Palestine in America's 3rd Print Issue

PALESTINE IN AMERICA

LOVE LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

BY NADER IHMOUD BDS GOES MAINSTREAM

BY NORA BARROWS-FRIEDMAN HUDA SUPPER CLUB

BY EMILY MOON

VOL 1, ISSUE 3 AUGUST 2017

PALIPALOOZA 2016 HIGHLIGHTS

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Nader Ihmoud, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

t all began with a domain and a dream; four years and three issues later, Palestine in America has soared to new heights. Since you last heard from us, we’ve brought on 50 contributors from across the country, hosted our second annual Palipalooza concert and published our third pint issue--which we proudly present to you here.

I

This issue is brimming with beautifully written stories, raw imagery and hard-hitting facts brought to you by top-tier writers from the Bay Area to the East Coast--all of whom have helped to make this magazine what it is today.

But none of this would be possible without my beautiful partner Adeeba, who has been by my side since the beginning of PiA and devoted countless hours to helping me build the organization from the ground up. Now, Adeeba is embarking on an even more daunting mission: marrying me.

I bring up my marriage to Adeeba because it is one of the greatest examples of what Palestine in America stands for. Our marriage is a celebration of Palestinian culture--here we are, miles and miles away from our ancestral home, yet our pride and love for Palestine burns brighter than ever.

PiA’s board of directors brings that same passion to the table every day as we work to shine a light on the Palestinian diaspora in the United States while educating our youth on the media’s role in the Palestinian human rights catastrophe.

Thanks to the support of our readers, advertisers and sponsors, we were able to give this issue to our subscribers for free, and we hope that your continued support will allow us to do even more for our community. If you’d like to contribute in any way, please contact us at PalestineinAmerica@gmail.com.

Vol 1, Issue 3 | August 2017 | 3

TABLE OF CONTENTS 8

10 18 22 26 29 32 34

BDS Map

Intersectionality and the Mainstreaming of Palestine Abeer's Revival

Photo Essay: All Walls Must Fall

Will Trump Secure the "Ultimate Deal"?

Abu Ali Q&A

Tips for Discussing Palestine With Your Elected Official Short Story: Rhizome

PALESTINE IN AMERICA TEAM Nader Ihmoud

President, Editor-in-Chief

Helal Jwayyed

Vice President

Adeeba Mabruk

Managing Editor, Secretary, Treasurer

Aymen Abdel Halim

Board Member

Sana Ihmoud

Board Member

Dania Mukahhal

Graphic Designer

Leila Abdelrazaq

Cover Artist

Kaley Fowler Yasmeen Abdellatif

Editor Editor, Contributor

Emily Moon

Contributor

Carlos Khalil Guzman

Contributor

Nora Barrows-Friedman

Contributor

Jeanine Yacoub

Contributor

Josh Ruebner

Contributor

Izzy Mustafa

Contributor

Jumana Al-Qawasmi

Contributor

Photos Š Palipalooza 2016 by Hoda Katebi

amplify the bds call! learn more at:

adalahny.org bdsmovement.net

Adalah-NY: The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel

Until Return & Liberation The PYM is a transnational, independent, grassroots movement of young Palestinians in Palestine and in exile worldwide as a result of the ongoing Zionist colonization and occupation of our homeland.

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g g

Vol 1, Issue 3 | August 2017 | 9

Photo © BDS by T. KIm K.

INTERSECTIONALITY AND THE MAINSTREAM OF PALESTINE NORA BARROWS-FRIEDMAN, Contributor Princess Nokia did it1. Macklemore and Ryan Lewis did it2. Queer filmmakers did it3. A group of NFL players did it4. Barcelona city councilmembers did it5. Even Sacramento, California transit officials did it6.

In just the last few months, several artists and athletes have either quietly or explicitly canceled gigs and appearances in Israel or have refused to attend state-sponsored exhibitions, while grassroots activists have successfully pushed local elected officials around the world to dump urban contracts with companies that profit from Israel’s crimes.

As Israel continues to violate Palestinian rights with impunity, the 12-year-old Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign continues to grow and claim more victories: Major multinational companies have ditched Israeli contracts over boycott pressure, dozens of European communities have declared themselves Israeli apartheid-free zones and churches have continued to endorse the BDS call.

“BDS has rekindled our hopes that, with internal nonviolent resistance and mounting international pressure, similar to that applied to apartheid South Africa, we can prevail over Israel’s system of oppression,” wrote7 Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the BDS movement who was targeted, interrogated, banned from travel and threatened by the Israeli government earlier this year8.

Condemnation of Israel’s policies has continued to gain mainstream traction even in Trump’s America. A recent poll9 by the Brookings Institution found that nearly half of all Americans support imposing sanctions on Israel over its expansion of settlement colonies in the occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem.

Even with all the funds and resources at their disposal, Israel lobby groups are forced to admit – notably, in a leaked report authored by the Reut Institute and the Anti-Defamation League, obtained earlier this year10 – that their hasbara efforts to win hearts and minds are failing.

1 https://palestineinamerica.com/2017/04/princess-nokia-cancels-israeli-show/ 2 http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.795862 3 https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/artists-ditch-israels-pinkwashing-film-festival 4 https://palestineinamerica.com/2017/02/nfl-player-bds-cancels-trip-israel/ 5 https://bdsmovement.net/news/historic-decision-barcelona-city-council-votes-end-complicity-israeli-occupation-illegal 6 https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/sacramento-transit-drops-g4s 7 https://bdsmovement.net/news/palestinians-1967-war-remains-enduring-painful-wound 8 https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/under-israeli-gag-order-omar-barghouti-urges-more-bds 9 https://www.brookings.edu/research/american-attitudes-on-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/ 1⁰https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/leaked-report-highlights-israel-lobbys-failures 10 | Palestine in America | palestineinamerica.com

They fail as Palestine advocacy strengthens bonds with Black liberation, queer liberation and the fight for immigrant rights.

And they fail especially on college campuses, where some of the most spirited and relentless Palestine solidarity organizing is taking place.

While attempting to discredit and stunt the growth of BDS – the Israeli government has allocated tens of millions of dollars11 to fight it – Israel advocates are in a meltdown over their own scientific studies that conclude that when young people understand the inherent connections between human rights struggles, the result is a rapidly decreasing support for Israel.

“For anyone with the slightest Zionist impulse, the downward slope of Israel support is disturbing,” lamented12 The Times of Israel in a June 21 profile of Fern Oppenheim, a Zionist Israeli who runs the Brand Israel Group, a market research company that charts Israel’s popularity and the effectiveness of pro-Israel propaganda, and the group’s recent study on support for Israel – or lack thereof – on US campuses.

The current college atmosphere has categorized Israel as “just another symbol” of an oppressor-versus-victim narrative, Oppenheim complained.

With shock and dismay – she called the results of her survey “devastating” – Oppenheim told The Times of Israel that the rate in support of Palestinians by Jewish college students in particular has risen significantly over the last six years.

