, and only for very specific and self-interested reasons. 

I was extremely fortunate to get consultancy jobs that took me to Gaza several times. I used those opportunities to develop a now-defunct project called Aid Watch Palestine–perhaps the most exciting grassroots advocacy I’ve ever gotten to work on. Community members learned how the international aid system constrained their lives (in addition to the Israeli occupation), and they took action to claim their rights from international donors.

In 2015, on one of these trips, I met the Abu Jamous family in Khuzaa near Khan Younis. Marwan and Hanady’s  family was one among thousands whose homes were destroyed in the 2014 Israeli attack on Gaza and who were poorly served by the international humanitarian response. I wrote an article about their experience to bring attention to the problem. They were also represented in my photo essay of 2016. 

I stayed in touch with the family over the years, celebrating the birth of each new child, fretting about their many health crises, following their creative efforts to take care of one another despite having insufficient resources. In 2017, I wrote another article describing the family’s unacceptable living situation resulting from the ongoing blockade and the lack of proper help. Also in 2017, Hanady’s brother helped my group create a powerful, short video infographic showing that the only way to genuinely help Palestinians in Gaza is not to provide humanitarian aid, but to end the Israeli blockade. 

I stayed in touch with Fathi too, congratulating him when he married and had a son, and stressing when he decided to smuggle himself out of Gaza with the intention of reaching Lesbos for asylum. It was harrowing and dangerous but ultimately successful, and that’s how Fathi found himself outside of Gaza on October 7th. Marwan was also outside of Gaza on October 7th, getting much-needed medical care in the West Bank. When the bombs started falling, the women of the family bore the brunt, trying to protect themselves and their children, even though there was and still is no place that is safe from Israel’s indiscriminate violence. (Marwan was abducted by the Israelis from the hospital in Nablus and thrown back in Gaza in the midst of the bombing. He’s now with the family but sick, having not completed his medical procedure.)

I had hoped my friends in the Abu Jamous family would at least be spared from the worst of the violence, but they weren’t. With much difficulty, the family of 36 people (Marwan’s family and Fathi’s family, including all their brothers and sisters and their spouses and children and parents) were finally able to escape Khan Younis to go to Rafah. Although it was supposedly (but not really) safer, Israeli soldiers confiscated all their belongings at the checkpoint entering Rafah, and they started shooting randomly.

Fathi’s 10-year-old nephew Anas was shot in the back by Israeli soldiers.

Anas went back to Khan Younis with his father to the European hospital while the rest of the family moved forward, setting up three tents between Khan Younis and Rafah – one for the many men of the extended family, one for the women, and one for the children. Anas got x-rays that confirmed the bullet was lodged in his spine. My friend in Boston, a prestigious spine surgeon, reviewed the images and said that Anas needed surgery immediately. He needed to be moved out of Gaza, but not on a commercial flight. His spinal fluid needed to be monitored. He needed to be catheterized. He had to be moved carefully to preserve the possibility that paralysis might be avoided, and he needed the bullet removed to avoid lead poisoning.

Naive me got to work trying to get Anas moved to another country for treatment. A pediatrician friend liaised with the doctors at the European Hospital who explained that Anas had been put on a list. The Israelis would need to approve his transfer. Visas would need to be secured. A foreign hospital would need to admit him. Funds would need to be raised. And more relevant – there were thousands on the list before Anas.

Fathi told me that the hospital was releasing Anas back to his family, back to the tent where he would sleep on the wet ground. There was no point in keeping him in the hospital since they didn’t have the material or tools to treat him. They don’t even have paid medication to treat the poor kid; he cries constantly from the unbearable pain.

As of this morning, though, Anas is still in the hospital in Khan Younis. When they ultimately ask him to leave, he will return to a family that has no shelter, insufficient food and water, no access to medications, no money for diapers, and no prospects – because Israel continues to deny these basic rights, even while they continue bombing, despite the warnings of the International Court of Justice.

No child should be shot. Anas was shot in the back! He was shot by Israel while following Israeli orders to move to Rafah!! Anas was learning to play soccer. Anas loved playing soccer.

If you would like to help Anas and his family, please contact me at nora@noralestemurad.com. I have a secure way of getting money to them that is still working. It won’t help Anas walk, and it won’t make the family safe from the ongoing genocide, but it may in some small way lift the family’s spirits to know that we care and we wish them the best.

Even if you can’t help Anas, PLEASE help stop the violence in Israel/Palestine by calling on the your governmental representatives to demand their constructive intervention. If you live in the United States, tell your senators and congressional representative to call for: an immediate, sustainable ceasefire; release of all captives in Israel and Gaza; Israeli facilitation of humanitarian aid, including medical; resumption and expansion of US aid to UNRWA; an end to US weapons transfers to Israel until they comply with all international law; facilitation of accountability for Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity; accountability for US complicity in Israelis violations of Palestinian rights; an end to the siege on Gaza; an end to the occupation and colonization of Palestine; and a just political solution that respects the rights, dignity, security of everyone. (Here is a tool and here is another tool that will help you make those calls and send emails. Please call EVERY SINGLE DAY!)

UPDATE! Anas and his mother and siblings (not his father) have been evacuated to Cairo where he is being evaluated by a doctor! This is absolutely miraculous! Of course the road ahead will be painful and costly, and his family continues to need as much support as they can get.

ANOTHER UPDATE! Marwan’s father and nephew were hit by a bomb strike. Marwan’s father lost both his legs and died two days later. The nephew lost an eye, but I don’t know if he lived. I can’t reach the family.

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.

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • …
  • 60
  • Next Page »

Recent Posts

  • The convos jumbled in my heart and head
  • ADL’s Stats Twist Israel’s Critics Into Antisemites
  • Is Fire Enough to Get Americans to Empathize with Palestinians?
  • CNN essentially publishes ADL PR, fails to investigate recent educational conference accusations
  • Educators Beware: The Anti-Defamation League Is Not the Social Justice Partner It Claims to Be

Tweets!

Could not authenticate you.
  • Contact Me
  • About Me
  • Archive
  • Sign up for updates

Copyright © 2025, All rights reserved
Website Maintained by AtefDesign