Personally, this has been one of the most difficult periods of my life. And most of your Arab and Muslim friends, family, and colleagues would likely say the same. The days blur together as we watch unfold what Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, describes “as reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide against Palestinians as a group in Gaza has been met.”
As taxpaying Americans, we are painfully aware of how our tax dollars are being used to support this horror with no end in sight.
We go about our work and family responsibilities while holding indescribable grief at what Palestinians are experiencing with our government’s support. When people kindly check in or ask how I am, I answer truthfully. I am not well. We are not well. We cannot be right now. None of us should be. And yet, we must find the strength to amplify the voices of those speaking for their very survival as individuals and as a people.
Compounding the already painful time have been astonishingly dehumanizing statements from elected officials at all levels, including our current president, whom many of us voted to elect. It all reeks of the Orientalism that Edward Said, a leading Palestinian American academic and activist, described decades ago as a means to otherize and dehumanize Arabs and Muslims by exaggerating differences and presuming Western superiority.
These actions and statements have real-life consequences, including murder and physical attacks on Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims across the country. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which describes itself as the nation’s most prominent civil rights and advocacy organization for American Muslims, reports the highest number of incidents in its 30-year history. As a visibly Muslim woman, I find myself on high alert as I go about my ordinary days.
While all this has transpired, we have also witnessed the silencing, censorship, and punishment of Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim Americans and our allies for speaking out. Students are doxed, arrested, and suspended for exercising their First Amendment rights to speak out about our government’s policies and actions. Students are intimidated at law schools for advocating for Palestinian human rights, and lawyers and other professionals have been terminated from jobs for the same.
As human beings, we are pitted against each other to pick sides as though there are sides to humanity. I wholeheartedly reject this dangerous notion. Humanity knows no sides. Each human life is sacred, and basic human rights and dignity are the right of every person on this planet, especially our children.
As we witness these attacks on basic human rights, the First Amendment, and the overall rule of law, I look to my fellow lawyers to speak and act. I have long felt the responsibility as an officer of the courts and advocate for the rule of law to work toward justice, no matter who it is for, and act against injustice, no matter who that may be against. As a Muslim, this call to action comes directly from the teachings of my faith and guides me in my life.
Lawyers must lead the way in working toward justice. After all, we are responsible for serving as advocates for justice and protectors of the rule of law. We must carry this mantle forward, especially when it feels tough.
In recent months, I have thought often of the popular image from the 2016 election cycle and the years afterward featuring a woman wearing a U.S. flag–themed hijab. For a while, the popular thing to do was highlight these images reflecting members of my community as part of our country’s rich diversity. But current affairs and attacks against Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims make that feigned solidarity feel as if it was performative at best.
When it seemed to beckon intentional and principled solidarity, it felt empowering. Now, it is no more than another way to tokenize members of historically underrepresented communities. People want the convenience of sharing our images and speaking about our inclusion while not hearing from us about our own lives and experiences.
This censorship, retaliation, and punishment are isolating and made worse by the silence of so many around us, particularly those who typically speak up for human rights and social justice issues but are silent here. I have had people whisper to me words of support, afraid to say the words that need to be spoken out loud.
I recognize this silence often comes out of a fear of being mislabeled as antisemitic for criticizing the state of Israel and its actions. But in our generation’s never again moment, when so many lives are at stake, we cannot allow those fears to dictate our actions. Of course, we must work together to combat antisemitism, just as we work to combat Islamophobia. No form of hate is permissible.
But we must also separate criticism of Israel from claims of antisemitism when the concerns are not based on religion, just as criticism of governments in Muslim-majority countries, like Saudi Arabia, is not Islamophobic. It is not a matter of religion; it is a matter of policy.
For me, the silence has been most difficult for my fellow feminists. People are so quick to speak about the “liberation” of Muslim and Arab women but silent on arguably the largest crisis for Muslim and Arab women in our generation. Children are left motherless, and mothers are left childless.
If it was not already apparent, it has become abundantly clear to Arab and Muslim women that so-called “civilized Western society” is obsessed with policing our bodies while having little to no regard for our actual lives or those of our children, families, or community. Selective outrage does not fit in the mission for gender equity. Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim women deserve the same rights as every other woman on this planet.
And, frankly, I am tired of hearing patronizing references to the solidarity shown around the time of the Muslim Ban during the Trump administration when the same perceived allies are silent about the genocide the Biden administration is funding against Palestinians. That solidary was powerful and is sorely missed at an even more pressing time for our community.
Amid all of this deep pain, this has also been a time of enormous hope for the next generation, which has educated themselves and see the humanity in Muslims, Arabs, and a Palestinian population dehumanized for decades to justify ethnic cleansing, illegal occupation, apartheid, and, now, genocide. They are a generation that is not just saying but acting on the principle that never again means never again for anyone—regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, health status, or other similar characteristics. They give us a flicker of hope for the future, as do the voices around the world who have spoken for humanity.
And here at home, organizations like CAIR, Palestine Legal, the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee, Jewish Voices for Peace, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and many other organizations and individuals I do not have space to name are doing work that is pivotal in addressing the enormous challenge before us in combating Islamophobia and the intersectional issues of anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism.
While we are extraordinarily challenged right now, I know we will not be silenced. We will continue to organize, advocate, and hold our country accountable for living up to its creed of being a land of liberty and justice for all.
I remind myself and each of us of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its statement that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
And I know that from the deep darkness of these difficult days can come light if we rise together in shared humanity to demand it.
Please note: The views expressed herein have not been approved by the House of Delegates, the Board of Governors, the Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice or the Human Rights Editorial Board of the American Bar Association and, accordingly, should not be construed as representing the policy of the American Bar Association. They are the views of the individual authors themselves in their personal capacities.