“In sum, the gap between Israel-supporters and detractors is widening. The current Israel advocacy programs are not working, and Jewish college students are the leading defectors from Israel support,” The Times of Israel warned. “Much of this change she blamed on the rise of ‘intersectionality’ on campuses.”

Indeed, intersectional organizing continues to outpace Zionist inculcation in millennial spaces while boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns multiply. Activists say that Palestine advocacy has never before been so visible and so mainstream -- a cause for alarm by the Zionist establishment.

“The fact that they think of intersectionality as a threat to Jewish communities and Jewish students, and are yet bewildered why more and more young Jews are criticizing the state of Israel, speaks to how out of touch and how really racist the establishment is,” said Rebecca Pierce, filmmaker and member of the Jews of Color and Sephardi/Mizrahi Caucus, a group in partnership with Jewish Voice for Peace.

The panic by Israel advocates around intersectionality clarifies that they don’t understand that it is “something that benefits young

11 http://www.jns.org/news-briefs/2015/6/7/israeli-government-tobudget-nearly-26-million-to-fight-bds-movement#.WVadaRPyuL8=

12 http://www.timesofisrael.com/devastating-survey-shows-hugeloss-of-israel-support-among-jewish-college-students/

Photo © Omar B. by PalFest Jewish people who are increasingly aware of the fact that our experiences intersect with the experiences of other people,” she told Palestine in America.

“For a lot of us, myself included, if you’re Jewish and you’re Black, if you’re Jewish and you’re queer, if you’re Jewish and you’re marginalized in some way, this is an important way of understanding the world around you.”

Pierce explained that this anxiety by Zionists over intersectional organizing and growing young Jewish support of the Palestinian liberation struggle reveals that “they don’t have our interests at heart – and that we know what’s best for us better than they do, very clearly.”

In January, one week into the Trump presidency, thousands of protesters simultaneously and spontaneously shut down airports all across the US in immediate response to the first iteration of the so-called Muslim ban. One of the popular chants, heard from San Francisco to New York City, was “From Palestine to Mexico, all the walls have got to go!”

“It is a chant that indicates an awareness of our connected struggle,” remarked Seattle-based professor and activist Nada Elia in an article13 for Mondoweiss following the protests.

“Just as the ‘Gaza to Ferguson’ connection that surfaced during the riots against police murders of African Americans in various US cities, the chant linking the Mexico Wall to the Israeli Annexation and Apartheid wall is a sign that points in the right direction, one of global struggle, global solidarity, global alliances,” Elia added.

13 http://mondoweiss.net/2017/01/highlights-struggle-palestine/ Continued on page 14

Vol 1, Issue 3 | August 2017 | 11

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As Pierce noted, such systems of oppression copy each other -and once they are exposed, the systems cannot be put back into isolation.

supported the Palestinian emancipatory struggle -- including Angela Davis, Alice Walker, Dr. John Carlos, Alicia Garza, Marc Lamont Hill, Boots Riley and Danny Glover -- to pull out of the junket.

Immediately following the airport shutdowns, professional athletes helped highlight the connections between the struggle for Black liberation and support for Palestinian rights.

Upon learning that the trip was organized and designed by the Israeli government in an attempt to mold Bennett and other players into “goodwill ambassadors” for the Zionist state, and ostensibly as weapons against the BDS campaign, Bennett replied, simply, “I will not be used in such a manner.”

The Electronic Intifada reported14 that Colin Kaepernick of the San Francisco 49ers, who famously refused to stand during the national anthem in protest of racist police violence against Black people, retweeted a February 7 tweet15 following the Muslim ban stating that if anyone was outraged by the actions of the US government, they should surely also be “livid about the apartheid tactics Israel forces on Palestinian Muslims.”

“One of my heroes has always been Muhammad Ali,” Bennett added. “I know that Ali always stood strongly with the Palestinian people, visiting refugee camps, going to rallies and always being a ‘voice for the voiceless.’ I want to be a ‘voice for the voiceless,’ and I cannot do that by going on this kind of trip to Israel.”

Days later, Michael Bennett of the Seattle Seahawks declared publicly and unapologetically that he was rebuking an offer from Israel to participate in a propaganda trip to Israel.

In the end, six out of 11 NFL players pulled out17 of the trip, dealing a public blow to what was supposed to be an easy win for the Brand Israel campaign.

Bennett and 10 other NFL players had been encouraged16 by legendary Black activists, athletes and artists who have long

Speaking about his decision not to take part in the trip, Bennett told a crowd in Washington, DC in April: “I was just like, ‘Man, this just reminds me of being in the civil rights movement and what’s going on at this time.’ For me, I just couldn’t do it.”18

1⁴ https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/michael-f-brown/nfl-players-pull-out-israel-propaganda-tour

1⁵ https://twitter.com/LeftSentThis/status/829061764385878016 1⁶ https://www.thenation.com/article/open-letter-to-nfl-playerstraveling-to-israel-on-a-trip-organized-by-netanyahus-government/?nc=1

Pierce said that it wasn’t surprising that Bennett instantly recognized the connections between oppression of Black folks in the US and the way he was being exploited to how Palestinians are treated.

“We’re in this age of information where we have access to the direct voices of Palestinians who are able to tell their story better than anyone could, “ she said.

With that framework of intersectional understanding, it “benefits our own struggles,” Pierce added. “It speaks to the fact that we are so much stronger together.”

The NFL itself has a long way to go, obviously, despite the woke politics of some of its rostered players.

In late June, professional football veterans were sent to Jerusalem to expand the league’s brand toward Israeli fans, who, as the Associated Press reported19, “have taken a liking to the army-like strategy, camaraderie and collisions” of the sport.

As Alternet pointed out20, “the result was not only a de facto embrace of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s radical agenda, but a dual celebration of the Israeli Defense Forces and the sport’s implicit militarism.”

1⁷ https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/feb/15/nfl-players-israel-trip-michael-bennett

1⁸ https://theundefeated.com/features/seattle-seahawks-defensiveend-michael-bennett-finds-his-place-as-an-activist/

1⁹ http://www.espn.co.uk/nfl/story/_/id/19650952/hall-famers-visitisrael-giving-football-huge-boost

Photo © Michael Bennet by Anthony May Photography

2⁰ https://www.alternet.org/culture/israel-using-nfl-legends-unwitting-pawns-insidious-new-propaganda-campaign

14 | Palestine in America | palestineinamerica.com

The junket, organized by New England Patriots’ owner and Israel supporter Robert Kraft, was called “Touchdown in Israel II: Mission of Excellence” (because of course it was).

After Trump’s election and his administration’s continuance of Barack Obama’s policies of surveillance, crackdowns on dissent and a refusal to curb racist state and civilian violence against Black and Brown people and people of Arab and Muslim descent, activists say there is a renewed urgency to work together to support collective justice struggles – especially as Israel advocacy groups ramp up their campaigns of harassment, intimidation and disinformation.

“Leading up to Trump, there has been a lot of on-the-ground organizing and relationship-building that has taken place,” activist Izzaddine Mustafa told Palestine in America.

