ANA: Hey everybody, it’s Ana. This is Mosaic. Today, two words that almost guarantee some strong reactions: Israel-Palestine. But before you jump to any conclusions or turn off this episode, hear me out: the violence of this conflict might feel far-off, never-ending, and shrouded in an almost impenetrable mix of political and religious debate. But the reality is, the relationship between Israel and Palestine is so incredibly complicated because it affects the lives and identities of millions so deeply, including people who live here, in our communities.

My guest today is the inaugural chair of Brown University’s department of Palestinian Studies, Professor Beshara Doumani. He speaks about what it means to be Palestinian in a world that oftentimes denies your very existence. We talked the last week of May, days after tensions around housing and settlements escalated to near warfare. Thousands of people were injured, huge parts of cities and neighborhoods reduced to rubble, and hundreds of people were killed, mostly Palestinians.

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ANA: Right now, what's happening in Israel Palestine, the Gaza Strip, West Bank seems like this overwhelming, very confusing, latest chapter in a book that a lot of people don't know the whole story, haven't read it, don't know where it starts, don't know where it ends. How would you, Professor Doumani, how would you give context to the most recent events that have happened?

BESHARA: Well, first of all, thank you for having me on the show. And it's great to be here. So violence is the only time when the media pays attention. So this leaves the impression that minor property dispute in Jerusalem has ignited the flames of a primordial long standing religious or ethnic conflict over a holy site, eventually leading to a kind of a tit for tat cross border conflict between Israel and Gaza. Every single word I just uttered is wrong.

What I conveyed to you is the framing in the mainstream media, but not the reality on the ground. So the expulsion of Palestinian families from their homes by the Israeli government in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, or the scheduled expulsion, and their replacement by Jewish Israelis is yet another episode that a century long process of the systematic dispossession and displacement of the indigenous Palestinian population by settler colonial state. I think that is a better framing.

So the most important episode in this century long process, which is ongoing, is 1948 with the Palestinian called Nakba, or catastrophe, in which the overwhelming majority of the Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland. And since then, the Palestinians have become sort of global symbols of what it means to be dispossessed and displaced, discriminated against, stripped of political rights, and basically left stateless. I think the recent episode of violence is yet another chapter in an opposing process, which is that of Palestinian resistance to this Palestinian condition. And this is not new. This is a long history of struggle. This moment, I think, though, maybe a little bit different in the sense that the Palestinians seem to have been united across all of mandate Palestine that is to say, referring to the place that the British created through the colonial mandate system after world war one that was known as Palestine, which disappeared in 1948, as Israel was created.

ANA: And in that conflict that you mentioned, I don't know how to pronounce it correctly, the Nakba. It, and the other there are other names for it. Am I right? There's like the Palestine war, the Arab Israeli war, are those all different? Are they part of that same?

BESHARA: Yeah. That's a good question. Everything has more than one name. So there is a narrative battle going on how to frame. So in Israel, they call this the War of Independence of 1948. Even though the people carried it out were European settler-colonialists who came to Palestine fairly recently and evicted the indigenous population. So for the Palestinians is called a catastrophe, or Nakba, simply because out of a million or so Palestinians, who are natives to that land, over 750,000 were forced out of their homes, which were then taken over by Jewish settlers, who came from Europe and then later on in the 50s from other countries in the region.

ANA: So is that that 1948 conflict, whatever name whatever narrative, it's, you know, you're, it's being talked about through is that how your family was dispossessed of Palestinian lands?

BESHARA: That's right. My father is from Haifa, which is now sitting inside of Israel. And he's a 1948 refugee. And like most people in the northern part of Palestine, where Haifa is located. He was forced towards Lebanon. And that's where I grew up.

ANA: What was the culture like growing up? Did you know that this is terrible history? Did your parents try to talk about it with you? Or was it something that they did not want to talk about?

BESHARA: I think mine is a fairly typical story people who've been traumatized by dispossession and uprooting and loss. rarely ever want to talk about it. My father did not want to talk about it. Everything I learned about my own history and history of my family, I learned from other people.

ANA: Interesting, yeah. And so what was that like growing up? Was there a large community of Palestinians living in Lebanon?

