When I first watched the trailer of the prize-winning film All That’s Left of You by the brilliant Palestinian American filmmaker Cherien Dabis, tears streamed down my face and my heart raced. The nearly three-minute video opened the wound of decades of displacement, unending tragedy, and the collective trauma Palestinians have passed down through generations. In the film, Dabis traces the life of…
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Palestinians around the world are marking Nakba Day, 78 years after their forced mass displacement led to the establishment of the Jewish-majority state of Israel. Decades later, Palestinians still face widespread oppression and violence from the Israeli state as it continues its expansionary project. “Israel tried, since 1948 until today, to destroy us as a people, as a group, and they failed at…
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I have never chosen to adopt the title of “refugee,” yet it keeps haunting me. It is scribbled on my Palestinian national identification card and follows my name in human rights conferences. It serves as a cruel mark to be treated as marginalized and homeless. It is a word I have unconsciously repeated in my head as I sat through history lectures, summing up the root of the dystopia we are living…
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Two Human Rights Watch employees — the group’s entire Israel-Palestine team — resigned after senior staffers blocked a report calling Israel’s denial of Palestinian refugees’ right of return to their homeland a crime against humanity. Jewish Currents’ Alex Kane reported Tuesday that HRW Israel-Palestine team lead Omar Shakir and assistant researcher Milena Ansari are stepping down over…
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