“When individuals build relationships with others who do other movement work, it comes naturally that we will have each other’s back,” he said. “It’s one thing to say, ‘I’m in solidarity with you because our struggles are similar,’ but it’s another to really build that relationship with others.”

Mustafa highlighted the growth of activism against pinkwashing – a public relations campaign to promote Israel’s image as an enlightened haven for LGBTQ issues in order to deflect criticism of its human rights abuses – as an example of the kind of strength an intersectional approach to activism can have on a movement.

As members of the Palestinian queer community called for an international boycott of the Tel Aviv Gay Pride parade in June21, international filmmakers and artists pulled out of Israel’s premier LGBTQ film festival – a move that forced The Jerusalem Post to admit22 that while the festival “has been around for more than a decade, it has never faced a campaign this successful against it.”

“As a Palestinian trans person in the queer community, I can only speak from my experience; but for me, what the Palestine LGBTQ movement has shown the world is ‘don’t f*** with us,’” he laughed.

“What the Zionists are trying to do is to strip us of our agency, of our voices; they’re trying to silence the narratives of Palestinian queers who live directly under their oppression,” Mustafa explained. “What we’re seeing now is that when you try to insert yourself under a historically progressive movement, you can only go so far.”

If you stand for liberation, you can’t stand for Zionism or the Zionist project, he added.

Taking that stand, he said, is “a microcosm of intersectionality, in terms of the fight that’s going down within progressive spaces.”

21 http://www.newsweek.com/why-we-should-boycott-gay-pridetel-aviv-623211

22 http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Tel-Aviv-LGBT-film-festival-targeted-by-BDS-494215

Photo © Angela Davis by Emerson College

Vol 1, Issue 3 | August 2017 | 15

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THE U.S. PALESTINIAN COMMUNITY NETWORK (USPCN) CONGRATULATES PiA FOR ITS 3rd ANNUAL MAGAZINE!

Join us Saturday, August 12th at 7 PM: Rasmea's farewell event in Chicago with keynote speaker Angela Davis!

For tickets & more info, visit www.justice4rasmea.org USPCN is a national Arab and Palestinian grassroots, community-based organization.

Our work includes: Organizing and advocacy for Palestinian political prisoners, including #DignityStrike community mobilizations and a campaign to Stop Administrative Detention (#StopAD).

Leading the national Rasmea Defense Committee and other civil liberties and anti-repression work in the U.S. #Justice4Rasmea Leading BDS campaign to #BoycottCoke, and participating in others, such as Airbnb (#StolenHomes), Jewish National Fund (#StopTheJNF), academic and cultural boycott, and church divestment.

Preserving Palestinian and Arab arts and culture, and touring musicians and artists from the Arab World, like Wishah and Mohammed Qraeiqe.

uspcn.org

ABEER'S REVIVAL A PALESTINIAN-AMERICAN CHICAGO CHEF EMERGES FROM THE UNDERGROUND EMILY MOON, Contributor additional reporting by Yasmeen Abdellatif beer Najjar makes her bamia the way her mother did – her knife slicing through fresh okra, tomatoes sizzling in the pan. She grinds garlic with her grandfather’s mortar and pestle that her parents brought from Palestine in 1978. Raising an arched brow over her wide, crinkling eyes, she leans in and takes a bite. Najjar has made this dish many times before in her mother’s cramped kitchen on Chicago’s South Side – but this time, hundreds of people are watching.

A

This past winter, 30-year-old Najjar took her passion for cooking to the masses with her YouTube series “Abeer’s Day Off,” which so far consists of four 5-minute episodes produced by Chicago-based production company Revive. The easy-going, fast-talking chef from the South Side had always dreamed of starring on a network cooking show, but her auditions always ended with the same response: “You’re great, but you’re not what we’re looking for.”

Maybe this was true, Najjar admits; white America was not looking for an outspoken Palestinian-American chef who preaches self-love, snacks on set and lives with her mother, but she was determined to make them find her anyway through her cooking show and food blog AbeerNajjar.com, which she launched in 2014. In the months since the premiere of her cooking series, Najjar has revamped her blog, made plans to attend an international conference in Ireland and

continued to host her popular secret supper club dinners in the Park Ridge neighborhood--her local claim to fame.

Though such clubs are technically violating local health codes by operating out of a home, the underground suppers offer a personal dining experience without the expense of a brick and mortar restaurant. Named after her 62-year-old mother, Najjar’s “Huda Supper Club” features traditional Palestinian dishes with a modern twist using themes like “Palestine Meets America” and “Brunch for Dinner.” Najjar brings the same cultural blend to her Revive series, which Teen Vogue praised in a March story for Muslim Women’s Day, calling Najjar a “talented chef creating delicious meals that you’d want to make at home.”

“People get really uptight about tradition,” she says. “Palestinians of course, too, because we constantly feel like our culture and our people are being erased.” Najjar treasures this tradition, and then flavors it. “If I’m opening up a pathway for people to still identify with their cultural food, just because I’ve changed a few ingredients, that’s pretty cool,” she says. “That’s what food is. That’s how food evolves.”

The day before her May supper club, Najjar tests out the menu in her Willowbrook, Ill. home, where she lives with her parents, her older brother Nader, his wife and their five kids. Her expressive brown eyes, usually bright with laughter, focus sharply as she works, but she can never stay serious for long – she’ll be cracking jokes one second, lamenting cultural appropriation the next. This week, she’s planned an elaborate four-course meal: manoushe, a Lebanese flatbread served with olive oil and za’atar, a Middle Eastern herb mix; buttermilk biscuits with sausage, soft-cooked eggs and gravy; chicken and French toastencrusted waffles; and qatayif, a sweet dumpling commonly served during Ramadan, which Najjar prepares with a crepe, ricotta and fresh berries.

Najjar does not follow cooking trends and she does not do fusion (which she calls a “hipster gimmick”). Instead, she follows old family recipes and trusts her gut. Last summer, this led her to a combination of Mediterranean and Palestinian cuisine: stewed tomatoes, eggplant puree and Italian herbs – topped with a fried egg, a mainstay of Palestinian cuisine. “Somewhere deep inside of me there’s an old Sicilian woman who loves mozzarella and spaghetti,” she says.

Photo © Emily Moon

Najjar’s supper clubs have grown since their humble beginning in December 2014, when she prepared summer barbecue-inspired cuisine for only 12 guests. Now, she hosts the dinners at Airbnb locations for groups of 20 on the condition that each guest makes a “suggested donation” of $50. The dinners take weeks to plan and promote on social media and Najjar barely breaks even – but she isn’t doing it for the money; rather, she sees Huda Supper Club as an opportunity to feed people and connect over food.

18 | Palestine in America | palestineinamerica.com

Photo © Emily Moon Najjar plates the second course in her "Breakfast for Dinner" meal: buttermilk biscuits with sausage, soft-cooked eggs and gravy.

A friend once told her, “You should make the dishes smaller so your profit margin will be larger.”

Najjar alternates between manning the stove and joking with her 3-year-old nephew, Bilal.

