Palestinian Student Activism at UW-Madison: An Auto-Ethnography

Why did I become an activist?

As a Palestinian and Lebanese-American, I grew up acquainting myself with the U.S. government’s view of Arabs as disposable, from the ongoing support of Israel to the post-9/11 bigotry. Born in 2004, I distinctly remember the aftermath of post-9/11 Islamophobic and anti-Arab rhetoric in my class when I was as young as nine years old. We had the obligatory 9/11 lesson each year, commemorating the attacks but seldom discussing their increasingly devastating aftermath for Arabs. Former President George W. Bush was regularly portrayed as a hero avenging the “American people” in what has become known as “the American War on Terror.” At the same time, the blood of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis at the hands of U.S. troops was irrelevant and not worth mentioning. 

Even before Israel’s genocide, I closely monitored the Israeli occupation, through making sense of Al Jazeera articles and discussions with my mother, who grew up in the Arabic-speaking world. The 2021 Sheikh Jarrah evictions were the turning point from which I knew that the American government and media openly and staunchly supported the occupation. It was the first time I had access to social media, and I was able to view the unfettered praise Zionists showered the Israeli government with, as it continuously and violently displaced Palestinians in the West Bank. Somewhat naive to the heavy American media bias towards Zionism, I searched up CNN, hoping that, as a so-called liberal media outlet, they would honestly and ethically cover the Israeli government and occupation forces’ displacement of Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah. Instead, not only was there no mention of the Palestinian narrative, but carefully selected components framed Palestinians as irrational and barbaric. 

In my hometown, there were barely any people of color, let alone Arabs, with the majority being white and conservative-leaning. “Trump 2020” signs proudly decorated people’s lawns before the 2020 presidential election. Therefore, I was not aware of any effective and systemic avenues for my activism before arriving at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. And for the longest time, I had viewed efforts to make a change in my predominantly-white community as futile.

The following autoethnographic account situates my personal activism in the context of Israel’s genocide and the resilience of Arab-Americans and anti-Zionist student activists in the face of sharp opposition from universities across the West.

My Activism at UW-Madison

I chose to enroll at UW-Madison under the impression that it was a progressive institution, due to the seemingly progressive nature of the city of Madison, where pride flags are hung up in every other restaurant. However, after October 7, I was in for a rude awakening, as it was anything but that. Chancellor Mnookin’s statement blatantly prioritized the humanity of Israelis, asserting in a statement to the UW-Madison community on October 11, 2023, that “Politics in the Middle East are exceedingly fraught, and there are many deeply held perspectives.” Due to the lack of administrative support for Palestinians on campus, as a Palestinian-American, I felt it was my duty to make my voice heard. 

The first protest I was involved in was on October 17, just ten days after October 7, and perhaps one of my most damning experiences as an anti-Zionist activist. It was a chilly Wisconsin fall day when I walked from work to the protest. I knew that a group of student counter-protesters would be present. Still, I did not know they would be so forthright and personal in their acts of defiance. We were constantly reminded of the tired argument: “Hamas kills babies,” spat from their mouths, but also aggressively threatened with the hope that Hamas would rape us. One of the counter-protesters even lunged forward, with the intent of ripping off a protester’s hijab. Despite their demeaning chants and Islamophobic confrontation, they tried to frame us as aggressive and out of control, motioning for us to calm down when we pushed them out of the space until they left us alone with their vile threats.

During this time, many events gave me hope, especially those forging relationships with other marginalized communities. In the spring of 2024, at the height of student activism at UW-Madison, I led a workshop on pinkwashing and homonationalism in a tiny space in the Gender and Sexuality Campus. Many queer people showed up, cramming into the limited space, but without the knowledge of how their struggle relates to that of the Palestinians. One even inquired why we (people who identify as queer and trans) are obligated to support Palestinians if they supposedly do not serve our cause. With that, I outlined how the Israeli government and society’s treatment of queer Palestinians exemplifies the reason for our struggle: the liberation of queer people everywhere from the shackles of colonialism propped up by the West. Refusing to advocate for queer people in other regions due to internalized stereotypes created by the supporters of a settler-colony should not be tolerated amongst queer and trans people. After the workshop concluded, the same person approached me with a renewed understanding of the diverse peoples and aims our struggle should support, eagerly inquiring about when the next teach-in would be.

