Palestinians in the U.S. are under attack

“Leave now!” “Get the f**k out of my town!”

These are two messages a man left on the Facebook pages of the Ramallah Club and the Arab American Club in Knoxville, Tennessee. Samyah Jubran, a District Attorney in Knoxville and member of the American Federation of Ramallah Palestine (AFRP), reported these incidents to the FBI. 

Jubran tells Mondoweiss that the FBI will keep this man on their radar and that Palestinian and Arab Americans in Knoxville are meeting with Homeland Security agents as well for guidance.

“Thankfully, as of now, there are no credible threats, including by this guy, in Knoxville against our community or the Jewish community,” she explained.

However, threats are credible elsewhere. Palestinian Americans have been on edge since October 7, when Israel first declared war on Gaza. 

“The wave of anti-Palestinian sentiments that Palestinian-Americans and their supporters have faced is deeply troubling,” Hanna Hanania, a Palestinian American from northern Virginia, tells Mondoweiss. “Media portrayal can indeed influence public perceptions, and it is essential for balanced and fair reporting to replace harmful stereotypes.”

Palestinian Americans have also lived in fear since the horrific stabbing of six-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume in Chicago, Illinois. The boy’s landlord stabbed him and his mother dozens of times simply because they were Palestinian.

Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Muslim Civil Liberties Union, told the Associated Press that Palestinian Americans, already heartbroken over the brutality against their homeland, “have to also worry about the immediate safety of life and limb living here in this most free of democracies in the world.”

Wadea’s story is one of many. In Cleveland, Ohio, a 20-year-old Palestinian man fell victim to a hit-and-run by a driver shouting anti-Palestinian slurs such as “Long live Israel,” “Kill all Palestinians,” and “DIE!” While the victim is hospitalized for his injuries, the Cleveland chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) calls for an investigation on all locality levels to find the driver and to monitor anti-Palestinian hate crimes.

“We should all feel safe to walk down the street to grab a bite to eat, go to the store and go to school,” Faten Odeh, Cleveland Interim Executive Director for CAIR, said in a statement condemning the violence.

CAIR facilities in Cleveland and other cities have specifically been targeted with acts of aggression and racism. On October 13, an individual – which sources allege to be Alexander Popivker of Cleveland Heights, who has committed similar acts previously – breached security at a CAIR press conference in Cleveland to disrupt the event.

Outside of Cleveland, the Marriott Crystal Gateway Hotel in Arlington, Virginia, canceled a CAIR banquet when the hotel received thousands of calls threatening violence if the event continued. The hotel sits just outside the nation’s capital and holds this banquet annually to fundraise for CAIR. But this year, since the banquet would have focused on supporting Palestinians, the hotel received enough calls to warrant safety concerns.

Another hotel – the Hilton Houston Post Oak Hotel in Houston, Texas – canceled a conference for the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights because of similar safety concerns. The hotel feared for the safety of their guests due to organized calls by members of the Zionist Organization of America threatening to plant bombs and Molotov cocktails in the hotel, according to AP.

Since October 7, pro-Palestinian free speech has either been met with threats of violence or with other forms of resistance. On October 25, Florida Governor and Republican Party presidential nomination candidate Ron DeSantis forced the State University System of Florida to ban chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) on Florida campuses. DeSantis has previously gone on record saying he wants to ban Palestinian refugees from entering the United States, and that all Palestinians are antisemitic, according to Al Jazeera. While claiming SJP members are “aligned with Iran or Hamas” and have “support for terrorist groups,” DeSantis supports Israel’s move to deprive the Gaza strip – home to 2.3 million people and dropping – of food, water, electricity, and fuel.

At other campuses, the SJP chapter at George Washington University’s campus in Washington, D.C., projected pro-Palestine messages on the university library’s wall. “Glory to our martyrs,” the message read, mourning the Gazan lives lost to Israel’s retaliation. “End the siege on Gaza.” Campus police, in response, ordered SJP to take the messages down, and University President Ellen Granberg condemned the messages as “celebrations of terrorism,” according to ABC News. In an article for Mondoweiss, Students for Justice in Palestine at George Washington University rebutted these accusations and made clear the action was in full compliance with the law and university policies pertaining to free speech.

Students at other universities are not only facing backlash for voicing support for Palestine but also getting job offers revoked. While job firings for pro-Palestinian activism are nothing new – in May 2021, AP journalist Emily Wilder was fired with “little to no explanation” for her pro-Palestinian activism in college years before – they have recently ramped up. Upon reading a letter by Harvard students in support of Gaza, stating the events of October 7 “did not occur in a vacuum” and “the apartheid regime is the only one to blame,” Wall Street executives and other firms have been rescinding their job offers to these students. Nearby, at New York University Law School, student body president Ryna Workman drafted a similar letter, blaming the “tremendous loss of life” on Israel’s occupation of Palestinians. Workman immediately got her position as president revoked, and her job offer at Winston & Strawn was rescinded. She also received an inbox filled with death threats.

Hazami Barmada, a Harvard alumnus and Palestinian-American living in Washington, D.C., tells Mondoweiss her former classmates and even coworkers have shamed her for standing up for the people of Gaza. “Shame on you, I thought you were different,” they tell her.

“I don’t know if that’s discrimination, but it’s sure as hell racism,” Barmada says.

In addition to blatant bans on freedom of speech, Harvard students are calling on the university to protect its Palestinian or pro-Palestinian students who are being doxxed by conservative, Zionist groups like Canary Mission. Groups like Canary Mission seek out individuals who criticize Israel in any capacity and release private information such as addresses, career history, and any aliases publicly online. A billboard truck, funded by a similar conservative organization, displayed names and photos of Harvard students who signed the above letter, denoting them “Harvard’s Leading Antisemites.” The truck drove by Harvard’s campus and later drove by Columbia University’s campus.

“The delayed response from the Biden administration, particularly from the President, has undoubtedly exacerbated the challenges faced by Palestinian-Americans,” says Hanania. “In times of crisis, prompt and empathetic leadership can make a significant difference in addressing discrimination and fostering a more inclusive society.”

The mainstream media is also playing a role. Daniel Harb, a member of the Palestinian-American community in Knoxville, says the media discourse contributed to the threats there.

“People watch Fox News here and listen to conservative far-right radio,” he told Mondoweiss. “We hear a lot of talk and social media from locals that are not well versed in the situation saying how Israel must defend itself and wanting to bomb the hell out of Gaza.”

Despite these attacks, Palestinians and their allies remained determined.

“What’s been driving me is the resilience of Palestinians in this moment,” Workman said in her interview with The Intercept. “I will continue to speak out for them and ask for these demands of an immediate ceasefire and this provision of this humanitarian assistance in a safe, secure, and timely fashion to the people of Gaza.”