Najjar recalls grimacing and responding, “Please don’t say profit margin in my supper club.”

“Do you want to try one?” she asks him.

Although supper clubs are common, these underground dinners violate local guidelines. According to the Chicago Health Department, anyone selling food to the public must acquire a retail food establishment license, zone their property and pass inspections.

Despite the risks, Huda Supper Club fills a void in the Chicago food scene for many of Najjar’s guests.

Najjar keeps halal dietary standards, which can be a relief for her Muslim diners. She says it also makes her more comfortable – and that’s the point. “Every supper club is like eating at someone’s house,” she says. “You don’t feel that at any restaurant.”

“No,” Bilal says, pouting.

“No, why?”

“Because I just hate it!” He runs out of the room.

The rest of family is more receptive. Huda, Nader, and his daughter Maryam, 6, gather around the long oval kitchen table to try a heaping plate of waffles. A perfectionist like his sister, Nader examines each one. When he’s not teaching special education in the suburbs, Nader works as his sister’s sous-chef. He loves cooking – especially with Abeer.

She welcomes guests of all faiths, but describes food as a spiritual experience. “There’s this concept of blessings in food,” she says.

“Energy, blessings, God – whatever you want to call it, that’s real to us. That’s what I try to deliver in Supper Club.”

“Family understands you best,” he says simply.

Today, she’s testing waffles. Najjar slathers brioche in an egg batter, fries the bread lightly, and puts it in the waffle maker to give it a warm, cinnamon-encrusted crunch. The first batch cooks unevenly, but Najjar is not worried. This is the most relaxed she’s ever felt before supper club, she says. Dressed in an old Hollister hoodie and gray sweatpants, she’s completely at home in the kitchen. Her long black hair in a messy bun, with nieces and nephews running in and out,

Before she fell in love with food, Najjar cooked out of necessity. Her parents worked long hours, and the four kids often had to fend for themselves, crafting dinners from iceberg lettuce and 99-cent chicken breast. Najjar loved life in West Lawn – her Puerto Rican friends, the smell of tacos down the street – but she never got used to hearing gunshots at night. It was a life, Najjar remembers, for which her mother sacrificed everything.

While the adults discuss the merits of different waffle makers, Maryam sneaks the waffles off the plate, finishing every last one.

Vol 1, Issue 3 | August 2017 | 19

Najjar’s mother, Huda, grew up in a United Nations refugee camp in Palestine during the 1948 Nakba, after the family fled their Jaffa home amid fighting. To feed her children, Huda’s mother cooked whatever she could find in the camp: greens, chicken, rabbit. When Huda immigrated to the United States in 1978 with her husband Bahjat, she felt like her mother, stranded in an unfamiliar place. “She tried her best,” Huda said. “I thought, ‘I want to try my best here.’”

Huda arrived in Chicago seven months pregnant, with no connections and no money. She had the baby, Najjar’s oldest sister, in Cook County Hospital. It was the first time Huda had seen a doctor – the first time she’d seen a hospital. The male obstetricians frightened her, but she didn’t know enough English to say so. “The nurses tried with me, but I couldn’t have the baby,” she says. She got a cesarean section instead.

Najjar, just six years old, invented her own salad dressing: juice from minced olives, herbs, olive oil, and mustard to emulsify. She’d play “restaurant” for her three older siblings and spent evenings cooking with Huda, learning her secrets.

When Najjar was in high school, the family moved to Westmont, Ill., a small suburb west of Chicago. At first, Najjar said she felt “shellshocked.” She couldn’t sleep. She had no friends. She missed being around other people of color. That first year, a high school friend remembers bonding with Najjar over food. Najjar invited Rabia Yaqub, now 29, to a Ramadan dinner at her home.

“The fact that she was so young and could prepare all these traditional dishes – I remember being in awe,” Yaqub says.

“Whenever I find okra, or something, it’s like a holiday for me,” Huda says. “It’s like my country.”

In college, too, Najjar was different. Between night classes, six a.m. shifts at Whole Foods and stints at three universities, Najjar took six years to complete her bachelor’s degree in psychology. She couldn’t pay for graduate school, so she fell back on what she knew: food. She decided to start a blog, featuring everything from old family recipes to musings on “30 things I learned by my 30th birthday.” Writing candidly about her life and culture, Najjar reinvents old favorites: her signature shawarma tacos, with smoky, slow-cooked steak and tahini crema; a sausage-and-eggs “breakfast pita” recipe borrowed from her mom; ful mudammas, a traditional dish of slow-cooked fava beans, which Najjar calls “the unsung hero of a proper Arab breakfast.”

When Huda went to work as a nanny, the kids started making dinner.

But on the cusp of 30, Najjar still worried about her future. “Maybe I

Later, Huda went shopping at her neighborhood grocery store, searching in vain for Arabic ingredients.

“I felt like a blind person walking,” she says.

Still, there were small victories: she ogled the supermarket eggplants, which were bigger than any she’d seen in Palestine.

Najjar puts final touches on the third course, her take on chicken and waffles, which she served to 20 guests in a coworker's Park Ridge home.

Photo © Emily Moon

20 | Palestine in America | palestineinamerica.com

didn’t choose to follow my passion hard enough because I have a lot of subconscious insecurities,” she says. “I didn’t see anyone cooking [on TV] who looked like me. By default, you’re like, ‘Can I even do this?’”

“It’s okay. You can come to Ireland with me. You think I’m gonna move out or something? Or just travel?”

Then in fall of 2016, documentary filmmaker Alex Myung spotted Najjar on Instagram. Myung profiles people of color breaking stereotypes for his website, Revive, and Najjar’s story struck him immediately. “The way she acts, the way she dresses – her story is very hip-hop,” Myung says. “She’s challenging the narrative.”

“Hey now,” Najjar grins, “I need you for your recipes.”

Myung shot a short documentary on Najjar’s cooking last fall, and the two self-described “creatives” bonded over art and music. While working together, they recognized a shared vision that led to a new project: “Abeer’s Day Off.” “During the short documentary, the month we spent together, we talked about the future,” Myung said. “The focal point of our conversation was representation, on us not being able to see our heroes upfront, being amazing people.”

Najjar told Myung her dream of hosting a cooking show – how as a kid, she acted out episodes with her siblings – and Myung realized that Revive could help make this dream a reality. When he called one day, offering to do the show, Najjar was ready. “I’m gonna ride or die for everybody,” she said. “Why am I not doing that for me?”

Revive did not receive grants or other sources of funding to create the series, so the team rallied together to produce the show in a friend’s kitchen-turned-makeshift studio. On her days off, Najjar filmed with Myung in a friend’s house on Devon Street on Chicago’s North Side.

She stocked up on recipes and outfit changes, trying to calm her nerves. Unlike at her network auditions, she and Myung used popular cooking shows as reference for “what not to be,” with some caveats.

And slowly, Najjar felt some of that old panic start to subside.

So far, “Abeer’s Day Off” is in its first five-episode run. Revive hopes to secure funding for a second season, but Myung wants Najjar to go further – he’s even suggested a network television show.

