NADIA KADER
I was born and raised in New York. My mom was born in Qatar, of Palestinian descent, and my dad was born in Palestine. Though most of my family lives on the East Coast of the United States, I have a lot of second cousins, some great uncles, and great aunts who still live in the West Bank. My grandfather “goes home” every year for three months, the maximum time he can stay there. Like many immigrants, he considers traveling to the West Bank to be going home, even though he’s lived in America for well over fifty years. I wonder sometimes if I’d feel the same way, if I left America for fifty years. I’m not too sure, because as a second-generation American, I sometimes feel both very American and also very “othered.” To be Palestinian-American is its own kind of oddness; the American government wavers between pretending Palestinians don’t exist and pretending that we are preventing peace in the Middle East.
Zionism was a part of my life before I even heard the term. My parents did not know what Zionism was; they still don’t quite understand the concept. Zionism, like all “-isms,” works best when people don’t understand the ideological framework behind it. Zionism could not be explained to me, but it prevailed in my family’s idea of the homeland, and their relationship with Jewish people.
“The Jews don’t want us to have a homeland. They won’t leave us alone.” As if the entire Jewish population of the world was a disembodied mass of people who hated us with a passion. As a child, I always felt like there was something wrong with that sentiment, but did not know how to question authority. My understanding of the Jewish people was that they were all from the same place and had the same background. I didn’t know there were Arab Jews and Sephardic Jews until I was in my twenties. I am embarrassed now by my ignorance. However, like American Jews who divorce themselves from their Zionist upbringing, I, too, broke away and consistently work toward educating myself.
When I was eighteen years old, I took a trip “to the homeland,” the West Bank. My grandparents graciously offered to cover airfare for me and my younger sister. We eagerly accepted, curious about the place where our ancestors were born. Before the trip, my grandmother tried to explain to me what was going to happen after we landed in Tel Aviv. She told me, “Whatever you do, don’t tell them that you are taking anything into the country for anybody. Just tell them you are there to visit your aunt.”
Confused, I said, “But I am going to visit family. That is the whole point of the trip.”
“Yes, good. Don’t tell them anything else.” She then mentioned that I would be pulled aside and questioned, and that I should do just what she told me.
“But Siti,” I asked, “why are they going to pull me aside?”
In her limited English, she told me, “Because you’re eighteen now.”
At the airport, just like my Siti had told me, I was pulled aside and questioned by a tall, intimidating man who looked like Vin Diesel. He asked me the exact questions my grandmother said he would, but I was still frightened. I knew something was off here. I wasn’t being questioned because I was eighteen. I was being questioned because I was eighteen and had an Arab last name.
This experience colored the rest of the summer that I was in the West Bank. I actively looked for disparity in our excursions as Palestinians. After passing checkpoint after checkpoint, seeing Palestinian people waiting in line for hours to get into the city of Nablus, seeing different-colored license plates that dictate which roads you could use, seeing soldiers everywhere—more soldiers than I have ever seen in one place—the differences and discrimination were palpable.
I felt a mix of emotions I could not place until long after I returned to New York. There was anger, frustration, and also shame. I know now that being held at the airport could have been so much worse. I understand that other, more actively political Palestinians would not even be allowed into the country. My ignorance saved me.
One day, in the West Bank, we walked past a bus stop near the city limits, where an orthodox Jewish teen stood waiting. He looked at us and somehow knew that we did not belong. He screamed at us, “Get out of my country—you don’t belong here!” Zionism gave him a sense of pride and belonging.
It gave me a newfound fear, that my Americanness cannot always save me. In certain places, I am a Palestinian and, as such, a second-class person.
The saber prickly pear cactus is a symbol of Indigenous resilience and resistance. and are/were used as natural fences. They regrow where Israeli bulldozers have flattened entire towns, showing a ghost map of Palestinian homes. I believe Zionist terror will end and free Palestine will rise, just like the beautiful saber.
Text and poster by Micah Bizant