Is Condemned at Home and Praised by the House
Keeping the Palestinians Alive: The Story of Israel-Hamas Conflict in the Light of the Occupation of Israel and Israel
The project’s mission is to give Palestinians a chance to tell their own stories without relying on Western gatekeepers or foreign intermediaries. Although the project pairs aspiring journalists and activists with mentors in the United States and Europe who give them advice on their writing, the point is to allow Palestinians to decide what stories are told, according to Pam Bailey, who co-founded the project with Mr. Alnaouq.
It used to be difficult in the United States to hear a Palestinian perspective on the conflict. While Israelis have an embassy in Washington and a host of groups dedicated to communicating with the American public, the Palestinians have not had the same public relations capacity. Ordinary people whose family members were killed by the Israeli military are posting wrenching social media posts.
Many Israelis and American Jews are outraged by the vocal criticisms of Israel on display at protest marches in recent weeks, which feel particularly painful in the wake of the devastating Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians. At times, pro-Palestinian protesters have veered into blatant antisemitism or worse. Critics have called We Are Not Numbers an anti-Israeli organization. Some outlets have been accused of bias in recent weeks, but the impact of that criticism has been lessened by other outlets.
Mr. Alnaouq is going to attend a journalism school in Britain. He lives in London now and helps manage the project from afar. He told me he has always believed in peace, and that he is very anti-violent as a human rights defender. He does not agree with the killing of civilians, including the Oct. 7 attacks. He also insisted that peaceful coexistence can be achieved only once Israelis understand the injustice that Palestinians endure and address it.
For more than a month, the suburbs of Detroit have played host to vigils where victims of the war between Israel and Hamas are commemorated with prayers, candles and tearful speeches.
There are different stories about the war and about Tlaib, who is the only Palestinian American in Congress.
Jeremy Moss spoke at the gathering in solidarity with Israeli hostages last week at an event in a suburb with a large Jewish population. He said that many people came up to him and said they don’t feel represented.
The Palestinian American activist Khalid Turaani compared Ms. Tlaib’s censure to that of Joshua Reed Giddings, a congressman who was censured by the House of Representatives for opposing the slave trade.
She started to represent one of the largest Hispanic communities in the country thanks to a reconfiguration of her district. The war has put her in the increasingly difficult position of representing both constituencies, whose views of the conflict are both deeply personal and often extraordinarily difficult to reconcile.
The divide would pose a formidable challenge for any politician. It may be unbridgeable, for Ms. Tlaib, because she has staked out a position that alienating many of those people.
The October 7 attack by Hamas, in which about 1200 people were killed and over 200 were taken hostages, led to a vote by 10 House Members who voted against condemning Hamas and funding Israel’s military.
On Nov. 3, she posted a video on social media accusing President Biden of supporting the “genocide of the Palestinian people” and including footage of demonstrators chanting “from the river to the sea,” a pro-Palestinian slogan that many see as calling for not only the restoration of Palestinian land claims but also the eradication of Israel.
Ms. Tlaib said she believed it to be a call for freedom, human rights and peaceful coexistence, not destruction or hate. In a statement released after the censure vote, she vowed to “continue to work for a just and lasting peace that upholds the human rights and dignity of all people, centers peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians, and ensures that no person, no child has to suffer or live in fear of violence.”
The Biden administration, the Michigan attorney general, and the governor of Michigan distanced themselves from Ms. Tlaib after she defended the slogan.
Mr. Mellman said that Congresswoman Tlaib is out of step with her colleagues in Congress, her party, and her home state of Michigan. “We hope she will change her views, and if not, perhaps somebody might be interested in running against her.”