Though Huda imagined a different path for her daughter, she’s been there every moment, watching. Abeer’s family packed the January premiere of “Abeer’s Day Off” at a Hyde Park screening. Months later, Huda was still rewatching episodes.

During a quick dinner at the Willowbrook Panera, Huda’s eyes linger over Najjar’s five-foot-one frame like it might disappear.

“I feel like I am not good enough to encourage her,” Huda says. “But these days, I encourage her from my heart.” Her eyes mist, and the generous wrinkles beside her eyes tighten.

“You have been more supportive recently,” Najjar says, glancing up from a kale salad.

“I used to be scared that you’re gonna be away from me, that these things will take you away.” Huda looks at her lap. “I’m selfish, I’m sorry.”

“I don’t know.”

After an 8-hour shift at the Park Ridge Whole Foods, Najjar speeds home to Willowbrook. The Najjar home is brick with neatly painted shutters, two kids’ bikes sprawled across the front lawn and a small plastic swing hanging from the tree. It’s a full house, but never full enough. “There’s always a seat at the table for anybody in my mom’s kitchen,” Najjar says.

When the family moved to Willowbrook in 2015, they were the only Muslims on the block. Some of the older residents protested the construction of a nearby mosque, which opened this April behind the family’s house. Najjar’s brother Nader remembers one Willowbrook woman – Najjar’s neighbor – pleading at a town meeting: “We have to stop them. They’re gonna be bringing their caravans down the street.

They’re gonna do their night prayers.”

There are now five Muslim families on Jamie Lane, but Najjar says the neighbor still calls the police when Najjar parks on the street. “She doesn’t want to open up her eyes,” Najjar says.

During the week, Najjar works as a non-perishable items buyer at Whole Foods, a position she’s worked up to since joining the company at age 17. She can’t quit, although she cringes at the sight of some of their merchandise (the culprit: a bag of small packaged bags of almonds). Meanwhile, Myung texts her every week, asking, “When are you going to do it? When are you going to quit?”

Najjar has always done things in her own time. At 30, she’s still single.

It’s not a big deal to her, or to Huda, who refuses to set her daughter up with the Arabic men her friends recommend. But within their suburban Muslim community, the neighborhood gossips call her an “old maid.”

One calls Huda up in the afternoon, with an offer from her son.

“Well, what’s he like?” Huda asks.

“What’s your daughter like?” she retorts.

“What do you mean? She’s very sweet, she’s talented.”

“No, but is she chubby? Is she skinny? Does she wear a Hijab, does she not? What does she look like?”

Huda’s mouth tightens. “We’re not interested,” she says, her tone clipped.

Najjar, who’s never cared much for matchmaking, was delighted. “I was like, ‘Hell yeah, Mom. You’re such a badass!’”

It’s 7:30 p.m. in Park Ridge, and Huda Supper Club is open for Continued on page 31

Vol 1, Issue 3 | August 2017 | 21

ALL WALLS MUST FALL IZZY MUSTAFA, Contributor alls are created to control, dehumanize, and other. They divide families and conquer land while creating an illusion of safety.

W

This past winter I visited the U.S.-Mexico border and the separation wall in Palestine. Each location has similar stories of families that have been divided and left wondering when they’ll be able to see their loved ones without a barrier. These walls are constructed by the same perpetrators who profit from oppression. Israeli companies like Elbit Systems and Magal Security export their oppressive apartheid walls halfway across the world. These walls might be in two different locations, but are built by the same monsters. Below are two quotes from the racist leaders who celebrate these concrete barriers of division and celebrate keeping “the other” out

A Pan and o holes,

"Walls work, just ask Israel." - U.S. President, Donald Trump "President Tump is right. I built a wall along Israel's southern border. it stopped all illegal immigration.

Great success. Great idea." - Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu From Palestine to Mexico, all walls have to go. These series of photos encapsulate just a few moments from my past trip.

A Pan locatio check

Birds fly over the U.S.-built wall, extending beyond the beach into the Pacific Ocean. The wall borders the city of San Diego and Mexican city of Tijuana.

22 | Palestine in America | palestineinamerica.com

I was this o

A Panorama of the wall along the U.S.-Mexican border. This particular shot was taken on the San Diego side of the wall and on the other side is the Mexican city of Tijuana. Everyday families meet at this wall to speak through the tight wired holes, unable to touch each other.

A Panorama shot of the annexation wall Israel built between two East Jerusalem neighborhoods. The location of this annexation wall is connected to the Qalandia checkpoint. One of the most infamous checkpoints in the occupied West Bank.

I was driving North from the West Bank city of Ramallah to Nablus. As I was slowing down on the main road, I noticed this one olive tree all alone surrounded by a field bordering the Palestinian village of Essawiya.

Vol 1, Issue 3 | August 2017 | 23

This is the view from my family's home in the village of Jama'in. This village is 20 minutes south of the West Bank city of Nablus. My family's village is known for it's white stone industry and it's hard headed people. I spent my childhood summers looking out this balcony daydreaming and having conversations about liberation with my grandmother and cousins.

Al-Manara is a round-about in the city center of Ramallah. During the bustling hours of the day, this street is full of vendors selling things from Ka'ak (a type of bread) to socks.

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A pho occup the ot two Is ask fo

A photo of a woman walking alongside Israel's annexation wall that cuts in between the same neighborhood of al-Eizariya in occupied East Jerusalem. The only difference between the two sides is that one is inside the municipality of Jerusalem and the other is in the occupied West Bank. Families who used to live down the block form each other now have to travel past two Israeli checkpoints and go through 1.5 hours of traffic in order to visit their neighbors who used to quickly stop by and ask for a cup of tea.

Vol 1, Issue 3 | August 2017 | 25

WILL TRUMP SECURE THE "ULTIMATE DEAL?" JOSH RUEBNER, Contributor This is an excerpt from Josh Ruebner's upcoming book "Israel: Democracy Or Apartheid State?" The book will be published on Sept. 15, 2017 by Interlink Books. onald Trump has referred to the prospect of brokering IsraeliPalestinian peace as the “ultimate deal” and, at the outset of his administration, has placed it high on his foreign policy agenda.

In the first few months of his presidency, Trump separately invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for high-profile White House visits. The Israeli and Palestinian leaders reciprocated when Trump visited both Israel and the occupied Palestinian West Bank as part of his first presidential trip abroad in May 2017. At each opportunity, Trump has indicated his eagerness to restart the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and appears to have confidence in his capability of resolving an issue that has stymied all of his predecessors in the White House since Harry Truman recognized Israel in 1948. After emerging from his first meeting with Abbas, Trump declaimed that the Israeli-Palestinian issue is “something that I think is, frankly, maybe not as difficult as people have thought over the years.”

D

its family foundation has donated money to organizations funneling money to Israeli settlements, and Kushner himself served on the board of Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces, a US organization which raises money for the Israeli military. His family is so close to Netanyahu that the prime minister once slept in Kushner’s childhood bedroom in New Jersey.

