Being a Palestinian-American student during a genocide

January 29, 2024

Catie Haddad

OPINION by CATIE HADDAD

I spent much of the first three years of my life at my teta and jidu’s home in San Luis Obispo. In their backyard, they had a large garden with every fruit and vegetable variety imaginable. As my jidu and I would walk around the garden identifying different plants, I noticed everything from cherries, figs, grapefruit, and watermelon to avocados, zucchini, and edible flowers that he would incessantly encourage me to try.

One summer, jidu chopped down one of the garden’s palm trees for the heart of palm, something my 9-year-old, suburban Californian self found both strange and exciting.

My teta and I would spend hours searching the patio for ladybugs as my grandparents’ pomeranian, Jolie, played with her toys. When I think of their garden now, I feel grateful that they were able to have a sliver of homeland in their California backyard–– that for a second when they woke up and looked out the window in the morning, they would be able to imagine they were not in San Luis Obispo, but instead were in Baghdad or Haifa.

When I think of my teta and jidu now, I think of the way my mixed identity has allowed me to grow up without certain Western biases. My jidu was Iraqi and Muslim and my teta was a Palestinian-Lebanese Christian, but to me, even though I was half white and American, they were simply my grandparents.

In their garden and at their home, they taught me how to look at mundane objects and moments with tremendous love, curiosity, and humanity. Now, I advocate for Palestine and for the universality of human rights because of this love––my love for humanity has fueled my belief that if everyone had access to the information I have used to learn about Palestine, they would naturally reach the same conclusions as I have.

They would come to view Palestinians not as a population of terrorists, but as a people who have been occupied, displaced, and terrorized for years in their ancestral homeland. They would see Palestinians as human beings who deserve to live as much as anyone else. They would mourn the deaths of Palestinians as they do the deaths of Ukrainians. They would also come to learn, I believe, that Palestinian resistance is fueled by Palestinians’ profound love for their land and their culture, which are inextricably linked.

Opening their eyes and hearts, they would no longer see those tending to thousand-year-old olive trees as the aggressors, but rather those bulldozing them.

Over the past three months, I have felt around me a growing sense of cognitive and emotional dissonance. It is difficult to remain socially and academically engaged in a reality where my ethnic identity circumscribes the feelings I’m allowed to express. I often think that if I was not Palestinian- or Arab-American – if I was Ukrainian or from another ethnic group whose pain the West views as legitimate – the only thing I’d be doing right now would be grieving and resting.

This is not my reality. Instead, I must first attempt to assist my peers in recognizing my humanity and the humanity of my people.

I have put my thoughts on this page to process what is happening and to bring others into this processing. Every day, I think about different avenues and ways of getting my peers involved in the Palestinian liberation movement. I think to myself, Palestine might not feel like a natural cause to support for everyone, but I can show them why it is.

I will tell those interested in environmentalism about the ongoing destruction of olive trees, the rampant herbicide attacks unleashed on Palestinian land both pre-and-post-2023, and the weaponization of resources as tools of ecocide. For those who care about women’s rights, I will tell them about how women in Gaza have been taking pills to suppress their menstrual periods because they can’t get sanitary pads due to the siege, or that miscarriages in Gaza have increased 300% over the recent months.”

Each day as I ruminate through these mental exercises, I pose numerous questions to myself: Which is more bearable–violently compromising my morals, my integrity, and my humanity while willingly enabling a genocide in the process, or speaking up and losing a job or friends?

When someone asks me and my peers someday what we were doing during this time, will we feel proud answering “nothing, our hands were tied”? Who has tied our hands, and why can’t we help each other to untie them?

My jidu chopped down the palm tree in his garden to see its heart and its core and to share them with others, knowing that this tree would grow back because he would nurture and tend to it. Right now, I am asking you to perform a similar act of labor and of nurturing: I ask you to cut through some of the defensive tissue that might be preventing you from thinking about, talking about, and advocating for Palestine.

Getting to the heart of this can only be done through love, curiosity, and humanity. It will at first feel strange, but it will also feel exciting, and when we tend to each other during our collective regrowth, we will be a taller and greater force than ever before.

Catie Haddad was born and raised in San Luis Obispo. She is currently a second year law student at the University of Virginia.

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If the U.S. want to take the high road, we need to stop funding wars, especially in other countries. We should not participate in humanitarian aid so that the consequences are real and we don’t become a part of the problem, even though we just want to help the innocent. Not one penny should we send and work on being a good example. Other countries look at us as fools with a check book.


I wonder how that worked out in the 1930’s when the U.S. took precisely that attitude?


Yes, 95 years ago.


I miss the days when we were all just Americans… one day I hope we learn to shed hyphenations and all be Americans first and foremost….


Israel is the ancestral homeland of Jews. One million Jews were displaced as a result of the Israeli war of Independence. The Arabs were ordered to leave Israel and some were driven out because of their attacks on Jews. There is no nation of Palestine. Arabs living there were a result of an invasion, they are the occupiers, settlers and colonizers. Jews went to Israel as a result of the Holocaust. Israel is not conducting Genocide, this is just crazy talk by a delusional person. Jews have a three thousand year connection to the land of Israel. Arabs are taught from birth to hate Jews. This person is just spewing antisemitic propaganda and I actually thank you for publishing this so we can all see how one sided this is. Do you see there an acknowledgement of Oct 7th? Any kind of apology for burning, raping, torture, mass murder? Do you wonder why even fellow Arabs see Palestinians as terrorists? What scares me is this person is going to law school and cannot make any kind of a case for sympathizing with Palestinians but obviously has persuaded no one that her cause is just? Would hire anyone like this to be your attorney. It is really an indictment of the Palestinian cause that she can completely ignore all the humanitarian aid Israel gave Gaza and the fact that Israel gave up control of the Gaza strip in order to encourage peace. If this is what our schools are producing then we are all in trouble. When I was at Cal if I turned in a paper written like this think it would have been given an F.