On a rainy April day in the spring of 2024, during the same semester as my previous workshop, I walked from class to the anti-Zionist encampment like I had been doing for the past week. I gave the same lesson on pinkwashing, but with a unique audience and environment. While teaching the lesson outside in the drizzling rain, which was not a typical classroom setting, I was pleasantly surprised when a past instructor joined the teach-in. In my first year of university, in the fall of 2022, they had taught me how to view American policy and social justice movements, particularly LGBTQ+ ones, through a critical lens, which gave me a framework for the rest of my college career. Teaching them allowed my journey as an activist to come full circle, enabling me to pay my instructor back with my expertise, adding an anti-colonial lens to their own.

Fear and Surveillance as an Activist

Although not traditionally seen as activism, being a Palestinian on campus also means enduring sharp insults routinely thrown like daggers at you during “civil discussions” in class – in other words, existence is resistance. I was already sweating, anxiously awaiting the discussions that would lead to demeaning Palestinians in my humanities and social science courses, but it was worse than I could have imagined. One of my professors asserted that anti-Zionist protesters needed to stop using “dumb chants” because they are unproductive, not realizing the racial implications of this statement. Whilst approaching them after class to hold them accountable for their statements, they immediately jumped on the defensive, wearing a look of shock as I confronted them. They soon rolled back their statements, eventually admitting that they felt a deep sense of sadness for the Palestinians and tearing up. Still, they criticized how Palestinians and their supporters deem it right to fight for a free Palestine.

Those against the Palestinian cause also work tirelessly to intimidate us. When I first began protesting and organizing, I continuously searched for my name on Canary Mission, a Zionist doxxing site, with my heart pounding until the results did not show any profile featuring my name. In a class discussion, I mentioned that I had participated in talks with the UW administration over the treatment of Arab students on campus, to which a student prodded me for specifics, badgering me with questions like “What organization were you with?” and “What did you say about the war (as too many people label it)?” I could feel my face warming to a bright red as her questions narrowed, cornering me in, attempting to gather information to weaponize against me. Just then, she abruptly ceased her line of questioning, simply stating, “Yeah, it’s (the genocide) very complicated,” discounting crystal clear Palestinian suffering.

Presidential Primary Activism

Despite the pushback from my administration, teachers, and peers, as the April 2, 2024, presidential primaries approached, I felt it was my duty as an Arab-American to dissent. The Vote Uninstructed movement that took hold in Wisconsin urged Democrats to vote for an uninstructed delegation to hold former President Biden accountable for his support of the war in Gaza. I quickly took on a leadership role on my campus, organizing four canvassing events with other anti-Zionist activists. We stood for hours enduring the frigid Wisconsin weather, handing out flyers. We reached approximately 500 students and community members in person and thousands via social media.

While canvassing, I encouraged many students to reassess their relationship with politics, allowing them to use their vote to voice dissent, as opposed to praising the U.S. establishment and its foreign policy. This activism exposed them to new ways of utilizing their leverage, contributing to 48,373 votes for an uninstructed delegation. While canvassing, many students expressed that they were not hopeful that American foreign policy would ever change regarding the Israeli government. Due to this, they were either not planning to vote or felt pressured to vote for a candidate they fundamentally disagreed with. I explained that they did not have to vote for the status quo in the primary, encouraging them to vote uninstructed. Although a few people told me, “I like Joe Biden,” overall, my advocacy allowed them to re-evaluate how they could successfully dissent to uphold the humanity of Palestinians. My influence encouraged me to continue my activism in the face of adversity from continuous threats of doxxing and intimidation.

Reflections on Anti-Zionist Activism at UW-Madison

Being an anti-Zionist activist at UW-Madison entails facing constant bigotry, but continuing the fight anyway as that is what makes Palestinians resilient. Even when other activists and I do not have the emotional capacity to approach advocacy with optimism, we approach it with the belief that sitting idly while Palestinians in Gaza, some of whom are our family members, face a genocide is cruel and unacceptable. Carrying this label also means immersing yourself in the struggles and histories of other disenfranchised peoples to build a coalition for a free Palestine and a world free from occupation and genocide. At UW, this looked like helping Palestinian activists build a coalition with the Black Power Coalition, Queer and Trans People of Color, and Mecha (an anti-colonial Latinx organization) to advocate for an end to all genocides in the Global South. All struggles will only come to an end if we support all liberations, with no single liberation of a people contradicting any others. This includes the support of queer people for Palestinians, even if they hold the false belief that Palestinians will not support them in return.

Many close people in my life who love and care for me continuously ask, “Why are you putting your whole life at stake just to protest?” And to that I say that, despite the troubles of being an activist for Palestine, vocally condemning genocide is the least I can do as a Palestinian-American with immense privilege and solidarity for Palestinians in our homeland.