Video: Displacement and Belonging in Israel/Palestine

On March 2, 2023, HDS students from the 2022 "Learning in Context: Narratives of Displacement and Belonging in Israel/Palestine" cohort, in an evening of storytelling, poetry, and photography, discuss their experiences of joy and resistance from their summer in Israel/Palestine. 

Full transcript

SPEAKER 1: Harvard Divinity School.

SPEAKER 2: Displacement and belonging in Israel/Palestine-- Harvard's student stories of learning and context, March 2, 2023.

HILARY RANTISI: Welcome, everyone. I'm really delighted that you've joined us tonight. My name is Hilary Rantisi, and I'm the Associate Director of Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative, a program of Religion and Public Life at Harvard Divinity School.

So for those of you who don't know, our work at the Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative centralizes an analysis of structural injustice, violence, and power, and examines how a more capacious understanding of religion can yield fresh insights into contemporary challenges and opportunities for just peace-building. The primary case study of our work focuses on Israel/Palestine, and our aim is to stretch the scholarly discourse around religion and the practices of peace-building and to examine the decolonial potentialities of art, religion, and identity transformation.

So our flagship course, which you're going to hear more about tonight, is Learning in Context-- narratives of displacement and belonging in Israel/Palestine. This course includes a full semester course on campus. It includes an experiential learning opportunity on the ground and also an opportunity for some of the students to do internships in-country after, in the summer.

So, tonight, we're going to hear from five of the 16 students who took the course last year. One of these students wasn't able to travel with us on the experiential component but was still able to do an internship in Jordan during the summer. And you will be hearing from her tonight, as well.

So the students will be sharing some vignettes from their experiences. And before I hand it off to the students, I wanted to share some more general information about the course. So the course is unique at Harvard because we're intentional about creating a diverse group of students from different backgrounds and from different graduate schools at Harvard.

This past year, we had students from five different schools-- Harvard Divinity School, Kennedy School, Graduate School of Education, Graduate School of Design, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and the Harvard Law School. This year-- the course is ongoing this semester-- we have a similar diverse group of students enrolled in the course.

And I'm pleased to see some of you here tonight. So you'll be getting a preview of maybe some of the experiences you will have in June. So the experiential component of the course from last June included a two-week intensive travel period that consisted of 43 engagements. These were either tours, visits, or meetings with organizations or individuals, both in Israel proper and the occupied territories.

We met both with Israelis and Palestinian organizations and individuals and heard a wide array of narratives. The course is intentional about centering marginalized voices with an emphasis on just peace. As we travel, we learn. We examine various forms of violence, as well as narratives of hope and liberation.

As the title of the course suggests, we engage our senses around narratives of displacement and belonging. Some of these narratives are very painful and hard to see, and others are life-affirming and joyous.

So it would be impossible, of course, to share all what we experienced together. But, tonight, we're going to be hearing from five students who will be presenting. They have chosen what to share from their time, and I hope some of these students also stay to do the internship.

So you'll be hearing a variety of experiences, and I hope it will generate interest for further conversation. We'll have time for Q&A at the end, and I know there might be some students who were with this cohort-- yes, there are a few who are not presenting but I think would be happy to engage in one-on-one conversations for anyone who would be interested. So without further ado, I would like to invite our first presenter, Zesean Ali.

[APPLAUSE]

ZESEAN ALI: Well, thank you all for being here. My name is Zesean Ali. I am a graduate of HDS, master's of theological studies. I graduated in 2022.

Last year, I had the pleasure of taking Narratives of Displacement and Belonging in Israel/Palestine, and I participated in the experiential learning component. I was also generously funded by the RCPI to stay on and do a summer internship with the UN OCHA-- the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. It's a mouthful.

I begin with the image of the villa in the jungle, which is how one former Israeli Prime Minister once described Israel. That quote was first introduced to me by Orly Noy, an Iranian-Israeli political activist. Westerners will go to the Middle East, and they'll be amazed that it can look like Europe, like the United States, like Silicon Valley, like New York City.

Doesn't it look like a villa in the jungle? Pretty, developed, and surrounded by what seems to be the uncivilized and backwards. But the beautiful villa isn't the whole story. White tourists on Segways is not the whole story.

If there's one takeaway from my speech, I hope that it makes you question every superficially-beautiful thing you see in this context, as each moment of beauty is connected to one of suffering. On day 6 of our trip, we traveled to the Southern Hebron Hills and visited Masafer Yatta. It's a collection of 19 small Palestinian villages in the West Bank which has been under occupation and Israeli military control since 1967.

We visited a small village. We sat with locals. They served us tea. They told us about how their land was being grabbed by the state of Israel to build illegal settlements. New homes for new migrants were plopped directly on top of the small Palestinian village towering above.

We saw how Palestinian homes are continuously demolished, but power, solar panels, telephone, and internet lines ran through the settlement. Building up an area is possible, if you care about the people who live there. A sloped hill connected the village to the settlement, and grass grew on that hill but nowhere else.

Who was watering this grass? The answer to that question revealed an ugly truth. The grass grew because the settlers were dumping their sewage on the Palestinian village. The seemingly beautiful, lush greenery was sprouted from defiled soil-- soil that was nourished by the feces of the oppressor.

This metaphor, I think, applies to all the beautification we encountered. It's a metaphor for the false face of progress. During my time with the UN OCHA, I helped report on various humanitarian crises that Palestinians faced as a result of the occupation.

And I came back. I came back to Masafer Yatta during a UN field visit, but the diplomatic field visit was different. Rows and rows of armored cars brought mostly European diplomats. It felt more expensive . And the meetings were more brief. We didn't sit there all day. We didn't really connect. It felt like we were in and out in 15 minutes.

Village leaders were pleading in a very concise fashion to these diplomats so that they may go tell their countries to intervene in their situation. And we heard a new story this time, a new myth-- a myth of security. The Israeli government was taking their land for the purpose of increasing security to establish temporary military bases.

Will they ever be removed? The village had been converted into a military training and fighting zone. The bullets from firing practices would hit children-- they've killed children-- all under the guise of security.

The villa in the jungle-- the villa needs protection from the jungle, supposedly. The villa needs protection from Palestinians-- supposedly justified, preemptive violence. It's cowboys and Indians out here-- that's what one rifle-wielding, volunteer security guard told us in Hebron.

But the diplomatic visit was so quick that some diplomats-- if they weren't paying attention-- missed what was going on. One of them told me, it doesn't look that bad, that the military base wasn't so big, not knowing that it could have been a step towards a more permanent land grab.

This all continued. We went to Acre. It was beautiful. It was being further beautified. Buildings were renovated. Renovated buildings were next to dilapidated ones.

Gentrification-- you can't see it unless you're looking. But this juxtaposition symbolizes a fight for the identity of the place. The street names reflect no Palestinian history, and our tour guide, Tayseer, reminded us that 95% of the Palestinians living there are refugees from other villages.

The gentrification was supposed to be good. It had grand promises. It was supposed to provide jobs. But the beauty is superficial, reserved for a select few. The visual signs of progress are no substitute for the preservation of one's people and culture.

The locals have been driven out by economic pressures and racist laws. The progress is merely a facade. We saw olive trees in the northern West Bank. They were green. They were lush, but they had been poisoned, again, like the grass and Masafer Yatta.

The soil had been polluted, this time, by chemical waste from Israeli factories. If these factories, in fact, were in Israel, they would violate the state's own environmental laws. They've caused cancer in local residents.

And as olive trees remain a source of income for so many Palestinians, this destruction hurts the livelihood of so many. These vulnerable, defenseless towns and villages in the Nablus area have been subject to attacks and burning by settlers, including in schools.

Beauty, suffering goes hand-in-hand. And sometimes the beauty is over-glamorized, even within the West Bank. We had fun in Palestine.

We danced at Ramallah's Millennium Hotel. We hung out at Snowbar. We ate at a beautiful restaurant in the hills. Beauty still takes place. Joy still takes place. Fun still takes place.

But that shouldn't be weaponized to say that there's no apartheid or no suffering. Both can be true. And my experience of both was tied to my own privilege. As an American, I walked through checkpoints that West Bank residents could not walk through.