BESHARA: I remember growing up, one of the neighbors in particular would always be hostile and say, you know, you go back where you came from. but then my parents immigrated to the United States when it's very young. So I was 13 years old when we arrived in the United States.

ANA: Oh, wow. Where did you arrive?

BESHARA: First of all, Detroit. And then Toledo, Ohio.

ANA: Toledo, Ohio!

BESHARA: Where my brother still lives, yes.

ANA: What was it like for 13-year-old Beshara to arrive in Toledo, Ohio in the 70s?

BESHARA: Well, it was rough. I mean, I don't think I was a happy camper. Everything I knew I left behind. I didn't really know the language. I had to learn it. And we lived in a very poor neighborhood in a condemned house, when my first few days out on the street, I already got into fights in the playgrounds, attacked by people who called me names like camel jockey and so on. And went to a public school that had enormous tensions inside of it, racial tensions, as it was partly black, partly Latino, partly white. And so the 70s, of course, were an intense time of change and cultural rebellion in many ways, at least early 70s. So I lived through that period in the United States.

ANA: Wow, how did you go from that to being such a? An incredibly well educated person? Right? Like, um, you know, I'm looking at like, Georgetown, I look at all these very high elite names, like, where did you get the interest to be a professor to be in academia?

BESHARA: Well, the answer is fairly typical of many Palestinians: when you lose your home, your land, even your right to have rights, what can you take with you from one place to the other? It's your education. My parents were always very clear that they wanted us to be educated, neither of them finished high school. So they wanted better for their children. I got a call from a college that I guess was looking for, you know, what we call today diversity. And I don't know, somebody tipped them off that we have this good student at this university and they called and offered me a scholarship.

ANA: Just out of the blue?

BESHARA: Out of the blue. I'd never applied or anything. I guess they needed to tick some boxes or something. So that's how I ended up going to that college. I never heard of it.

ANA: What school was it?

BESHARA: Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio,

ANA: What years are you at Kenyon College?

BESHARA: ‘73 to ‘77.

ANA: ‘73 to ‘77, so during that time, there’s the… What name would you call that conflict in 1973?

BESHARA: 1973 War, let’s call it, was a turning moment for me. You picked that up, didn't you?

ANA: Yeah, I did.

BESHARA: So yeah, I was the only Arab student in that entire place. There was enormous amount of discrimination and name calling against me before before the war. But it certainly got worse with the ‘73 war because couple of my friends and I – Americans – decided to see if we can collect money for both a Red Cross Red Crescent and I think Mike and David or whatever they call the Jewish sort of equivalent of these. We went to the dean, and he says, “No, you can't do that.” But we know that students were collecting money for Israel from the dorms, door-to-door, and they were given permission, but we weren't. So we set up camp outside the post office in that small town. And I cannot tell you the vitriol and the spitting and the name calling that took place simply because, you know, the Red Crescent, it was for everybody. The Red Crescent was part of it.

The kind of Islamophobia and anti Arab racism is not a new phenomenon under Trump or anything. It's been around for a very long time. For example, somebody would say, “ I would not donate my blood to these filthy Muslims or Arabs” or things like this. But I can tell you that the situation has changed a lot since the ‘70s. You couldn't say the word “Palestine” in polite company without people turning their heads and gasping.

ANA: Yeah, how was Palestine viewed, if you were to describe it?

BESHARA: Well, at that time, if you mentioned the word it was automatically assumed that you're calling for the destruction of Israel, because you can't have Palestine and Israel. So that if the Palestinians exist, that there was a Palestine etc, is not something that people wanted to talk about.

ANA: When did that change?

BESHARA: Well, it took a very long time, but. Well, there was a number of station stops. One was the ‘82 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which killed a lot of civilians and really gave Israel a black eye in the international community and the whole David Goliath thing shifted. And even for many Israelis, they protested against their government's military destruction of an Arab capital, Beirut. Then the Intifada, or uprising, Palestinian uprising in West Bank and the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem between ‘87 on to ‘91 or so also galvanized the kind of world opinion of young people protesting against a mighty power for basic rights. And that forced Israeli government really into negotiating for the first time with Palestinians in the sense that they accepted the Palestinians as a political community that has a right to have rights. That was not accepted before. And so, on the Madrid talks and Oslo Accords and ‘93, etc, that all kind of brought a political legitimacy to the political to the Palestinian cause in the United States, I’m talking. But it didn't really cross the ocean to the United States until the ‘90s.

