I first met Lena Rizkallah when she reached out to Tin Shingle back when I was designing and building a co-work space, to bring a physical dimension to the digital community that has always been offered here at Tin Shingle. Lena came in to the space, loved the vibe, and wanted to rent the space to host her financial seminars and work from the shared desks from time to time.
I closed up shop soon after because the building sold and I wasn’t a fit with the new landlord. All good, things happen for a reason. Lena, however, hung around Tin Shingle, following our content. She was committed during the pandemic, to offering financial advice as things kept changing.
“They built an apartheid wall—an ugly cement wall that separates families in the Occupied Territories from the rest of Palestine. Here’s the irony—on the Arab side, the wall looms big, ugly, grey, with graffiti scribbled all over it, trash at the base and barbed wire on top and watch towers poking out from which Israeli soldiers observe the prisoners-the Arabs. On the Israel side of the wall, you don’t even recognize it because they’ve pimped out the wall with cool landscaping, shrubs, flowers and a sidewalk. ”
When I first published about Palestine, when I first became aware of their crushed existence on the territory that is now called Israel (land is always shifting), Lena was the first to “Like” and even “Comment.” I had been shot down by a former Tin Shingler, telling me that the subject matter was too “controversial” for a business publication to publish about. My own husband said to me: “Do you have to cover everything?”
Well, since then, the world erupted (and here too!) in favor of Palestine (hello, Bella Hadid!), and even President Biden had to shift in his decades long support for Benjamin Netanyahu.
We had to quickly make it past theories like “Being pro-Palestinian is not Anti-Semitic,” which sadly paralyzed supporters in years past, like Penelope Cruz who would be branded as that when she voiced support. Not so this year after the racial re-awakening in the United States and world, as people are hyper aware of who is being oppressed, and who is suffering under violence.
Back in my hometown of Beacon, NY, there was a march being organized across the Hudson River (that river was formerly called “Mahicantuck,” which means "the river that flows two ways." This name was from the Native American tribe called the Lenape, who populated what is now known as the Hudson Valley region) in Newburgh, NY.
I attended the march as a reporter for my local publication, A Little Beacon Blog. The march met in an open mic session at Rep. Sean Maloney’s regional office in Newburgh. That’s when I saw Lena walk up the steps and deliver her speech. This was totally unexpected, as I had no idea she was Palestinian, or vocal.
Such is the benefit from attending protest marches. I can tell you from experience of covering Black Lives Matter protests during 2020 for A Little Beacon Blog: anyone who quickly puts “protest” and “looting” in the same sentence within 5 minutes is living in denial and doesn’t have an interest in learning about anyone else’s lived experience. Attend a march. I promise you will learn from it.
Lena’s speech was direct and comprehensive. She gave Tin Shingle permission to republish in full. Please take a read to learn her perspective. The video of her speech has been published below as well.
Lena Rizkallah 5/22/2021
“For so many reasons, being a Palestinian of the diaspora and an American is disorienting.”
I am a proud first generation Palestinian American and I’d like to share a couple thoughts with you all about the situation in Palestine. I want to start by telling you all a quick story.
One of my earliest memories was when I was a little girl, maybe 4 or 5—I was playing with my older brother and he took my toy and wouldn’t give it back. I ran to my mother crying and tried to explain the severity of the situation to her and ended by saying ‘it’s not fair!’. She kneeled down to face me, wiped my little tears, looked me straight in the face and said “ya Lena life is not fair. There is no justice.”
Now remember, I was 5. But this was my mother’s experience and there was no reason to sugarcoat anything, even to a 5 yr old. And I’ve never forgotten that moment and that truth and it’s resonated throughout my life.
And it’s awkward because I am Palestinian American. Being an American means living with the confidence that when I put my head down to sleep at night, the worst that might happen is I have a bad dream or the AC is too loud or my dog hogs the bed. Being an American means that I can travel freely throughout the US and the world. I can work, build a career, send my imaginary kids to any school that I can afford. As an American, I have an expectation-a right- to peace and equality and justice.
On the other hand, I am the daughter of the Palestinian diaspora.
My mother is a Palestinian refugee born in a small town about 20 minutes from Haifa, and my father was an immigrant from Ramallah. In 1948 when my mother was about 6 years old, she had to flee her hometown with her parents and 2 sisters because the Zionists had reached her village. My grandparents were planning to return but they never did.
For so many reasons, being a Palestinian of the diaspora and an American is disorienting. I grew up feeling very different from other kids at school—not just because of my Arab fro and unibrow, my hummus sandwiches and the fact that my dad picked me up from school wearing a dishdsheh. People I knew since kindergarten asked me where I was from and when I said Palestine it took me 20 minutes to explain why you can’t find it on a map.
I felt different because while I felt the security of America, it didn’t jive with the experiences of my parents and the history of my family in Palestine. From a young age, I understood that sure, everyone deserves freedom and justice-- but not everyone gets it.
I grew up over the last few decades watching the occupation unfold, the Israeli state broadening its control over the land and resources, and its power and influence expanding over the world. We watched as its ideologies infiltrated the media, education, churches, world history and culture.
We have watched helplessly, infuriated, as religious Jewish families from Brooklyn could move into a Palestinian’s 150 year old home and squat there, demand the Arab family to show an Israeli-court approved deed (which of course they don’t have because they’ve lived there since before Israel) and eventually have the Palestinian family evicted.