I wasn't even harassed. I didn't fear death. I casually went to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam, on a Friday afternoon with my very hospitable coworkers, when so many devout Muslims in the West Bank have never been and would not be allowed to go because of the restrictions on their movement.

I was even at a pool party the night that Gaza was bombed. We were less than 50 miles away. Many people there had connections to Gaza some were devastated, others traumatized. But, for many, that pool party continued on.

I was lucky. These are just snippets from my story. That's all I have for tonight. Thank you for listening, and now I invite up Shir to share some thoughts.

[APPLAUSE]

SHIR LOVETT-GRAFF: So, yeah, my name is Shir. I'm a second-year master's student at Harvard Divinity School. I study religion, ethics, and politics. And, yeah, this summer, I had the privilege and the challenge of going on the trip through our RCPI.

And I also stayed afterwards for a [? minute ?] internship working with Just Vision, a documentary film company that makes some really, really incredible films, one of which, Boycott, was just released yesterday for online distribution. And I highly recommend it. And my peers are going to share some really profound things, and I just wanted to share something a little bit personal about my experience this summer.

Growing up, I was taught that Shabbat, the day of rest, is a taste of the world to come, a palace in time where we can imagine life as it should be. But in Israel/Palestine, sirens announced Shabbat like an echo of an incoming emergency-- 24 hours in which essential public services shut down, and time slowed without consent.

While spending my summer in Jerusalem through the RCPI Initiative, the question of whether to celebrate Shabbat as an anti-Zionist Jew pressed on me like a heartbeat growing louder. One of the spiritual crises I experienced this summer was whether to observe this tradition intrinsic to Jewish life and practice because Shabbat was being used as a tool of the state to assert authority over Palestinian movement and livelihood.

The irony did not escape me. I was in Jerusalem, a place deeply significant historically and spiritually to my people, among many others, and yet the morality of observing Shabbat was up for debate. In the US, Shabbat was an act of resistance to capitalism. Shabbat was a defiant stance against assimilation into white, Protestant, Christian hegemony.

Shabbat was a fight against productivity culture, overcommitment, and anxiety about not doing enough and not being enough. To rest for 24 hours was to leave space for dreaming, to honor my ancestors, and to expand my awareness of the world I often take for granted.

In Israel/Palestine, I wondered if boycotting Shabbat was another form of resistance. Israel told me, you are a Jew, and so your legacy, entitlement, and power are here. You can own Jewish practice at the expense of other people. You are entitled to Shabbat in this land.

To abstain from Shabbat, then, felt like a stubborn rebellion against the doctrine of the state. Israel tried to convince me to engage Jewishly in order to feed its agenda of suppression, control, and colonial power. I refuse to give in to the kind of Jewishness Israel wants me to be.

But was giving up Shabbat the right way to resist Zionist hegemony? As I worked through my complicated feelings, I also knew that engaging with Shabbat practice could be a tool of deep resistance to Zionism.

I did not want to give in to a conception of Judaism that weaponized religious and spiritual practice as a manifestation of state control. If the state owns the spiritual realms of my life, where can I find freedom, rest, and joy?

I realized that, despite the dominance Zionism tried to exercise over me physically and psychologically, over so many people, it could and would not penetrate the spiritual expanse of my Judaism and my relationship with the divine. Ultimately, I did decide to celebrate Shabbat. I set it aside as a period of time where I did not work.

I bought produce from Palestinian vendors in the Old City and cooked dinner with these local harvests for my friends. I tried to replenish our sense of connectivity and joy, after our energy was drained from the internships we did, be they researching Israeli military trade deals, confronting issues in bilingual Hebrew-Arabic education, or dealing with distributing vital resources to Gaza.

On Shabbat, we went to day trips-- we went on day trips to Jericho and Ramallah. We watched the sunset fade slowly over the West Bank, and we drank local beer. By spending Shabbat as the time to invest in one another, we created a space in which we discovered the divine in our friendships.

We sanctified the Shabbat through relationship. We created a palace in time where love and connection laid the foundation, where trust built the walls and where we could look out the window and see Peloton decolonised, a taste of the world to come. Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

NOUR-LYNA BOULGAMH: Hello, everyone. This is Nour-Lyna Boulgamh. I'm a second-year master's student at the GSD, the Graduate School of Design. And, today, I'll be talking to you about my own experience following the Narratives of Displacements course, which took place this past summer.

I'm from Algeria, and that had a lot to do with my own experience and shaping it because, unlike my peers, I did not manage to go to Palestine with them, and that is because of my nationality. However, I wanted to still do more coursework that is related to Palestine, and that is why I shaped my experience toward the lens of the refugee communities that are living in Jordan, which highlights the highest population of Palestinian refugees at the moment.

So just a brief to understand why, particularly, Jordan. So following the 1948 Nakba, which presents the event where a lot of Palestinians were forced to flee and being forcibly displaced from their hometowns in Palestine, and moved to other neighboring countries, mainly Lebanon and Jordan, a lot of big population moved to Jordan, and they occupied certain refugee camps.

And we have another wave of Palestinian refugees occurring in 1967, following the war. And, typically, when I say refugee camps, I get a lot of different connotations to it. Some people think that that means tents.

Others envision it, let's say, in incomplete housing or something temporal because it carries this notion of temporality. However, what I'm about to share with you shows a very different perspective. And let's get to it.

I've also handed these-- this is collage that I've made. It shows a compiled version-- a visual compilation of multiple pictures that I've taken in different camps across Jordan highlighting particular living experiences and how they manage-- how they navigate the everyday urban life.

Just to highlight, I was in Jordan, also, interning at an NGO named Ruwwad. Having my expertise operating at the intersection of research and architecture, I shaped my experience there toward design and how to influence the urban fabric. So I've conducted design-thinking workshops and also participatory art workshops with the people there in Palestinian refugee camps and also some 3D fabrication exercises.

Yet, what struck me the most was the spatial qualities that I, luckily, navigated going through these multiple camps. So some of the camps are formal. Some are not. Some are recognized by UNRWA. Some are not.

Some are recognized by the state. Some are not. And that shapes very much the lives of the people, their rights, what they are entitled to, where they stand in the country, and what kind of job opportunities and livelihood opportunities they have.

So, to start with, one of the camps I visited was named Gaza Camp. And it's actually named after the people that lived there where they were displaced twice. They were displaced first from their hometown towns in Palestine, and then they were moved to Gaza Strip. And then, from there, in 1967, they were displaced again to Jordan.

And that had a lot to do with the very hard and difficult, complicated urban fabric of the camp. As we can see, the situation is very much deteriorating. We see trash and dirt everywhere.

The public space is primarily inexistent. For example, this is supposed to be a playground. But as you can see, it's not conducted that way, and it does not really allow for much for the kids to have.

Infrastructure is very poor, if existent at all. And that is why, for example, we see they created this kind of engraved tunnel here to allow for water to go through, which they only have access to once a week on a Wednesday.

The, also, notion of privacy is very much challenged, and that is why they create these partition walls around their entrance doors to create some sense of privacy because they're stuck in a very limited land. And it's hard to create-- to have a private space within that very limited land.

This is another example that I would like to share with you of a different camp called Mohammad Amin Camp, also located in Amman, Jordan. And while it's located at the center of the city Amman, which is the capital of Jordan, as you can see, it's very hard to access it.

So is in this picture, I'm showing a school, the only school that is in the area. And for the kids to actually go to this primary school, they have to climb up the mountain every day. And this is how it looks on the ground. So it's filled with trash, and they have to climb up the mountain every day to get to school.

And, also, another thing, aside from the school, also to navigate their own homes, they have to climb up these staircases that are very high-- highly inaccessible, particularly in cases of emergency, let's say when the case of a fire or, let's say, a natural disaster, it's very hard to access, which happened. By the time I was there, they were telling me the story that happened in August where they could not rescue a certain woman just because the fire ambulances-- they could not access the space.

However, while I've highlighted the very hard life that these camps entitle, still, there is much very big source of resistance and resilience that is embodied within these camps. And we see that in multiple forms-- first of all, through the public heart. That is, the public order is very much harvested within the community.