ANA: We’ll get back to my interview with Professor Beshara Doumani in a bit. But first, let’s hear from Lex. He’s a Jewish educator, podcast host, and recently-ordained Rabbi whose identity has also been shaped by the Israeli-Palestine conflict.

LEX: Growing up as an American Jew, Israel is absolutely a part of your consciousness. I was taught and the communities that I was a part of were taught that Israel is important for Jews around the world. That defending Israel as a nation state is important, that sort of, regardless of what its politics are at any given moment, who its leaders are etcetera, our role as American Jews was understood to be supporting it, sending it money, advocating for it.

As I reached, you know later stages of my youth, I was told directly that you know you're going to go to college and people are going to challenge Israel and they're going to bring up all sorts of talking points and your role is going to be to you know fight the battle on campuses and defend Israel. All of this and that was done at my summer camp where we even had, you know, an "Israel Day” which, includes you know, sort of mock Army drills, all sorts of Israeli, you know, cultural activities, you know, playing games that people in Israel play learning learning, little tiny, bits of Hebrew phrases from the Israeli Camp counselors. By the way, there's a whole phenomenon where Israelis themselves come to American Jewish summer camps and are actually counselors themselves and part of their role is to teach about Israel and usually to teach about advocating for Israel.

For me college was like for lots of people, a moment where I carved out who I am in a way that I don't know, there will ever be a period in my life where I do it that much in four years.I feel like I was surrounded by people who were really questioning a lot of their own ways that they grew up in and asking big questions.

And I was, you know, part of student groups that got to digest all this and part of classes where we talked about all this and it was really fundamental for me. And yeah, I remember being a Freshman or sophomore in some of my classes and, you know, we would and I was making the switch from math to Judaic studies.

So I was in some Judaic studies classes. Some of these classes were directly about Israel. Many of them weren't, but Israel would come up in one way or another. And I remember some people saying some things about this organization called J Street, which for context is, sort of a liberal Zionist organization that historically has spent a lot of time trying to time to create a two-state solution or advocate for a two-state solution. And I remember being a freshman or sophomore in college and somebody brought up J Street. And I knew in my bones that I hated J Street.

And then I and I like, and then I ask myself, like, “What is it? That I know that I hate?” and I didn't know. Like, I literally, like people were talking about J Street and saying, X, Y, or Z. And I knew I hated it because they were like, two, they were too progressive, or too leftist on Israel, and I had nothing to say about why I hated it. I just knew that like, my communities that sort of told me to not like it. And I recognized myself. “I'm like, I would never accept that in myself for any issue.” I would never be okay with not having the basic understanding of X Y or Z topic, and just sort of mindlessly throwing myself on a side. And so I remember being in that class, it kind of was like a discrete moment for me like being in that classroom and thinking, “Oh, I just sort of have accepted this positioning where I defend Israel.”

And I realized I had to do a bunch of learning. And it's not that I immediately joined a bunch of activist groups and was in the streets for Palestine solidarity. It was a long process of many years. It took till after college. For me, I mean, I wouldn't call myself any kind of activist on this issue until 2014 when Gaza erupted in violence then.

But, but for a few years before that, I was unpacking the ways in which without really thinking much, I had positioned myself so staunchly as pro-Israel, as being a Zionist, as all of these terms that I applied to myself, knowing in my bones somehow that they were good. But not actually knowing what they meant.

What I spend my time doing is asking people like why do you know in your bones that you know X organization or X set of people are evil or are great? Like what has led you to think that? Because most of the time I don't think it's, you know, deep study and learning. I think it's that we've been a part of networks and communities that taught us deeply that Israel, whether it's Israel could do no wrong or at the very least Israel doesn't usually do wrong, think that's more common in Jewish communities backing out and saying you know, is that the case?