Trump has tapped his former real estate lawyer Jason Greenblatt to be his special representative for international negotiations, and in this role Greenblatt has been shuttling between Israeli and Palestinian officials to lay the groundwork for the resumption of negotiations. In the 1980s, Greenblatt studied at a Jewish religious institution in an

As a real estate tycoon and author of The Art of the Deal, Trump has styled himself as a consummate businessman with a razor-sharp acumen for negotiations. Is his self-assuredness in his capabilities to bring about Israeli-Palestinian peace warranted, or will the neophyte politician discover to his chagrin, as he did on health care reform, that “it’s an unbelievably complex subject” which “nobody knew…could be so complicated”?

Unlike President Barack Obama, who entered the White House “unbelievably informed” about the Israeli-Palestinian issue, according to Netanyahu, Trump had little relevant experience on foreign policy issues in general and on Israeli-Palestinian issues in particular, save for a brief business trip to Israel in 1989, before he became president.

Making Trump an even more unlikely personage to assume the mantle of unbiased facilitator of Israeli-Palestinian peace is the fact that the entirety of his pre-presidential engagement on this issue was filtered through the prism of family members and lawyers on his payroll, all of whom are intimately connected to and, in some cases, personally identified with Israel’s colonization of Palestinian land.

Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has assumed a jack-of-all-trades role in the White House with a multiplicity of portfolios assigned to him as the president’s senior adviser, including negotiating IsraeliPalestinian peace. Although Kushner’s views on this subject are not widely known and his peers from high school and college describe him as largely apolitical, his family’s close connections to Israel and his upbringing in religious Jewish schools imbued with Zionist worldviews would appear to raise questions about his partiality. Not only has his family heavily invested in Israeli real estate projects, but

26 | Palestine in America | palestineinamerica.com

IsRael

DemocRacy oR ApArtheid state?

Josh Ruebner

Israeli settlement in the West Bank; he pulled guard duty there while studying, wielding an M-16 gun. Prior to his appointment by Trump, Greenblatt confessed that his only previous interactions with any Palestinians were informal ones with day laborers in the settlement and nearby store owners.

The most controversial figure among the leading triumvirate of Trump’s advisers on the Israeli-Palestinian issue is his former bankruptcy lawyer David Friedman, whom Trump appointed to be US ambassador to Israel. Friedman served as the president of a non-profit organization which raised millions of dollars to support the Israeli settlement of Beit El, located on expropriated Palestinian land near Ramallah. As a regular columnist for Arutz Sheva, a media outlet closely aligned with Israel’s settler movement, Friedman regularly fulminated against Palestinian statehood and referred to the West Bank by its Biblical names, claiming that “this is our land.” He also excoriated Jewish people who opposed Israel’s colonization of Palestinian land, describing them as being “far worse than kapos,” a term for Jews who were coerced into collaborating with the Nazis.

In March 2017, his nomination squeaked through the Senate in an extremely close, largely partisan vote.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Friedman and Greenblatt served as the co-chairs of Trump’s Israel Advisory Committee (the campaign dispensed with any pretense that it was even nominally interested in being advised on Palestinian issues), guiding the most one-sided approach a presidential candidate has ever taken on the issue. With the Trump campaign’s approval, the Republican Party dropped support for Palestinian statehood from its platform, which had been a consistent plank since the George W. Bush presidency.

Instead, the GOP adopted language which would allow Israel to unilaterally impose dictated terms of surrender to the Palestinians. In addition, the Trump campaign raised the expectations of the Israeli right-wing to a frenzy by promising to be sympathetic to Israel’s colonization of Palestinian land, and vowing to move the US embassy to Jerusalem and recognize the contested city as Israel’s undivided capital. These pledges, if implemented, would reverse decades of bipartisan US policy opposing Israeli settlements and withholding recognition of claims to sovereignty over Jerusalem until after a peace agreement is concluded.

Given the backgrounds of Trump’s key Israel advisers and the extravagant commitments he made on the campaign trail, it is small wonder that Israel’s right-wing feels bewildered, if not completely let down, by the president’s apparent reversal of his stands at the outset of his administration. Rather than allow Israel an unfettered hand to colonize the West Bank, Trump publicly called on Netanyahu to “hold back on settlements for a little bit,” as his administration engaged in inconclusive talks with Israel in an attempt to find a mutually agreeable geographical scope for further settlement expansion. Trump has also walked back his formerly vociferous support for moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, acknowledging that to do so would scupper any chance of resuming negotiations. In June 2017 Trump quietly signed an extension of a presidential waiver which must be renewed every six months to keep the US embassy in Tel Aviv, according to the terms of the Jerusalem Embassy Act, passed by Congress in 1995.

Will Trump’s backpedaling on Israeli settlements and Jerusalem, combined with the unexpectedly warm rapport he has developed with

Photo © The White House Abbas (to Netanyahu’s great angst), translate into an ability to cinch the “ultimate deal” and inaugurate Israeli-Palestinian peace? The answer is likely: no. While conjecturing that Israeli-Palestinian peace could be far easier to achieve than believed, Trump’s hypothesis remains untested as he has brought no concrete ideas for how to restart negotiations, much less shepherd them to a successful conclusion.

And his legendarily short span of attention and unwillingness to delve into the depth of policy issues would seem to preclude him from playing the type of role assumed by President Bill Clinton, who famously pored over the minutia of maps with Israeli and Palestinian negotiators and expended tremendous amounts of political capital in his failed bid to attain this elusive goal.

Even if Trump evinced a proclivity for investing the time and prestige it would take to negotiate a deal, his approach to peacemaking would still be constrained by the worldview of his advisers. Ever since Clinton initiated the domineering US role in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, most of the key US officials—with a brief interlude at the outset of the Obama administration being an exception to the rule—working on this issue came from a distinctly pro-Israel ideological bent. The members of Trump’s team are not only proIsrael, but solidly pro-right-wing Israel, making them even less inclined to support Palestinian rights than previous US negotiators who often showed disdain toward Palestinian aspirations. This perhaps explains why Trump has dropped support for Palestinian statehood from his public pronouncements on the issue and failed to express support for Palestinian self-determination when he met with Abbas in Bethlehem.

To the extent that Trump has crystallized any notions on how to attain Middle East peace, he appears to have endorsed Netanyahu’s belief that a broader Arab-Israeli peace can be established to create a joint front to confront Iran’s regional ambitions. In Netanyahu’s eyes, this deal can be achieved by placating Palestinians with economic inducements while sidestepping their political rights. This, however, is not a viable plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace, but a blueprint for Israel’s perpetual domination over the Palestinians.

Vol 1, Issue 3 | August 2017 | 27

Photo: Martin Nunez-Bonilla

PROTECTING THE RIGHT TO SPEAK OUT FOR PALESTINE 312-212-0448

PALESTINELEGAL.ORG

Elite Sales and Service Inc.

