Where Do I Begin?
Some good, some bad, and some books to read in between 📚
I’ve been silent for the last few weeks since The Atlantic article came out — which I’m sharing below as a PDF for those who would like to avoid the paywall 🍉 ✌🏽
The week after the article was published my family and I received a flood of emails. Many messages were beautiful, kind, encouraging. It seemed Palestinians and friends of Palestinians from all over the world wanted to share their personal archives with me, proving that they too collect to preserve Palestine and its history. How lovely it was to be reminded that I am not alone in this compulsion to preserve and to hold. One especially precious piece of archive a reader shared with me was an exquisite picture of a postcard from 1898 sent from Port Said in Egypt to Jerusalem, Palestine. Emails like these helped restore my belief that people outside of my immediate circle, my family especially, care about Palestine and won’t stop fighting.
All my life I believed the topic of Palestine was one that could only be surfaced in the safety of my familial unit. It was so much part of my and my siblings’ lives and yet so cleverly avoided whenever necessary. I both was and wasn’t Palestinian at any given moment, depending on who asked and what company was around. It became such a natural game, this washing away of self. It wasn’t until I was in college that I reckoned with my choices to participate in my very own erasure.
I am not alone in this self-erasure. Recently, a friend I’ve known for over a decade told me that she is 100% Lebanese and that in fact both of her parents were born and raised in Lebanon. In the ten years that I’ve known her, however, I always believed she was half-Italian.
“My mom tells that lie,” she shared, “and when we met, I was probably still telling that same lie.”
I also lied for years. I told inquiring minds that I was Indian or Latina or whatever other brown population made them feel that I was the brown that’s interesting and pretty and not war-torn or threatening to their own existence and learned history. I didn’t have to ask my friend why she lied, why her mother had suggested she tell school friends and teachers that she was Italian. The Arab identity is weighed down by American propaganda, political agendas, Hollywood fiction — a lie is so much easier to swallow than to explain a complicated truth.
Of course, after the slew of lovely notes hit my inbox I received more emails and comments on social media than I care to count virtually shouting at me and various family members. I was told that I’m a Nazi, that my desire to archive Palestine’s history is not only fruitless but, in fact, racist in nature. I received long and tedious emails from folks who felt the need to remind me of my own people’s history, spewing facts I had not only actively touched on in my article but were twisted, as they always are, for their Zionist bent. Fortunately, my new prescription of Prozac kicked in at just the right time because with every new comment, DM, or email straight to my personal inbox from strangers who wished that I be raped, murdered, or *fired* from The Atlantic (hard to be fired as a freelance writer) I found myself giggling that the simple act of me claiming Palestine as a real place brought on so much hate and violence!
It turns out folks reallyyyyyy don’t like being told that Palestinians are real and that their history is worth preserving. How galvanizing is that small and simple fact? Turns out on Prozac… quite a bit!
My favorite comment was thus: “Your knowledge of trite tropes is part snore, part racist, but mostly wrong in the underlying premise…you are helping the terrorists and they won’t stop until they burn the whole world down.” I happen to be a huge fan of using the word “snore” as an adjective. So this comment found a special place in my heart…trite tropes are a snore, indeed.
In happier news — outside of my desire to let the death threats headed toward me and some family members fizzle out — I took a break from writing because I dove head first into conversations with agents and I am ✨thrilled✨ to share that I’ve officially signed with an agent who will represent my writing moving forward. With this kind of support, I can officially work on my memoir proposal with the confidence that all of this writing won’t just be for my family’s benefit.
To be honest, reading the latest on what’s happening in Palestine makes it feel impossible to celebrate this personal win. It’s hard to hold this joyful news in the face of the endless destruction I am consuming online. For those who would like to keep up in different ways outside of social media, I personally subscribe to the Britain Palestine Media Centre emails. The BPMC connects media professionals with Palestinians — from academics and artists, to human rights activists — and brings invaluable resources to journalists, editors, and producers seeking reliable information and contacts on all things Palestine. I’m a huge fan of their work, trust their resources, and know that I will always be up to date on everything happening in Gaza and broader Palestine with their email run-down.
I am so grateful to this small community on Substack — this space has allowed me to write whatever I wish on Palestine without the haunting red pen of an editor telling me what I can and cannot say, what words are allowed, what research I can bring into my articles, what numbers I can refer to. The limitations have been endless and, frankly, at times, humiliating.
But, many of you reached out to me after my TIME piece and encouraged me to keep writing. Similarly, as I said, I received such lovely notes after The Atlantic essay from readers who shared that they could have read an entire book about me collecting scraps about Palestine. Thank you all for reminding me that working on this book is not only necessary and urgent but also eagerly craved by readers who want to connect to Palestine and hold it in whatever way they can 🙏🏽
Now onto my favorite of subjects, all the books I’ve been gobbling up while trying to avoid my own writing tasks. I did finally finish Babel — a timely read in light of the student encampments popping up around the country. It was no Fifth Season trilogy (I may never get over those books), but it definitely kept me turning pages. I also finished the lush and poetic memoir by Safiya Sinclair How To Say Babylon. I knew nothing about the Rastafari community (though I know no one book speaks to everything) and found myself not only taken by Sinclair’s prose but by every member of her family. Next, I’m eager to let my brain melt a little as I slip into Emily Henry’s latest romance, Funny Story. Book Lovers has been my favorite of hers so far… though I really did enjoy Beach Read as well. Frankly, it doesn’t really matter. These books serve a singular purpose, similar to the latest season of Bridgerton, they are meant to turn my brain off 📚 ✌🏽