So, for example, this is a different camp that I've been to. It's called Nasr Camp, and it's an informal camp not recognized by [INAUDIBLE] and not recognized by the state. Yet, it's a place where more than 50,000 people live today.

And, as we can see, they rendered the urban space and the public space with these beautiful graffiti art highlighting their attachment to the case and the attachment to their homeland, Palestine. Another thing that struck me the most about this public art is the fact that it's very concurrent and up to date with everything that is happening today in Palestine.

So we can see, for example, this drawing of Shirin Abu Akleh following her murder. And, also, this is the land-- the Earth Day, or the land day, and it's a very important day in the Palestinian calendar. And they were also highlighting it with this graffiti. This drawing also speaks about the Nakba and how people were forced to flee the Palestinian territories in 1948.

Another way that these communities tried their best to withstand their identity and keep their strong-- to reclaim the right to their homeland is through recreating Palestine with this very limited plan that they have in Jordan. How they do that?

Through, basically, naming every street and every store from which they make a living, let's say, after their hometown that they left in Palestine. So we see, for example, we have [ARABIC] street of Jaffa; Karmil, after a certain Palestinian city; Palestine Clinic Halhul, which is located in Hebron today.

And this is how they share these intergenerational stories with their kids, which, typically, have never been to Palestine because they cannot access it but, still, they remind them of this legacy that they left over there. These are also other examples. We see Jaffa, the Palestine clinic, and multiple different examples.

Another notion that I found very interesting visiting these camps is that how these people, with very much little that they have, they try to reject this notion of being a refugee as a burden on the host country, which is Jordan. But, rather, they want to be active agents of change.

And they carry that very much through businesses, local businesses that are very much attached to their own culture. So we see, for example, this Palestinian tatreez, this embroidery work that they have, the [? mosaic ?] work, which is also very much a part of their Palestinian culture. And they try to make out of this their everyday tools-- pencil cases and other tools that they have-- that they use in their everyday life.

They're also knowing that the Palestinian culture is very much big on agriculture, they still keep on these practices, creating botanic gardens within the camp because they don't have land, let's say, to harvest within the land. That's why they create more of this farms that are in their own homes, still keeping their practices alive, their agricultural practices alive.

Another thing that struck me visiting these camps is how much they're attached to the refugee identity. So while I walked in these camps, I've conducted multiple interviews with the people. And whenever I would ask them, would you rather leave this camp and move to, let's say, a different places in Amman or a different place in Jordan where you have more land, more livelihood opportunities, would you rather do that or stay within the camp?

The answer is no. I would like to stay here. I'd rather stay here because holding on to my refugee identity means that I'm reclaiming my right to return to my homeland in Palestine. This is my community. This is where I belong, and I'll stay here until I go back to my homeland.

And I found that very interesting and inspiring. And that also manifests in the public space. For example, here, they write it on the wall that is highlighting the boundaries of the camp.

They write the name of the camp, and they say, this is done for the camp. Also, throughout the graffiti, we see it says, the son of the camp-- being a refugee, son of a refugee camp.

Another way that they highlight these communal practices is through putting these signs within the streets. Let's say if a certain family is having a celebration-- a wedding, or a funeral, or any sort of gathering that requires for a big gathering to be held-- what they do is they put these big signs inviting everybody to participate. And that's what is written here in Arabic.

And this is how they celebrate these communal values that they have. So this is everything for me. This is what I wanted to share with you, and thank you so much for listening.

[APPLAUSE]

And now I'm going to leave the floor for my colleague, Kevin. Who's going to tell you about a different experience.

KEVIN KEYSTONE: When you get to the Ofer Military Court, you are nowhere. The parking lot is just a wide expanse of sand and gravel. The path to the court itself is long and winding.

It sort of goes on forever. It's a little bit like you're walking into no-man's land or the desert. But there are some giveaways.

At the top of a tall embankment is a military base-- clue number one. Along the other side of the path that you walk down is a tall fence with barbed wire curled along the top-- another giveaway. But at the entrance to that parking lot is a man who sells tea and snacks.

It's strange, this oasis in the middle of the desert, until you realize that, oh, many people must come here, and that's how he makes a living. He makes a living from the many Palestinians and just the handful of Israelis who come here.

The Palestinians come as prisoners and their families and maybe an attorney or two. The Israelis are only ever soldiers and judges. Israelis are never prisoners here, which is, at some level, the root of the apartheid system.

Israelis here live under civil law, so they aren't tried in military courts. Palestinians, their neighbors who live right beside them, they live under military law, so they are only ever tried in military courts. Two laws, two people, one place-- apartheid.

At the end of that path that seems to take you to nowhere, which, I think, is actually kind of the point-- it makes you feel like it's a place where you could disappear-- you cross through security with its usual Byzantine turnstiles and humiliations. And then you find yourself in a somewhere nowhere-- makeshift seating, a big, open awning.

It feels a little bit like an oversized bus stop where people are waiting, waiting. There is, behind it, a sort of squat, slapped-together building-- four walls and a roof. I don't remember even if there was a bathroom. And that place is full of parents and siblings and aunts and uncles and families-- each family, a story-- waiting for a person to be tried, sentenced, imprisoned, or, if they're a child, detained under house arrest.

I'm going to let you guess what the conviction rate is-- just an idea in your head. Do you have it? It's 95%. 95% of Palestinians here are convicted. 800,000 Palestinians detained since 1967. 700 children a year-- that's two children a day every day, usually for something like throwing stones.

They came in the middle of the night. They were screaming, she said. This was a mother. Her boy was taken, and the story is so often the same.

He was in bed. It was 3:00 in the morning. They took him in the middle of the night. They blindfolded him, handcuffed, threw him in a military Jeep.

But he was sleeping, so they didn't know that he wore glasses. And then I noticed that she was holding her chest, but what she was really holding was a pair of glasses that was sort of tucked into her lapel. And she said, I come because I just want to give him his glasses.

To call them courts is a kind of overstatement. First, there isn't really any justice here. And, second, the funny thing is they're little more than shipping containers. They're actually-- I promise you, they are corrugated metal on stilts.

There are nine of them all lined up, like mobile trailers in a row. It's sort of like a caravan penal system. And they're all meant to look, to appear, to give the illusion of being temporary.

But what temporary? Since 1967, 56 years of temporary. You walk into one of them, and there are benches along the back.

There are a couple of desks, a makeshift stand and a platform where the judge sits-- again, judge, I think, a bit of an overstatement. And an air conditioner drones lazily in the corner. And I have to tell you, the soldiers, the guards, and the bureaucrats-- they look so bored.

They look so bored because nothing new or interesting ever happens here. It's always the same. Palestinians come. They're found guilty, and then they go, except when two young men who, I suspect, are probably similar in age to many of us here-- they're escorted in handcuffed, and then there's a flurry of activity.

One of them lights up like a Christmas tree. He yells, mom, dad-- I don't really speak Arabic, but that much, I know. Mom, dad, he yells. He's smiling. And the older couple behind us are on their feet, and they're burbling away. And, again, I don't really know what they're saying, but I get the feeling of it.

It's, how are you? We miss you? We love you? Are you OK? Hands and arms reaching out to one another, yearning to hold, to hug, to be held-- love stretching across the distance.

The judge bangs his gavel almost immediately. Again, I don't really speak Hebrew. I have about the vocabulary of a two-year-old, but this, I understand-- quiet. Order. Stop.

The accused gets wind that we're observers from Harvard, and he flashes us a winning smile and a peace sign, unbreakable. And, before long, the judge decides he doesn't really want us there. And so he starts arguing with our chaperone in Hebrew to have us removed. But then this happens.

He starts-- he switches, and he turns to us, and he speaks directly to us. And he switches into English, and it is the most perfect New York accent because he's American. So we get thrown out. And I'm a special kind of asshole, and so Nick and I and a few of our friends-- we try to finesse our way back in, and we succeed.

And now the courtroom is empty, and it's just us and the judge. So Nick says, can I ask you a question? The judge says, sure. He says, where are you from?

The judge hesitates. New York. Where? The judge sort of laughs. Queens. Does it really matter?

And Nick says, where do you live now? And the judge says, Israel. And Nick says, where? And the judge says, it doesn't matter where I live.