FACEBOOK.COM/ PALESTINELEGAL

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MEET THE PALESTINIAN-AMERICAN WHO IS USING COMEDY TO UNITE AMERICA carlos khalil guzman, Contributor The old adage that laughter is the best medicine has been wellproven throughout time--there have even been scientific studies to back up the claim. Comedy is not only a relief in tough times, but it's also an effective way to get one’s point across in a way that is both fun and informative according to Palestinian-American comedian Abu Ali. Ali, who was born to a Palestinian father and American mother from Kentucky, says growing up in a diverse household and being exposed to different cultures and traditions helped him develop his unique style of comedy. Talking about his life growing up, Ali says, “We would often visit our family in Palestine and travel the Middle East and also visit our Mother’s side of the family in the country.

It almost feels like you are living a double life where one side of your family all voted for Trump while the other just got banned from entering the country."

His big breakthrough came at the age of 25 when he took the advice of friends and family and started doing stand-up comedy. There he found that he truly had a talent for it and has not stopped making audiences laugh since then. He told PiA, “When I finally did it, I felt very comfortable on stage. You either have it or you don't and you won't know unless you try.” PiA sat down with Ali to discuss how he uses his comedic talent to share ideas and spark conversations.

PiA: How did you develop your specific style of comedy? Do you think your background gives you an advantage getting through different audiences?

AA: AI feel like my specific style of comedy comes from the specific type of person I am. Each person has a specific view on certain things.

Some people are able to express themselves a certain way, while others don't care to express themselves at all. I like to say what's on my mind and not have to worry about people judging me or getting angry because they have a different belief about certain matters or think that certain things I say may be inappropriate. At the end of the day, what I speak about at a live show or on a video is my opinion and my view. Millions of people find it amusing and millions of people may find it offensive. Although my goal is not to offend anyone, I speak about what I want and what I think my fans will like to hear.

PiA: How do you think comedy or maybe how do you use comedy to have the really hard conversation our country needs right now?

AA: I feel like when a conversation is funny or when you speak about something in a funny way, It is much easier to get your point across.

Also people tend to listen better because they are waiting for the

Photo © Abu Ali

punch line. When the punch line is true,you get a laugh and also may open your mind about a certain situation or cause. To me, laughter is a universal language and if we can all laugh together we can all live together.

PiA: Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

AA: Career-wise I would hope to have a position where I can actually make a difference in the world in regards to our culture and our people in the states and all over the world. I want to eliminate the stereotypes that have been making life so difficult for us here in the states and across the globe.

PiA: Do you have any advice for young comedians starting out?

AA: Be yourself never let anyone or anything change the way you speak or think. People will either love you or hate you, but in order for you to succeed you must believe in yourself and your message. Stay humble keep trying and never give up on your dream.

You can catch Abu Ali at the Beverly Arts Center in Chicago on Sept.

2. For more information, visit Abu Ali’s Facebook page.

Vol 1, Issue 3 | August 2017 | 29

Ph

Photo © Emily Moon

business. Najjar has set the tables with tea lights, IKEA utensils and fresh tulips. As the guests trickle in, mostly young black and brown professionals from Chicago, they take their seats and talk politics.

Back in the kitchen, Najjar and Nader dance to throwback hits from Kanye and Drake. Prepping the flatbread and minding the gravy, Najjar sings to herself, “Started from the bottom now we’re here.” She’s equal parts home cook and mid-rant Gordon Ramsay: demanding perfection on each plate, but still relaxed in the kitchen, looking effortlessly composed in her denim button-down, lavender hijab and favorite Nike sneakers.

Before each course, Najjar walks into the room to introduce the meal.

The room goes quiet, save a few shouts of support.

“Go Abeer!” calls her friend Antar Hanif from Los Angeles.

“That’s my fan girl voice,” he says to his neighbor. “I’m a fan.”

Najjar offers her guests a place to pray if needed, and then they eat.

Najjar knows many of the diners, but gives just a quick nod and a shy smile. Tonight is about the food.

Najjar’s friend Yaqub came to the supper club with her sister. She says Najjar has come a long way from those high school dinners. “I felt so proud of her,” she says. “She’s so passionate. It’s a form of love.”

After four hours of cooking, Najjar felt exhausted. But the next morning, she got up to make a third round of French toast waffles – this time for her mother. Najjar may be a chef, but family comes first.

Besides, she says, recalling the inspiration for her show, “It’s what you cook on your day off that matters. This is what I love to do.”

Vol 1, Issue 3 | August 2017 | 31

TIPS FOR DISCUSSING PALESTINE WITH YOUR ELECTED OFFICIAL REQUEST A MEETING Meetings with congressional offices can take place either in Washington DC or locally (known as in-district meetings).

To request a meeting with your Members of Congress, the best place to start is their website. Calling the Washington DC office is often the fastest option, but most congressional offices also have a link to schedule a meeting in the ‘Constituent Services’ or ‘Contact Us’ tab on their website.

Contact information for Representatives can be found at http://www. house.gov/representatives/ Contact information for Senators can be found at https://www. senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm?State=IL

TIPS FOR MEETING WITH MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 1.

2.

3.

Meet with everyone who is participating in the meeting. Pick a lead spokesperson. Rehearse your talking points and messages. Have someone role play the Member of Congress or staff person and ask difficult questions.

Make sure that you have enough copies of all materials to be left with Members of Congress or their staff, including information on your local group, the US Campaign, copies of relevant legislation, talking points, reports, etc.

Dress for success. Wear business clothes. You and your message will be taken more seriously by your Member of Congress if you are dressed professionally.

Josh Ruebner (US Campaign for Palestinian Rights), Nadia Ben-Youssef (Adalah), photojournalist Eman Mohammed, and Brad Parker (Defense for Children International--Palestine) after speaking at a Capitol Hill briefing on the one year anniversary of Israel's attack on Gaza, July 2015.

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things to do at your meeting

things to do after your meeting

1.

2.

1.

Be on time.

Have the lead spokesperson briefly introduce him/herself, your local activist organization, and the US Campaign. Then have the other participants in the meeting introduce themselves.

3. State accurately how many people you represent.

4. Make your “ask” up front. This is the most important part of the meeting and the reason why you came. You are asking the Member of Congress to do something for you. Don’t be bashful about asking. They are expecting an “ask”. An “ask” is something specific, such as “We would like you to sign on to the Dear Colleague Letter condemning Israel’s human rights violations.”

5. After making your “asks” up front, focus on broader concerns and educational initiatives about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, time permitting.

6. Be disciplined—don’t contradict or argue with each other. If you do so, your group will look highly unprofessional and will not be taken seriously.

7. Be respectful, courteous, and thankful. This is not the proper time to badger Members of Congress for previous votes, statements, etc.

8. Be calm—don’t be intimidated. People wielding power can be scary sometimes. Odds are that you know much more about the issue than does the Member of Congress or his/her staff person. Keep this in mind when making your points.

9. Address Members of Congress correctly by calling them “Senator” or “Representative”, unless otherwise directed by the Member of Congress.

10. Take notes.

11. Get the staffers contact information.

2.

3.

4.

Send an evaluation of your meeting to us at contact@uscpr.org.