Watched settlers and soldiers bulldoze over centuries-old olive groves, destroying the livelihood of extended Palestinian families.
“ I have hope that we can make change happen for Palestinians. I have hope that the world will look at Palestinians not as the ‘freedom fighters’ of the 1980’s or the ‘guerrillas’ of the 1990’s or the ‘terrorists’ of post-9-11 or as what they call us today— “Hamas” —but as mothers and fathers and students and children and people with hopes and dreams like all of us have. ”
How the State of Israel confiscates swaths of land all over the West Bank, turning our land into Area A, Area B, and the worst, Area C, and penning the people inside.
How Israel created separate roads for settlers to drive around the West Bank on their way to Jerusalem and Haifa and avoid Arab villages.
They built an apartheid wall—an ugly cement wall that separates families in the Occupied Territories from the rest of Palestine. Here’s the irony—on the Arab side, the wall looms big, ugly, grey, with graffiti scribbled all over it, trash at the base and barbed wire on top and watch towers poking out from which Israeli soldiers observe the prisoners-the Arabs. On the Israel side of the wall, you don’t even recognize it because they’ve pimped out the wall with cool landscaping, shrubs, flowers and a sidewalk. Israel’s apartheid wall is like a prostitute getting ready for her next customer, covering up her used and abused body with a distracting leopard print dress and cheap perfume.
If you are a Palestinian born and raised in the West Bank, your family has been there for generations—check this out— although the Mediterranean Sea is only a 45 minute’s drive from you, you have never seen it because you have to beg for a permit from Israel—which they are unlikely to issue. There is no freedom of movement for Palestinians, every place outside of a few West Bank villages means humiliating checkpoints and permits, including a hopeful visit to the sea.
But if you are a Jew born and raised in Sydney, Australia and decide to move to Israel into a settlement near Ramallah for example, the sky’s the limit. You can have coffee at Starbucks in Jerusalem, meet a friend for a sushi in Haifa and go clubbing Tel Aviv --no problem. If this isn’t apartheid I don’t know what is.
They have done an excellent job of manipulating the narrative and telling the occupation story their way, so that every time they bomb or bulldoze homes and land, they do it in ‘self-defense’, to ‘protect their existence.’ This affluent country with the 4th most powerful military and probably one of the best intelligence/spy machines in the world that receives billions of military aid from the US every year—has Americans convinced that:
The Palestinian man in Bethlehem who has to apply for a permit to go to his chemotherapy appointment—he is the terrorist.
Or the Palestinian woman who has to give birth in the taxi while waiting in line to cross the checkpoint to get to the hospital – she is the terrorist.
Or the little boy from Gaza walking around with a bucket collecting whatever broken toys he can pick up from the rubble of his home - he is the terrorist.
The most successful and devastating thing that Israel has accomplished is this—the unapologetic belief that the existence of Israel is so critical that it trumps the dignity and humanity of Palestinian; they can drop bombs flagrantly over Palestinian homes and bodies with impunity because the existence of Israel and the Jewish people is more important than the existence of Palestinians. That is Israel’s message to the world, and with the unwavering support of the US, it has been successfully heard loud and clear.
But despite the lesson I learned from my mother when I was 4, or the decades watching Israel encroach on more Palestinian land, I HAVE HOPE. I am old enough to remember when the bricks came down from the Berlin Wall; I remember when South Africa decided to confront and disassemble their policy of apartheid. I recall last year’s summer of rage and people protesting in the streets after the world watched a Black man suffocate to death under the knee of a police officer.
Individual voices-collectively –make change happen. I have hope that we can make change happen for Palestinians. I have hope that the world will look at Palestinians not as the ‘freedom fighters’ of the 1980’s or the ‘guerrillas’ of the 1990’s or the ‘terrorists’ of post-9-11 or as what they call us today-- “Hamas” --but as mothers and fathers and students and children and people with hopes and dreams like all of us have. That we don’t deserve to be bombed and murdered as the world looks away.
3 ways to make your voices heard:
Keep talking about Palestine. Post about it, don’t be afraid to have a conversation about it and most important don’t let the ‘it’s so complicated’ argument keep you silent. Ask yourself as a human being, how do I feel about watching people being evicted from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah just as countless Palestinians were evicted in Hebron years ago and all over Palestine? How do I feel about watching families annihilated by bombs in Gaza? That’s worth talking about.
Make a donation to a Palestinian charity that will help those in need-my favorites are UNRWA, The Palestine Children’s Relief Fund and Islamic Relief USA. The ADC and IMEU are great organizations that track American policy, law and media towards Arabs and Palestine and work towards making change.
https://www.unrwa.org
https://irusa.org
https://imeu.org
https://support.adc.orgGet involved by calling your representative to support a bill introduced in the House of Reps by Rep McCullum—HR 2590 The Palestinian Children and Families Act. Keep the pressure on our elected leaders to come to their senses—to start leading with humanity.
This struggle has been real for 73 years and probably won’t let up for a while, but I am so encouraged by all of the support from around the world and all of your shining faces here today. I HOPE that we can keep this up so that they can hear our voices in Gaza and feel that they aren’t alone.
Thank you.