But of course it does. By evading the question, what he's really saying is, I'm a settler, and I live in the occupied territories. And then the judge says, where are you from? And Nick says, Boston.

And the judge says, you don't sound like you're from Boston. And he says, oh, well, we're sort of from all over. And then the judge says, you know-- and he interlace his fingers like this, competitively-- he says, Boston and New York, they have a kind of rivalry, don't they?

And Nick, who is a lifelong fan of baseball says, yeah. Go, Red Sox! And we all sort of laugh nervously. And then the judge says, go, Yankees. And he's sort of stammering. And he says, you know-- you know-- they've won 18 out of their last 20 games.

And my universe shifts ever so slightly with a click because we are standing in a shipping container in the middle of fucking nowhere in the heart of an apartheid state talking to an American judge who puts Palestinian kids in prison. And the conversation has turned into a pissing contest about baseball.

Who are you here with? He says. Harvard. No, who's organizing your trip? Harvard. No, no, who are your contacts here on the ground?

And then we stay silent. He's taking notes. He says, forget it. I'll look into it.

Our conversation was never about baseball, was it? And those questions that he gets asked at the end, they weren't really just idle curiosity. This place-- it wasn't nowhere, and it wasn't temporary.

But it's actually more than a symbol of Israeli apartheid. It's more than a metaphor for state power. We have to remember, this is a place where families are torn apart, where lives are destroyed, and where kids are thrown in jail.

And as my friend Ciara will explain, that judge wasn't the only American connection to that place. But the way I see it, I think we're all implicated. Thank you very much.

[APPLAUSE]

CIARA MOEZIDIS: My heart's beating. And it's not because I'm nervous for this, but I'm still processing what I heard from Kevin, even though I also was there. So I hope you all are doing good.

My name is Ciara, and I am a dual master's candidate at Harvard Divinity School and the Fletcher School at Tufts. And I spent my summer living in Ramallah, Palestine and interned with the Carter Center's Field Office. I could spend a few hours sharing about the incredibly formative experience I had in Palestine, but I only have 15 minutes, so I'll try to do justice.

This is my Arabic tutor, Salwa, from Jenin, Palestine, and her cousins, who I got to hang out with in Nablus for the day, two places that have been in the news daily lately because of heightened military violence, including the settler-led pogrom in the village of Huwara a couple of days ago that injured over 400 people, Palestinian people.

One memory that felt salient to me with Salwa and her cousins was sitting on the steps waiting for her to come out of prayer and speaking with my broken Arabic to her cousins. They said something to me, and I genuinely had no idea what they were saying. And I was like [SPEAKING ARABIC]. like, what's going on and?

Then he types it into Google Translate. He hands over the phone, and I read it. And it says, do Americans know about the occupation? My heart sank into my stomach. I struggled to respond.

I did not know what to say, so I just shook my head and said, [SPEAKING ARABIC]. They half-smiled, nodded, and lit their cigarette. Salwa returned, and we carried on.

That moment was one of many that made me think about everything I was witnessing. What do I say? Some Americans do know about the occupation. Some do, and they wouldn't call it an occupation.

Many Americans don't know anything, nor do they know how involved we are in it all. I thought a lot about the past generations who have been complicit and turned their backs on Palestinians. I did not want this learning and sharing to leave once I left Palestine.

I continued to think about getting through to my generation, despite all of the challenges in our way. Everyone told us, come back and tell them what you saw. So we did. Me and my friend Sami developed our theory of change through TikTok.

We believed adding to the awareness campaigns and advocacy that many Palestinians and non-Palestinians have tried to do for so long would be important. We had a unique experience, as Harvard students, to live there, and we felt culture change can only happen through education. And TikTok should not be underestimated as a platform.

So we launched in September and posted over 100 videos, and we're still posting today. Our main goal with TikTok was to get through to, specifically, to Americans. Ironically, thanks to the algorithm, we got a lot of Palestinian and Israeli traffic. We didn't see it coming, but lots of love, lots of hate. We encourage it all. Yay.

While I was living in Ramallah, I only met one other American who was not Palestinian. I don't think that's a coincidence. Because of this unique privilege we had to live there, we thought it would be important to bring Palestine-- both the most fun and the most difficult moments-- to the American public. Here is an example of me trying to convey one of the experiences from our two weeks via TikTok.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

- --your gas canister made in Jamestown, Pennsylvania. These tear gas canisters, made in the US, are thrown in [AUDIO OUT] camp, a refugee camp in Bethlehem. At night, and even sometimes in the day, the Israeli military will drive-through that gate and throw tear gas, stun grenades, conduct nightly raids, arrest children, and a lot, lot more.

This camp is used as a training ground for the Israeli military to practice and train. Close by, there's this community center where Palestinians made this beautiful hydroponic garden, and I was given this beautiful little strawberry and cucumber.

But even this garden was tear-gassed by the Israeli military. They couldn't use the garden for a while because it was unsafe for the kids to eat the vegetables. So, my fellow Americans, please ask yourself, why are we allowing teargas canisters made in Pennsylvania to inflict harm against Palestinian children?

[END PLAYBACK]

CIARA MOEZIDIS: As an American, I continuously felt like this conflict, thousands of miles away, felt way too close to home. When visiting Masafer Yatta, an area of villages that are facing demolitions and evictions for a military training zone, as Zesean earlier, we heard stories, like in this photo, where American settlers would live in these houses with red rooftops with running water and electricity, while Palestinian Bedouins would not only get nothing but also have what they do have taken away from them, like this oven for bread in the ground that was demolished by the Israeli military because settlers complained.

This feeling that American Jews, and Americans like myself, for that matter, had more rights than Palestinians who lived there was baffling. This visualizing Palestine graphic-- which I highly recommend checking out the other graphics. They're really insightful-- shows us more about the rights Jewish-Americans have, for example, versus Palestinian refugees or even Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, for that matter.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

- All right, this is where I was sitting.

[END PLAYBACK]

What made it even more jarring was when President Biden visited in July while many of us were there. Signs were put up by B'Tselem an Israeli human rights organization saying something along the lines of, this is apartheid, Mr. President.

While interning for the Carter Center, we put together an advocacy campaign. In light of the murder of Shirin Abu Akleh by the Israeli military, there was and still is momentum for getting justice for her. We felt it was important to draw light to the many violations Palestinian-Americans are facing, such as murder, torture, attacks against Palestinian-American children, denial of Palestinian-American entry/exit, and land confiscations, as well.

We thought, if the US is able to turn a blind eye to Palestinians, they couldn't do so to Palestinian-Americans, right? Wrong. Unfortunately, there still is a lot of advocacy, awareness, and attention needed on this issue.

The Biden visit was yet another presidential visit in which many Palestinians I talked to didn't have hopes for any attention or action. They kind of just laughed as a response to Biden visiting.

When I returned, we wanted to make sure that we not only told people about what we saw but also built awareness about US involvement and our individual complicity in what's happening against Palestinians. We, at Harvard, in the Boston community, we are in a defining moment. It is a very ripe time for change, particularly in discourse surrounding Israel/Palestine.

I'm sure some of about the Ken Roth debacle earlier this semester. This is not an isolated incident, and the reinstatement of his fellowship and uproar most likely would not have happened if this person was not a white, Jewish male who served as the executive director of a huge human rights organization for 30 years.

I encourage you to follow Harvard PSC on Instagram to keep up to date about what is happening at Harvard. We're a big community, and there is a lot happening on this when it comes to discourse. I also highly recommend The Occupation of the American Mind it's a free documentary easily accessible online that I think is a game-changer. And I tell everyone about it so I'm telling you about it.

And, finally, BDS-- Boycott Divest Sanctions-- and the US CPR-- yes-- have some incredible resources, especially on coalition-building across other marginalized groups, for example, Black-Palestinian solidarity, since the US and Israeli government rely on each other a lot when training their military and police using similar forms of violence and tactics on both Black and Palestinian populations.

Lastly, a helpful resource to understand how complicit we are, just regionally, I guess, particularly when it comes to our tax dollars funding these atrocities, I turn to Sami, the one gal of the @TwoGalsinPal, to share with you a cool resource that's kind of scary.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

- You know how the [AUDIO OUT] gives a ton of money to Israel every year for military funding-- like $3.8 billion annually-- and that that means that taxpayers are footing the bill for a ton of human rights violations against Palestinians, right? If you're an American watching this, you might be wondering, how much does my city, my state, my congressional district pay out of that $3.8 billion per year?