Do we think that we're coming to that conclusion without any sort of subtext? Or do we think that we actually do need to rethink things? And so I try to help people ask those questions. It's not about you as an individual being morally, good or bad. It's about we have systems as Americans that sort of teach us to understand Israel, as positive, good and Palestinians as threatening. We have systems, if you're an American Jew where that's been done, even more in some of our communities and we all have unlearning work to do. And that doesn't make anybody who took a little bit to do that unlearning evil. It does give us some responsibilities to do that work though.

ANA: That was Lex Rofeberg. Now, back to my interview with Beshara Doumani, the inaugural chair of Brown University’s Palestinian Studies Department.

ANA: So I want to go back to 1973. Your college says you can't collect money for the Red Crescent on campus and you go outside and you get harassed and discriminated against. And so and that's, you're still in your first year at university. Right? So how did that affect the rest of your college, and then, you know, graduate career?

BESHARA: Well, kind of politicized me to a greater extent than before. It's unfortunate, but often one's identity is kind of a reaction to discrimination from someone else. And so that was important. And I wanted to learn more about the region, because my father never really talked about it. High school didn't teach it. And I was a pre-med student and decided to shift to history. And I looked in the history department, there was not a single course being offered at that time in that university outside of Europe and the United States.

ANA: Really? No Middle Eastern not even Asian?

BESHARA: No, not until my junior or senior year.

ANA: Was there a moment in your college career where maybe it was something you read or a paper you had to research for or conversation you had? Did you identify with what you were researching more? I'm wondering, yeah, how did it push you forward into your life?

BESHARA: So I read a lot about what's going on in the world in general, and how the Palestinian case is sometimes distinct and just, you know, different, but for the most part, it's facing the same fundamental challenges. And I think that realization has been crucial to my life in the sense that have cultivated relations with a whole range of people from all over the world, and just fascinated all the time, about experiences on the ground level of people historically marginalized or discriminated against, and how they've struggled, what their creative kind of pushback has been, and how they understood their situation and how they're communicated from one generation to the next. And I suppose that's related to my teaching as well.

ANA: Does that perspective that you just described, where you're able to – it's almost like a position of solidarity or allyship or understanding of, like, a worldwide, a global oppression, or seeing how different communities are oppressed, like you just described – does that help you view this conflict, this amazingly polarizing/politicized Israeli-Palestinian-Palestine conflict and all the different narratives, does it help you view that more clearly? Or maybe have a bird's eye view of it?

BESHARA: Oh, yeah, no doubt. I mean, settler-colonialism wasn't invented in Palestine. It's a global phenomenon. We ourselves here are many way settlers on this land on Turtle Island. And I acknowledge here that I'm one of those. And we are all also children of a system that was based on slavery, and the kind of structural and systematic destruction of people and culture and livelihoods that that entailed. And these are part of the DNA of, of this country, and they're not just limited to this country, you can hear similar stories and experiences since the 15th century, all over the world. So and that kind of big picture sense, being Palestinian is really part of being part of a global condition in which colonialism and nationalism and kind of capitalism all -- and racism, of course -- were coterminous phenomena that went hand in hand in many ways with it with each other. And so there is not only a long heritage of suffering, but also of resistance and incredible stories of people overcoming amazing odds, in order to live a kind of a more just equal and dignified life. And I take a lot of inspiration from that. So there's more of a relational situation between Palestinians, the Black Lives Matter, the indigenous struggles here for freedom in this country. Here, I think we're talking about people from all over the world recognizing each other's suffering, and understanding that they are facing systemic global challenges. And, and so the globalization of the Black Lives Matter movement, for example, has opened an enormous space for people to understand what the situation in Palestine is like. And that is why you find amazing support from the Black community, especially Black intellectuals, of the Palestinian cause.

BESHARA: So it's a more collective kind of understanding that I'm talking about here. And that's especially important in this country, because in the United States, we have the phenomena of what we call PEP, Progressive Except for Palestine.

ANA: Oh, wow.