Your post is indicative of racism and justification for murder as well as a clear personal attack on a student’s article that expresses her personal journey. As for your Cal comment, it’s misplaced and represents fantasy.


Ask your Lebanese Christian Teta why she had to flee Lebanon, the “Paris of the Middle East”, while muslim terrorism filled the streets with the rubble of Beirut.


How easy it must be to fight for a cause when your enemy doesn’t have a right to exist, when you can ignore culpability. Not one word about the right of Israel to exist. Not even an acknowledgement in the vaguest of terms. Not one word about the massacre of civilians on October 7. As if nothing happened. The intent to humanize one side magnifies the shear loathing of the other.


What about hamas?


exactly. this person demonstrates exactly no compassion for civilians murdered by Hamas through their use of human shields. They stole humanitarian aid, build tunnels under schools, conducted the worse slaughter of Jews since WW2 and not a word about that. This is all buzzwords and lies. If anyone is guilty of genocide it is Hamas.


Everything that you noted about the Palestinians is equally as true about the Jews. This was also their ancestral home. They have been persecuted there and throughout the Middle East since before the time of Jesus Christ. The conflict has been bloody since before your birth and mine dating back to the establishment of the Jewish State in 1947 after over 6 million Jews were exterminated. War is not genocide and without covering all of the attacks against Israel since 1947 it needs to be acknowledged that Muslims in huge numbers including the governments in that part of the world have tried to exterminate them again and again. On October 7 Hamas declared war. They have not denied it and they currently hold civilian hostages. Civilians get killed in war unfortunately, especially when the combatants hide among them, use their property for shelter and more. There is no way to distinguish. IF the “innocent” citizens in Gaza want this to stop they need to rise against Hamas and any other group that is only interested in taking from the river to the sea rather than peacefully cohabitating. Those actors need to be turned over to a group to decide their fate. Until the citizens of Gaza do that, they are not innocent.


Sorry Catie but I will never advocate for people who support a terrorist organization-Hamas, and nor will I side with Palestinian resistance that vows to eradicate Israel!!!


Palestinians may love their land and culture a lot but that doesn’t give them the right to attack a neighboring country and kill 1200 innocent people. Or rape women or behead children!!!!


“Palestinian Resistance” or the Palestinian Liberation Movement” is never good ng to be supported by me, my family, my friends or colleagues because it has shown to the world that the movement is actually about the eradication of Israel and the Jewish people.


And now we come to find out UNRWA workers were involved in the Oct. 7th attack. Just one more example of violence & hate being demonstrated by people that are involved in what you call the “Palestinian resistance” or the Palestinian Liberation Movement”.


Sorry Catie, this is what is so wrong with the world today… A person like you asking for people to support a terrorist movement and calling it “liberation” or “resistance”. You might as well ask all of us to give our support the Houthis, Hezbollah, and the Taliban while you were at it.


Absolutely a NO!!!!

-SLOCAL ONE


Nothing in Catie’s article mentions eradication of Israel. I’m sorry that you’ve been so traumatized as to be rendered unable to relate to her story. Your post is an example of your lack of understanding and willingness to spread misinformation.


Citizenofslo


To correct you, Catie is calling on more people to support the “Palestinian Liberation Movement”or “Palestinian Resistance”. The “resistance movement” is led by their governing authority which is Hamas. Hamas was voted into to power by Palestinian legislative voting in 2006, which means the majority of Palestinians voted for Hamas.


She doesn’t need to make any mention of the eradication of Jews in her spin letter. If she is in support of the “Palestinian Liberation Movement” or “Palestinian Resistance” that voted Hamas into the governing authority then she to is in support of the eradication of Israel. 1+1=2 -Common sense tells us that!!


And let’s not fail to mention that all Palestinians that voted Hamas into power knew very well their Hamas’ ideology!!!! It wasn’t a mistake on the Palestinians part to vote Hamas in, they knew exactly who they were voting for. That was the governing authority they wanted for Palestine.


And I am far from traumatized and very well informed-not brainwashed!!!


-SLOCAL ONE


We don’t do signatures here.

Thanks


As I’m sure the majority of Israeli’s voted in the terrorist government of Netanyahu? Your spin is expected. More facts and less propaganda would be helpful to you.


Beautifully written letter. You are obviously a brilliant writer. I just wonder how many letters you have written to the leaders of Hamas, begging them to come out of their holes and surrender so the war can end.


As it stands, I’m firmly behind U.S. policy on this issue. Israel must be backed until the barbarians responsible for the attack on Israel have been brought to justice. The collateral damage is horrifying, but Hamas could end it today by surrendering and stop telling the world that it will kill every Israeli and push their nation into the sea.


The only solution is for two states to be formed and that can’t happen until this war is over.


Israel has offered a two state solution to the occupying Arabs, five times. The response from the PLO, PLA, Intifada, Hamas, Islamic Jihad etc, was “We will kill you and take it all.”


There can be no two state solution with islamic terrorism.


Nor Israeli terrorism.


The two state solution will never happen as long as generations of Palestinians are taught to hate and fight the Jews as their main goal in life. Apparently peaceful coexistence is unacceptable so suffer the consequence of endless war. There is no Palestinian genocide. This is political blather.


Israel has proposed and the Arabs have denied it as their real goal is not peace but the destruction of Israel.