Well, the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights has got you. They've got this sweet, interactive calculator where you can put in your state, congressional district, county, city, and it will tell you how much that that area paid per year. Here's Boston, for example $11 million.

It'll also tell you what that money could have funded instead-- teachers, food security, Pell Grants, health care, clean energy. I highly suggest you go check it out, whether you're American or not. And if you are American, after you check it out, maybe ask, do I want to pay for this?

[END PLAYBACK]

CIARA MOEZIDIS: A culture change is possible in the US, but the only way we can do this is by being bold and unapologetic in pursuit of a just peace-- shout-out HDS, RPL, RCPI. Personally, I struggle to be bold. There are a lot of repercussions and fear-mongering for talking about Peloton and Israeli apartheid. It took me some time to be more vocal publicly.

This experience made it clear that my voice and the voice of many of you in this room is critical for a culture change. If I am silent out of fear, ending human rights abuses is going to take a whole lot longer. If we all had that mentality, this would maybe be over tomorrow.

So, now, I wear my keffiyeh every Thursday for Keffiyeh Thursdays. I bring up Israel/Palestine in my classes. I talk about it with friends, and I post on social media.

This may not be what you all are comfortable with, but I encourage you to find ways, even small, that will go a long way, even just saying Israel/Palestine. What happens at Harvard can be a huge precedent for other schools to follow.

Things aren't going to change on its own. It's going to take all of us at Harvard and beyond to express concerns about these human rights violations and share that we do not want our taxes going to house demolitions, child arrests, murders, night raids, torture, pogroms, and other forms of direct structural and cultural violence.

Palestinians have been left out of the Israel/Palestine narrative for too long. And we all have a role in shifting that narrative, so be bold. On that, I will leave you with a sweet, little video filled with some moments and my friend who worked in the convenience store next to my house. Enjoy, and thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

- [INAUDIBLE]. We are very sad because you want to leave us, but I want to tell you something-- that we like you here. And we want to see you again, you and all of your friends from America, to come back to Palestine again.

- [SPEAKING ARABIC]

- You're welcome any time.

- Thank you.

- Yes. I hope that I will see you after six months, one year.

- [SPEAKING ARABIC] OK.

[CALVIN HARRIS, "SUMMER"]

- (SINGING) When I met you in the summer.

[END PLAYBACK]

CIARA MOEZIDIS: Thank you, guys.

[APPLAUSE]

HILARY RANTISI: Just invite everyone to come up, all those who presented, to grab your sheet and bring it up so we can have a conversation, if people have questions.

ZESEAN ALI: About that? Yes? OK. Yeah, thank you for listening. We wanted to give an opportunity to have the conversation with the group. So does anyone have questions for any of us or us as a group? We're happy to talk through our experiences.

UTHMAN: Hi. My name is Uthman. I'm a HKS student. I'm also taking the class, actually, and I'm planning then to go during summer. I was wondering-- one of the things that we're doing at the moment is-- I'm assuming you had the same experience-- grappling with all the readings, and they can be heavy and, yeah, kind of learning what's going on.

And I was wondering how those readings allowed you to approach the situation in place once you arrived. I was just wondering, how was that experience-- how was it for you to approach going there knowing-- having all this theoretical and background that you've built throughout the whole semester?

ZESEAN ALI: I can start. Yeah, that's a great question. So for those of you who are not familiar, we spent a summer doing an intensive, scholarly investigation into the region. I mean, we read a lot of scholarly articles. We read some novels, some stories. We watched a lot of films.

For me, I think my experience all semester was that I think grappling with the readings was difficult. They were dense. They weren't really coming to life for me. But it really took going there to really understand what a lot of those scholars were talking about.

I think the experiential learning component and the course paired nicely together. And I think it's only looking back, retrospectively, that those readings now make sense.

So I would maybe encourage you to stick with it and maybe realize that it's not all going to make sense right now, but I think, after you go there, those readings definitely come to life more. That was just my experience. I don't know if I want to add anything.

NOUR-LYNA BOULGAMH: To me, having maybe looked at more into the lens of this placement, I think a lot of the movies that we watched and the documentaries that we covered in class that tackled the topic of Nakba were half of the story, and then seeing what is happening now on the ground-- where did these people go? Where did they flee forcefully-- was interesting.

It was like completing another part of the story. Yeah. That stayed with me in my mind a lot. Yeah.

NICOLE: Yeah. I was just going to add that I think having the background of the readings really helped you see the bigger picture, even when you were having the very specific instances, like, for example, the military courts or the settlements. Having that theoretical background helped you tie it all together. But, also, I think it's helpful when you go to the region to also try not to think of it as an academic. Really be there and experience it, as well.

HILARY RANTISI: Nicole, do you want to just introduce yourself [INAUDIBLE]?

NICOLE: Oh, yes. Sorry. I'm Nicole. I'm a second-year master's student getting my master's in Middle Eastern studies.

AMIRA: Hi. I'm Amira. I'm also a second-year master's student at the Divinity School.

HILARY RANTISI: Can you also say where you went?

NICOLE: Oh, I didn't do the internship.

ALIYAH: Hi. I'm Aliyah. I'm a third-year M.Div student here. And I was on the trip. I didn't do an internship. I was on the trip.

HILARY RANTISI: I'm sorry [INAUDIBLE].

KAT: I'm so sorry. I had to leave early.

I'm Kat. I was at the Ed School and also did not do the internship. But I didn't want to say, the readings were really helpful because it showed you that the-- when you go there, it feels familiar. But what is familiar is the strategies and the techniques of oppression.

The readings show you how intentional it is. And when you walk around, you see art on the walls, and you see photos of martyrs, and you call back to the fact that this martyrdom is structural, and it's intentional. So it provides a really good framing. And, of course, when you be there, you want to be a human and process in that way, but it gives you that firm foundation.

JUDITH GUREWICH: I'm Judith Gurewich. I'm a publisher, and I publish as many Palestinian author an issue on Israel and Palestine as I can. I just want to know if you had the opportunity to meet some Israelis on your way in and if you were able to talk to them and see how they deal with this incomprehensible Stockholm syndrome that they are living through now.

And some of them are in denial some of them are not. Did you meet many of them-- any anecdotes to report on that front?

SHIR LOVETT-GRAFF: Yeah, we did meet several folks, I think, who were in different spaces politically. And then I stayed during the internship and also met several other people who ranged from people who spent every Saturday doing antioccupation-- like, putting their bodies on the line-- to people who were very much in either denial or, like, complacency, I would say.

JUDITH GUREWICH: People who are fighting.

SHIR LOVETT-GRAFF: Yeah.

JUDITH GUREWICH: How do they see the state of Israel? Do they think things have gotten worse, or do they see there is an issue in the creation of the land? How do they negotiate this?

SHIR LOVETT-GRAFF: Yeah. So the question-- I'll just repeat-- was, if I understand correctly, was how do Israelis who are fighting the occupation, fighting the apartheid state-- how do they see it? Do they see the injustice in the creation of the state of Israel, or do they think something has gone wrong?

I think there's both, and I think we met people who fell on both sides of that. And I think we also met people who very actively participated in the occupation and in upholding the apartheid state and then at a certain-- I mean, at a certain point realized what was going on or had some kind of paradigm shift.

And we spoke to several folks who were part of the IDF who then did a lot of work-- what would you call it?

ZESEAN ALI: Exposing?

SHIR LOVETT-GRAFF: Exposing-- exposing the IDF. And I think I'll just share that one of the folks we met with who is a really powerful activist shared with us that he joined the IDF, as he had to when he was 18, and, eventually, was discharged because he realized that what he was doing was so wrong that he was driven to a point of really strong suicidal ideation.

And the IDF discharged him because they didn't want to be responsible, in case something happened to him on his terms. And he spent the past many years working as an activist and shared with us that, in terms of his relationship to his family, that many members of his family don't speak to him. And, in fact, some of them have not only threatened him with violence but attacked him.