This will help us in knowing how we can best follow-up on these issues with this Member of Congress.

Send a thank you note to the people with whom you met. This is very important in developing relationships with the staff and lawmakers.

Provide any follow-up information requested.

Establish an ongoing relationship with your Members of Congress and their staff by phoning and faxing them when there is pending, relevant legislation. Stay connected to what is happening on Capitol Hill via the US Campaign and please do legislative alerts.

If you are meeting with your Member of Congress or his/her staff, and would like help preparing for the meeting, please feel free to contact: Leah Muskin-Pierret Government Affairs Associate contact@uscpr.org

*Content and photos provided by US Campaign for Palestinian Rights

Graduate student Nour Joudah, Donna Nevel (Jewish Voice for Peace), Sandra Tamari and Yousef Munayyer (US Campaign for Palestinian Rights) brief Capitol Hill on Israel's policies denying entry to Palestinian-Americans, May 2014.

Vol 1, Issue 3 | August 2017 | 33

RHIZOME JEANINE YACOUB, Contributor Have you ever felt sound? I am very sensitive to it. I feel it all the time.

I felt different levels of sound in all my years here. I am one of the last few olive trees left in this courtyard in Jerusalem. Foreigners tried to replace us with new trees, but our roots run too deep and they couldn’t pull us out, as hard as they tried.

I know what the atmosphere feels like during a time of war and peace. During wartime, the number of olives on our branches are scarce.

During a time of peace, our olives are plentiful and harvest season is buzzing with activity.

Nowadays there is no war and there is no peace, there is just tension. Our branches grow plenty of olives that drop to the ground neglected. I only find peace in the people that sit by my trunk under the shade and relax. One person in particular is the only one that pulls the olives from my branches when they’re ripe.

Yuli showed up in Jerusalem on that summer day; the scenery wavered around him in a sweltering heat wave. He came to the Western Wall to pray. He wasn’t a particularly religious man, but he felt broken. Yuli lost another patient this week.

past an old lady wearing a traditional black and red thobe, with a light, white scarf loosely wrapped around her head. The smell of sage in her basket filled the breeze. He noticed her hands were covered in brown spots.

She had red soil underneath her fingernails, it reminded him of his grandmother when she used to garden. She looked up at Yuli, “Would you like a bag of sage for your tea, only five Shekels. Or a bottle of olive oil for six. It came from this tree that’s been here since the Ottomans!” she beamed with pride.

Yuli could swear that he just saw that tree sway when she touched it. He brushed off the thought. It was probably just his sleep deprivation.

Yuli bent down and gave her six shekels without taking any oil. She refused to take the money. He insisted but she refused. Yuli understood the deep pride, so he gave her the six Shekels and told her to give the bottle of oil to the next person that comes by. She reluctantly accepted his offer and muttered a blessing for him and his family’s health.

Yuli continued on his way to the Western Wall. He found a spot to stand in front of the

Time passed until he no longer felt the prickling heat on the back of his neck or the beads of sweat trickling down his spine, and he tuned out his surroundings. Yuli watched the ants going in and out of the cracks on the floor. He thought of his grandfather’s stories when he used to work in Jerusalem during the time of the Ottomans. I bet little boys didn’t come into his clinic beaten to death from the authorities.

Yuli’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of two men arguing. He looked over to see an IDF soldier pointing a gun at a tall, lean man.

Nadia was groggy from the jet lag, she lay in bed parsing through her thoughts to distinguish reality from her dreams. The

View of the city of Jerusalem (you can see the dome of the rock) on the road to Bethlehem.

He didn’t know how to handle it, he played the scene in his head over and over again. It was a 14 year old boy from Silwan. He was suspected of throwing rocks at the Israeli residents on his way to school. Yuli was the surgeon on the case. He didn’t get the whole story, but the boy’s family kept telling the doctor that the boy was just walking to school. The boy reminded Yuli of his own son, who never has trouble walking to school.

He spent most of that night just sitting on the bench outside the hospital. That morning he took a shower at work, changed into his clothes and headed over to the city center.

Yuli felt so plain in his cargo shorts, white T-shirt, and sandals compared to visitors.

He wasn’t even wearing his yarmulke, but he hoped God would still listen. Yuli walked

bumpy stone. He recited the prayers that he knew from when he used to visit as a kid with his grandfather; he hadn’t been back here since his grandfather died fifteen years ago.

He couldn’t find words for what he wanted to say, so he just stood there, forehead to the Wall, thinking. The stones in the Wall were cool against his forehead.

Photo © Jeanine Yacoub

34 | Palestine in America | palestineinamerica.com

Photo © Jeanine Yacoub Mural in Nablus

sunlight was coming in directly through the window. It was either early morning or late afternoon. Two days before she was on a flight from Chicago to Tel Aviv. She waited three hours in Ben Gurion Airport as security questioned her about the intentions of her visit and the name of every member of her family. She was overcharged for the taxi ride from Tel Aviv to East Jerusalem because of her American accent. It was a week ago that she bought her tickets and decided to leave everything behind until she could sort out her thoughts. Every time she felt that the pieces in her life weren’t fitting just right, she came back here to put them together again.

She looked over to her grandmother who was sifting through Nadia’s clothes. “Why did you bring so much clothes? Are all of these clean?”

“Leave everything, siti, I got it,” Nadia replied in slurred words.

“No, no! I got it, habibti, you returned home.

I’m just sorry I didn’t get the room ready in time. If you told me sooner that you were coming, it would’ve been ready for you!”

Nadia just stared at her, half asleep and

helpless to the hospitality of her grandmother.

She lay in her bed for another hour or so and thought about all of the things she wanted to do and the people she wanted to visit while she was here. The teapot whistled and the smell of sage filled her nose. She rolled out of bed, tamed her messy curls into a bun, and shuffled over to the balcony where her grandmother sat every morning to get the day’s news.

“Salam, siti,” Nadia said to her grandmother and bent over to give her a kiss on the cheek.

“Walaikum asalam, habibti,” her grandmother replied. “Samer is going to be here in a minute. Sit, drink some tea.”

“Samer is home! I thought he was going to stay in Germany for the summer?” Nadia exclaimed.

opened the doors to their shops and the first group of customers were the elderly men that gathered to gossip over coffee. The women were on the rooftops hanging laundry. The children were roaming the narrow streets looking for the new day’s adventure.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Samer: “Cousin!”

Nadia jumped up out of excitement and wrapped her arms around his lean figure. He smelled of cigarettes and cologne and she thought of her father. Samer was still that tall, lanky kid from her summer visits. They were the only two that would dare to take on the daily adventures in their small corner of Jerusalem.

She poured him a cup of tea and he sat down next to her. “How was the trip, Nadia?”

“No, he wants to come home and see his siti and his country!” she said puffing up her chest with pride.

“I came in through Tel Aviv, how do you think it went,” she took another sip of tea, “How long have you been here?”

Nadia brushed the sand off her chair, sat back, and sipped her tea as she watched the town slowly come alive. Young men

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Vol 1, Issue 3 | August 2017 | 35

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