BESHARA: Yeah. So that phenomena is nearing an end. I think the op-ed by Bernie Sanders in the New York Times not long ago, clearly framed the policy issue as part of a global social justice issue. And I think anyone who says that they're progressive, and they are for social justice, cannot at the same time be anti-Palestinian, and not support Palestinian rights. That is a more recent development. And a very encouraging one. And, and I should also shout out here to give a shout out to a lot of members of the Jewish population in the United States, especially Jewish Voice For Peace and other groups, that have worked very hard at pushing for a just understanding of what's going on, and realizing that Jewish values demand justice for all, and should not be monopolized by kind of a chauvinistic, religious nationalism that is inward-looking. And that has created a kind of a movement that has dispossessed the Palestinians. So all of these things, you know, I don't know how long they're going to last. But I think they are important turning points. And it gives me hope.

ANA: There's still pushback, there's still there are still people out there who will hear Palestine Palestinian studies, Palestinian rights and automatically think antisemitism, anti-Jewish, anti-Israel. How do you, in your life and your work, deal with that kind of rhetoric?

BESHARA: It's difficult, it's difficult because antisemitism is real. Yeah. And because of a long history of oppression, and genocide against the Jewish people. It's difficult to talk about Palestine without that triggering some people. But I'm glad to say that this is not a problem that most young people are having and including young Jewish students, for example, they can see the difference between being opposed to what the international human rights community has long recognized and issued reports about Israel being an apartheid country. And not mixing that up with the bigotry and racism of anti Jewish hate. So as a Palestinian and as a person who struggles for social justice for all for all of my life. My fight is inseparable from fighting anti semitism. And this is something that's built in, so to speak, in many ways, to the Palestinian struggle. And the more Palestinians participate in the struggle against anti semitism and all forms of racism, the more they help themselves.

ANA: I want to shift the conversation to this very cool thing. I think it's very cool. Your position at Brown University, you are the Mahmoud Darwish, professor or no, the chair of the Palestinian Studies Department and your role is named after Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, correct?

BESHARA: Yeah, so I'm the inaugural Mahmoud Darwish professor of Palestinian studies. I think that's the key phrase, not just his name, but the fact that it alludes to Palestinian studies.

ANA: What kind of effect does the establishment of a Palestinian studies like you said: it's not Palestine. It's Palestinian. So, that human centered language, what kind of effect does that have on the student body?

BESHARA: Well, the student body is ahead of everybody else.

ANA: They always are.

BESHARA: So I think by saying that by saying that Palestinian studies is a legitimate field of knowledge production, which is a no-brainer, is seen as as psychologically and symbolically very important.

ANA: Yeah, absolutely. But I do want to ask you, I know Mahmoud Darwish is an incredibly famous person. And so I thought I would just ask if you did have any lines of his poetry that you thought were that you love or or or think are applicable or relevant to your life?

BESHARA: He wrote some amazing poetry that expresses the essence of the Palestinian condition, and one of which is their desire to remain on their land not to be dispossessed and displaced. So I was inspired by the resistance that took place in Jerusalem and elsewhere in the last few weeks, because what I saw is a united stance of Palestinians who sent a loud and clear message. “News of our demise are greatly exaggerated.” And in a way they've acted out the lines of a famous poem by Mahmoud Darwish. In which he says, quote, “I am from here. And here I am. I am me. And here is here.” And I think that expresses in many ways, what the Palestinians were saying to the world in the last few weeks.

ANA: Absolutely. Very, very relevant. Very beautiful. And very simply put, yeah, thank you for sharing that.

BESHARA: Thank you Ana.

ANA: Beshara Doumani is the inaugural chair of the Palestinian Studies Department at Brown University, an author, and a father. You can learn about him, our community essayist, and the Palestinian music we used in this episode at our website, mosaicpodcast.org.

Mosaic is a production of the Public’s Radio. This episode is edited by Sally Eisele and Sofie Rudin. Our producer is James Baumgartner. Our community producer is Pearl Marvell. Our intern is Michelle Liu. Our theme music is by Bryn Bliska. Special thanks to Lex Rofeberg for his essay. Torey Malatia is the General manager of The Public’s Radio. And I’m Ana González. See you next week.

Support for this podcast comes from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, supporting innovations in democratic engagement and international peace and security at carnegie.org.