And I think that moment was really powerful for me, as an American Jew, because I think, for many American Jews, especially folks who are anti-Zionist, non-Zionist, or questioning their relationship with Zionism, that is so real. And it was really powerful to hear his perspective and his story, and we felt, I think, really honored that he shared the intimacy of that with us.

KEVIN KEYSTONE: I just wanted to say one thing on that question, too. And I apologize if I don't exactly answer your question. But one of the Israelis that we had the good fortune to meet was Hagai El-Ad He's the executive director of B'Tselem. So B'Tselem is an Israeli human rights organization which also published a report calling out Israeli apartheid and really describing it in that way.

And I'll never forget one of the things that he said to us. He said, for a long time, we thought that if we just exposed what was happening to the Israeli public, that they would be so horrified and so moved by what they saw that they would-- whatever-- their hearts would break, or they would change-- that they would change.

And he said, we've been doing that for a long time, and it hasn't worked. It really hasn't worked. And he said, so now we're in-- B'Tselem is in a moment of soul-searching and trying to figure out what, instead, is the thing.

And he said, where we've landed is that self-interest is really the thing. You have to raise the cost of apartheid. You have to raise the cost of what's happening here. And that is their new theory of change-- Israeli pressure.

ELAF: Thank you. My name is Elaf. I am a second-year student here at Harvard Divinity School. I'm Black. I'm Arab. I'm Muslim. I'm American. And in rooms like these, I feel all the hyphens in my identity clashing and trying to find space, as I would imagine is what is happening in Palestine.

I've had the fortune of making the Holy pilgrimage to Mecca many times. But, for some reason, this year-- and with Ramadan coming closer-- I feel the call to visit Jerusalem, which, as most people know, was the first direction of prayer for Muslims before the prophet told us that we would switch to Mecca.

And so my question for the panel hinges on two comments. I would love to hear what anyone has to say. My first question would be with regards to the spiritual charge of being on that land-- if anyone can put into words what it was like to be physically there.

And then my second question would be with regard to the fact that Arabs and Jews are cousins. We've been cousins for the longest time. If we go back long enough into the history, divisive storytelling is how we got here, and responsible storytelling is how we're going to get out.

And so I would love to hear any comments on that. And thank you for the beef shawarma. It's been ages since I've had Middle Eastern food this good. So I'm over the moon already. Thank you.

[LAUGHTER]

ALIYAH: This was actually a question when I came back from Israel/Palestine. People asked me, how did you feel like when you visited this spot, this space, or this place? And I was just like, for me, it wasn't-- I didn't really have a spiritual experience.

It was just very confusing because it was just, like, how do you have a spiritual experience with all of this violence and commotion? And just all of this going on around you was hard to take all of that in.

So I think, for me, that was the paradox because I'm, like, I'm supposed to be-- this is supposed to be a spiritual experience, but I didn't feel anything spiritual when I was there. And so that was kind of a thing for me.

ZESEAN ALI: I also had a very similar experience where-- I'm Muslim. I went to Al-Aqsa mosque. I went in hoping to feel some sort of spiritual elevation. I thought it was going to rock my world. But I just couldn't get into it.

And I almost feel-- I mean, even my mother asked me-- she's always wanted to go to Al-Aqsa, and she was like, what was it like? What was it like? And I just had nothing to say. I was suffocated by images of suffering and torment.

And I just really-- I couldn't get in that head space. Yeah. It's almost embarrassing to say, almost. But, I mean, I relate to that so much. I just I couldn't turn on that spiritual mode. Yeah. It just wasn't there.

CIARA MOEZIDIS: I have a thought, but I don't know if the answer is your question. But I think it's still relevant to-- on our two weeks, we went to a lot of places where the storytelling that was-- we'd all be in the same area, for example, in a really pretty view of all of Jerusalem.

And it was interesting to be with our tour guide from Grassroots Jerusalem who was giving us the Palestinian narrative of what's happening-- ethnic cleansing, displacement of East Jerusalem. And you could hear the other tours going on, and it was the most uncomfortable experience to be like, whoa. We're in the same place. We're looking at-- we're in a very beautiful place.

And, at the same time, I'm hearing Holy Land tour over here, birthright tours for Jewish students college, high school ages, and we're all hearing different narratives in the same place. And so the idea of storytelling and responsible versus not-- I think it really irked me because we have the privilege of being here, learning so much.

Knowledge is power. And being able to hear the alternative narrative while someone-- I don't know. I could imagine my mom going on a Holy Land tour and being like, it was beautiful and so holy. That's how she talks. But, yeah, it was something I was consistently grappling with where I just wanted to break from the tour and be like, ha, ha, guys. Can we just talk about this other elephant in the room, which some of the folks on our trek did at points. But still, yeah.

SPEAKER 3: Can you guys go to the White House? That's Harvard.

SHIR LOVETT-GRAFF: Maybe.

ZESEAN ALI: Yeah, We have yet to be invited.

[LAUGHTER]

ADAM: Hello, everyone. My name is Adam. And I want to thank you guys for sharing your stories, first off. So in my life experience, I know a lot of Jewish-Americans that would go to Israel over the summertime, as a means to connect back to their homeland.

But when they would go, they would spend their entire time in Tel Aviv, for example, where it's very much a villa in the jungle. And they're surrounded by the skyscrapers and the bustle of the city, and they don't really see the actual violence that's going on.

So I guess my question is, how do you compact the horrors and the violence of the apartheid into a form that you can communicate with them, as they have the luxury of having-- being able to look over this? They don't have to worry about it. They consider it not a part of their religion, not a part of their culture, not a part of their state of Israel. So how do you communicate this with them to inform them and educate them, in a way, so that they can know what is actually happening in Israel?

NOUR-LYNA BOULGAMH: Go.

CIARA MOEZIDIS: Go.

SHIR LOVETT-GRAFF: Yeah, I think that's a great question, and I think that really speaks to something that I really grappled with before signing up for this class, which is I knew that the experiential learning part would be a part of it. And, generally, as a person who tries to abide by BDS, I really struggled with the idea of whether or not to go at all and whether to-- I think it's a question around trauma tourism, and what are the ethics of travel?

What are the ethics of being in places? What does it mean that people are not believed? Do you have to go somewhere in order to believe them? And I feel really grateful for the opportunity to go on this trip because, in my community organizing work, I felt that it was important for me to have some time on the ground in Palestine.

But, that being said, I think there is a really big question about whether you have to go in order to get involved. I don't think you do. But I do think the impact of going is very powerful.

And I don't think there's a right answer. I think there's many different people with many different answers. Many of the folks that I in the US are very insistent that people do not go. And many of the folks that we met in Palestine expressed their gratitude to us that we were there. And so I think-- yeah, that's a question.

NOUR-LYNA BOULGAMH: To add to that, I think, also, it's mainly an issue of access, access to information and being mindful of where the information comes from because, on social media, you hear multiple narratives, and each come from a different-- with a different agenda. So being mindful of, where does that come from before actually taking it into account as an educative tool.

And, also, mainly focusing on being in such spaces, like these rooms, where maybe where you enter your beliefs, you have this preassumed understanding that your assumptions might be challenged. Your beliefs might be challenged.

But, still, you would walk in and allow yourself to be in such a room where you might not-- not everything you're going to hear is going to resonate with you-- with everything that you believed in before but, still, choosing to be here to learn more. Yeah. And I think it's very important to do that here at Harvard because we're privileged to be here, and that's the right way to make use of such spaces.

SPEAKER 3: Hey. Thank you so much for sharing. And I'm actually going to PalTrek. So in one week from now, around this time, I'll be traveling to Palestine. And I wanted to ask, for that reason-- I have actually two questions.

The first one is how to prepare. What is something that you wish you had known looking back-- so how to prepare mentally, emotionally, or in whatever sense, whatever comes to mind? And, also, how do you talk to people afterwards? Because a lot of my friends are going on iTrek.

Or, also, I come from a country, Germany, where I would say like awareness is not very high on Palestinian issues, for understandable reasons. But, still, you also mentioned that some family members or classmates are unaware, and I just wanted to ask whether you can share, maybe, best practices on how to actually reach the hearts and minds of people who are a little bit less aware.

CIARA MOEZIDIS: I can start. Yeah, I think we're all grappling with this question. We had a few friends that were in our class who actually went to PalTrek and then did the two weeks, one who then stayed the whole summer. And it was interesting to compare the different trips.

Because PalTrek is such a short period of time, you're going to be exposed to a lot. And so I think, first and foremost, just emotionally preparing in whatever way you can to hold space because there is going to be a lot of emotions in a very short period of time. And a lot of us didn't really know how to deal with that.

From a coming back standpoint, I think what was really important for me, personally-- I recognize, again, it's going to be a week, but then you're going to come back, and a lot of the folks are going to be coming back from iTrek. And I think there's just a really important responsibility that all of us have when we go and see everything, hear from all these Palestinian voices, to then come back and bring what they shared.

Because iTrek-- I'm running the PalTrek at the Fletcher School for the first year. Woo-woo-- shout out to some of the people here. But we've had these conversations, too, of, like, how can we prepare those going on this trek to come back and not just be like, oh, wow, that was really-- I learned a lot but then gate-keep all of that information.

And so I think everyone's going to process differently. It's going to be-- some may not be able to share anything for a few weeks, months, whatever it may be. But, at the same time, I think that if you can, if you feel comfortable to engage with your peers because you're going to be having very different experiences, but that dialogue is going to be really important one-on-one with your peers who maybe you already have credibility with.

And that's what I felt is not everyone's going to listen to me. Some people are going to shut me down just because I lived in Ramallah. I don't know. But others are going to be like, oh, yeah, Ciara, I like her, kind of, I guess. So maybe I should listen or I will listen to what she has to say, just because I like her as a person.

I think that's kind of all of our-- was some of our strategies of coming back and sharing with our family and friends, too, of, like, hey, I had this really important experience, and I really want to show it with you. And if you love me, then you'll listen to me-- so a little guilt.

Oh, yeah, Shir wants me to share one-- a little, short anecdote. I got back on a Thursday, and on a Saturday, my dad-- I live in California. My dad-- he hosted a family party because I had missed my birthday, or I celebrated my birthday and Palestine-- best birthday ever-- and then came back, and there was like 40 people over-- family members, friends.

And I made a PowerPoint. And I printed out a bunch of photos, and I put all of my souvenirs on the table, and I was like, OK, everyone. Come in the family room. And it was, like, 9:30 at night or 10:00, and then I had a two-hour presentation.

And I went through my entire camera roll of 2 and a half months, and I was like, this was that experience. This and this-- did you know that? I'm sure you didn't. Like, this-- and some of them were falling asleep. But the intention was there. Hearts and minds.

[LAUGHTER]

ZESEAN ALI: Yeah, I think I'll just add, very simply, I'll plug our course syllabus. To the extent that you have time, I think going in with some knowledge and doing some readings is really good. I don't have, really, much advice for how to emotionally prepare. I don't know if anyone does, really.

It's going to be a lot. I would encourage you to also expect that-- this is something I went through where I would encourage you to take a lot of notes and then expect that it'll take a long time to process things you see. It took me months to write my five- to ten-minute speech I gave, and I don't think that was really that much.

But a lot of the memories are kind of suppressed, and I think it helps to talk to people who were there with you to bring those memories out again. But I think just expect that it'll hit you in waves, and maybe you'll remember things months later that you suppressed immediately after the fact.

So take a lot of notes. Go in with some knowledge. Go in expecting that it'll be emotionally intense and that it'll maybe take a long time for it all to flow out. I mean, I think this, for me, was a very helpful experience in bringing things out again.

Again, it's easy to come back and just want to block it all out of your memory because it's hard stuff to grapple with. So I think many of us probably share that. Yeah. I don't know if that helps. Maybe that makes it worse.

NICOLE: Yeah. The only thing I would add is, like Zesean said, I would take a lot of notes. And I don't know about whatever mental health practices work well for you, take them with you. If you like to meditate, keep that up while you're there.

Just expect that it's going to be really, really hard. I think journaling really helps. But, yeah, it's going to keep coming up forever. When Kevin was talking today, I started crying again. Yeah.

And then as far as sharing, I would just say, I think one thing that really has helped approach my family and friends is sharing the personal anecdotes and the stories that Palestinians specifically told us because I think, at least the people that I'm engaging with, are sort of like-- they don't want to hear about Israel and Palestine politics and feel like I'm like a news person. They want to feel it in their hearts, so it helps expose that side and move past the news. So that's just my tip.

SPEAKER 4: Thank you very much. I'm not a Harvard student. I'm a fellow at the Kennedy School, and I'm a Palestinian. I've lived in the Middle East most of my life, but I'm living here now. But I just want to share with you one or two thoughts and then ask you a question.

I'm amazed at what I'm hearing tonight. I mean, I knew it would be amazing because Hillary's an old friend, but it's the first time I actually witnessed something like this. But you should know that what you're doing is really at the cutting-edge of a global movement of change.

You probably don't appreciate it right now, but I can tell you-- I'm 75 years old-- when I was in college 50, 55 years ago here in New York, in New York state, there was nothing like this about the Middle East. There was Vietnam War, the beginning of the environmental movement, the beginning of the women's rights movement.

But what you're doing now, today, is being involved in a movement that brings-- not a movement but in a process by which people wake up to the social injustice realities, and the oppression realities, and colonial realities, and all the things that you're studying. But it's important for you to understand that you bring together the four great movements that will shape and change our world, which is Black Lives Matter with colonialism, #MeToo movement; climate change, and the Palestinian issue.

The Palestinian issue is now the fourth global movement where demonstrations take place all over the world. And it's taken 55 years for this to happen on a big scale and for people like you at Harvard and for Harvard, officially, to offer a course like this and let you go. And other things are happening. I just got an email. There's an event tomorrow at the law school at Harvard about settlers and things.

So this is a profound process that you're involved in, and I really bow in humility before you, even though I've been involved in the struggle all my life. My question is, have you felt, since you've come back, any kind of serious push-back against the kind of things that you say, whether you're Jewish, or Muslim, or Christian-American, or secular, or whatever you may be?

Have you felt any push-back, and have you felt that the way you make progress is not just to tell people about what you saw and experienced but to be involved in a process of mobilization? One of you mentioned mobilizing or organizing, and that's how change happens. So Thank you very much for what you do.

ALIYAH: So the reason that I took the course was because I was approaching it-- I wanted to learn about Black-Palestinian solidarity. So that was the angle that I was approaching it from. And so coming back afterwards, I always-- when talking about Palestine-- I always try to connect it to the Black struggle here in the US.

And I found that talking to some Black people who have been to Israel-- they have done more of the holy sites and different things like that and don't necessarily know about the Palestinian struggle. And I have found push-back when talking about the Palestinian struggle because they have only seen one side. They were only exposed to one side.

So, for me, it's been about literally framing and connecting the identical issues that we see in Palestine to the issues that we see Black people facing in America. And, even here, at HDS is difficult. I mean, I've been called anti-Semitic by people-- by someone here at HDS.

So it's very difficult to have these conversations. But, for me, I always try to start from the perspective of the Black struggle, and then start from there.

CIARA MOEZIDIS: I can say something. I'd like someone else to say something, too.

[LAUGHTER]

My friends make a joke, and they're like, "wow, did you go to Palestine this summer or something" because I talk about it a lot. And I think that's important because there is a sort of destigmatizing that happens when you do that for people that might be on the fence and can make the connections of BLM and Palestine or other causes.

And I think the push-back I've gotten-- I had some push-back in my class a couple of weeks ago on memory politics, ironically, where the question was around how memory informs national identity-- heroism, victimization, et cetera. And, naturally, I wanted to talk about Israel/Palestine. After doing all our course readings, it felt a very important context.

And so I did-- I didn't know what the vibes were in the class, and I just said my spiel in a very nice way. And my professor said something in response along the lines of, thank you for your comment. In the United States, Israel/Palestine is a very controversial issue, and a lot of people get in trouble for talking about it.

And someone asked me why it's not on the syllabus, and I said, it's too complicated and too controversial. So I'll leave it at that. No comment. And I was just like, OK. That is not what I expected.

But I think there is examples like that where then it's really critical that we continue to not be scared about, maybe, any repercussions or fearmongering that comes out of it. And I think to answer your question more specifically, I don't know if I have faced necessarily direct push-back, even though I will wear a keffiyeh and do things like that.

But I'm sure people are talking about it behind my back, and that's cool, too. But I think just knowing that I saw what I saw. I can stand comfortably and say, I saw it, and that's the side of history I want to be on. And as long as I keep telling myself that, no matter what everyone else has to say, I can feel like I'm sleeping comfortably at night.

ZESEAN ALI: Yeah, I just wanted to say thank you for expressing your appreciation. I think it's very humbling to hear someone who's been part of the struggle for so many decades affirm us like that. So it's very humbling, as well, to hear your words.

I think the push-back is real. I think-- I get into these conversations, a lot with friends. Not all my friends share my views. But I think what I try to do is really be about the conversation. I'm not really someone who gets into a lot of online disputes, but I like to talk to people in person.

And I find that if you can sit down with someone, maybe you can collectively reach a point of at least a mutual understanding, if not agreement. I like to engage with people who have differing views from me because it helps me understand my own views better, and it helps me understand theirs.

So I like engaging in the conversation. And if you have dissidents or people who oppose your views and they want to talk to someone, I'm happy to talk to them. And I won't necessarily win that argument, but I think we can maybe both come out with a better understanding of each other. So I like the conversation. I think talking to people is a blessing. So, yeah, I don't know if that's a great answer to the question, but yeah.

SHIR LOVETT-GRAFF: I feel like I've been talking a lot.

ZESEAN ALI: No, no.

SPEAKER 5: Woo-woo.

SHIR LOVETT-GRAFF: Sorry. I was like, I have an answer for every question. Yeah, so in terms of push-back, I guess I'll just speak to a bit of the Jewish experience at Harvard talking about this. So I, among some other people in this room, help run-- I think the first of its kind-- a Jewish student group at Harvard for anti-Zionist, non-Zionist, and Jews questioning their relationship with Zionism group called Jews for Liberation.

And I'll just share that when we started that a little more than a year ago, I remember sending a group a WhatsApp message just saying, hello. I'm starting this group. If you'd like to be in it, please message me. And I turned off the notifications, and I woke up the next morning to two missed calls, one voicemail, and 80 messages.

And I think that, especially within the Jewish community, folks who are vocal about the struggle for Palestinian liberation are called everything from anti-Semitic to self-hating Jews. And I think that the pain of that is real.

And I also think that the responsibility and the pain is on Jewish community to support people in grappling with the internalized Zionist narratives that we have been taught so that burden does not fall on Palestinians. And that is the responsibility of Jewish leaders and spiritual caretakers.

And I think there's also a lot of fear within Jewish communities about the personal, familial, political, religious, and professional push-back and consequences of being vocal about your support for Palestinian liberation and Jewish-Palestinian solidarity. I'm a person looking at a career in Jewish leadership, and I know that I have already faced and will continue to face professional consequences for the rest of my life.

And I think that, I guess, just what I want to say is I think the fear of whatever the consequences are in being vocal about Palestinian liberation cannot outweigh the importance of being vocal about Palestinian liberation. And it is on us collectively, as people from different marginalized communities, to build solidarity, to build the spiritual and collective strength to work through the challenge of that in order to be vocal about Palestinian liberation.

[APPLAUSE]

SPEAKER 6: Hi. I'm an student thinking about taking this class for, I don't know, the next round of people going, not in the class now. But I have, I guess, just concerns-- not concerns, but personal stuff that makes me question going on a trip, kind of what to you were saying, Shir.

And I was just wondering if some of you felt that similarly and the trauma tourism business-- if that bled through into the trip and how that, maybe you guys felt about that because I feel like that's something I'm struggling with related to taking this class.

ALIYAH: So, for me, it's different because, like I said, I was approaching this to learn about Black-Palestinian solidarity. So, for me, seeing those connections was what I really needed to see because I really wanted to see how this was a global, white supremacy system. And so although some of the things we saw were bad, like I said, I needed to see those things because I needed to see it in a larger picture.

So it can feel like trauma tourism, but, for me, I'm going to say it didn't feel like that. But, for me, it really was a learning experience. So if you approach it from that angle-- literally, like a learning experience-- it's different.

And then the people want to tell you their story. They want you to see what's going on because, of course, the mainstream media manipulates narratives. And so they really want you to see what's going on. So I think approaching it from that might help.

NICOLE: Yeah. I think the one short thing I'll say is that everyone we spoke to was so eager to tell us our story and then say, go back and tell your friends and family. And so, for me, I felt like I worked out those feelings by taking that on. I didn't go there just to see this trauma and then move on with my life. I went there to do what they told me to do-- to go back and share what they had told me.

CIARA MOEZIDIS: I, again, think it goes back to the conversation around gatekeeping the experience. There was 16 of us who went on the trip-- 15. And, yeah, that's a good amount of people. But, at the same time, there are so many people that can't go on the trip because Harvard doesn't have enough resources or other conversations.

And I think, because it's such a privilege, if you're able to go on this trip or even go on PalTrek, these are experiences that, for some reason, I feel people give more credibility to the folks who have seen it. And so that's another thing that I felt like when grappling along-- when grappling with the idea of trauma tourism, I continued to think about "go back and tell them what you saw" and also that now they know I just spent some time there, and I got a different perspective than all the people who have traveled to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and said they've visited these beautiful places. And I can actually share the narrative.

And one last thing that I wanted to mention last time, but it also is relevant to this question, is just, when we came back, I think all of us had the same understanding that we're not going to be able to win the hearts and minds of those who are staunchly pro-Israel or Zionist. They already have their mind made up.

I mean, maybe some of us feel that way, but I think the majority of us also felt like, no, the people that we need to go tell are the people that are just like, yeah, Israel/Palestine-- there's a conflict, right? And those are the minds and hearts that, if you win those, that's going to contribute to the culture change, not those who have their mind made up on either side. Then you're preaching to the choir, or you're preaching to acquire that doesn't want to listen, if that's-- I don't know if that made sense.

[LAUGHTER]

You get it. Cool.

NOUR-LYNA BOULGAMH: I think, also, to add to that, personally, being a student at the design school, I think there is this large sense of unfamiliarity with the conflict, which pushes people away a bit. They just know Israel/Palestine. That's it. They just-- it doesn't resonate with them much.

But if you bring it, for example, from Aliyah's perspective, like to-- let's say if you could compare it to a different struggle, humanitarian struggle that people might resonate with more here in the United States and understand that we're talking still about the same issues of resistance, and of solidarity, and oppression, then it would resonate more with the people.

And from what I've observed here being at Harvard, I think the majority, they just don't know where they stand. They don't feel comfortable talking about something that they're not very familiar with. There is the language barrier. There is the cultural barrier. And being on the strip breaks that barrier down.

And, also, to bring it back to the issue of access, I personally couldn't go because of my nationality, being an Algerian. And, still, I feel like my peers having gone there and came back-- they had this perspective that it's an opportunity that is given to them to go, that not everyone is capable of doing that. And choosing to come back and tell the stories of the people-- because the people there, they struggle a lot with this issue of access.

They can't leave those territories. It's very hard for them. I have a lot of Palestinian friends. Even after they won, let's say, scholarships or so to pursue their education, they're still not able to go on to pursue their educational opportunities because of just simply being Palestinian. And so that's why this-- reporting back the stories is very important for them. That's how you change the narrative.

HILARY RANTISI: Well, now, I think we've-- well, we've reached the hour. Thank you all for joining us, but please join me in thanking everyone who's [INAUDIBLE].

[APPLAUSE]

So many of you hear our students, and hopefully these conversations will continue. With the students who are on campus, you can always reach out to us.

ALIYAH: Can I just say one thing? I just want to thank Reem, Hilary, Professor Omer for coordinating the trip. It was really a blessing to have a trip that was centered around the Palestinian struggle. To take tours of Tel Aviv, of different places from a Palestinian lens was honestly a blessing because you don't get that narrative. So thank you, Reem. Thank you, Hilary.

[APPLAUSE]

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SPEAKER 1: Copyright, 2023. President and Fellows of Harvard College.