From Alisa Khan
The Cambridge City Council voted Wednesday to divest from companies “contributing to genocide, apartheid and occupation of Palestinians.” (“Cambridge votes 5-4 for order to divest money from businesses involved with Israel’s actions against Palestinians,” Oct. 28.) As a Muslim, parent, health equity researcher and longtime Cambridge resident, what stuck with me more than the vote was the language preceding it. Before the vote, I sat silently as a city councillor used her platform to spout debunked propaganda and dehumanizing rhetoric. When she said the population of Palestinians was still rising, so it could not be genocide, it felt like she was saying that not enough Palestinians had been killed, like we were talking about insects that needed to be exterminated.
What I heard from this councillor and others, during the vote and the six-hour public comment the week prior, was that the lives and safety of people like me and my children mattered less than other lives. During public comment, I heard the parent of a child who bullied my child because she was Muslim claim that divestment would make their child less safe. Given my own child’s experience, it was hard not to feel that some children’s safety was being treated as more worthy of concern than others.
It’s hard to explain the cognitive dissonance I experienced as I watched pro-Israel activists physically and verbally intimidate and use telephoto lenses and body cameras to film those advocating for divestment, at the same time their supporters described being bullied and feeling unsafe in Cambridge. The filming felt particularly threatening because many people who advocate for Palestinian rights have been doxxed, harassed and punished professionally.
What was most hard to reconcile was the disconnect between claims that divesting from weapons and surveillance technology companies made people feel unsafe, and conduct that left many of us feeling unsafe. This was particularly true given that those advocating for divestment included teenagers, elders and people from marginalized identities including Arab, Black, immigrant, Jewish, Muslim and queer. I found out later that members of this pro-Israel activist group taunted a Palestinian community member about visiting their home in Israel (which Palestinians cannot return to, a source of deep pain). After the vote, members of this pro-Israel group threatened a Jewish community member who spoke in favor of divestment, calling them out by name and saying, “we are coming for you too.”
Before the vote, while the same councillor name-dropped two Harvard professors opposed to divestment claiming they represented a diverse set of views across Harvard, there was no mention of Harvard’s own data, which shows that Muslims on campus feel more unsafe than any other group. In fact, I heard very little about Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian racism or anti-Arab hate at all. These are experiences I, a visibly Muslim woman, and my school-aged children have experienced in Cambridge and beyond. My elementary-school-aged child was once told by another child she could not have any of the chips the child was sharing with others because my child was Muslim. When the teachers asked the child how they knew my child was Muslim, the child said, “she looked like one.” (The chips were not pork chips, for the record, in which case I would have thanked the child.) In my workplace, I was publicly belittled and physically intimidated by a prominent professor when I asked a question about Palestine. At retail stores, I have been treated differently. At my children’s swim class, I received pointed stares that last a little too long. I have been afraid that my speaking or writing about Palestine would mean I would be fired, not promoted or denaturalized.
The fear, harassment and bullying I have experienced as a Muslim who advocates for Palestinian rights are experiences that I intentionally chose not to center in public comment. I did so because, as much as I worry about myself and my children, I worry about Palestine’s children more. And I recognize that it is impossible to compare the safety of any child in Cambridge with a child in Palestine. I suspect many who spoke in favor of divestment made the same calculation. They set aside the harassment, intimidation and bullying they and their loved ones had endured. Not because those experiences were insignificant, but because they felt that the suffering of Palestinian children demanded greater attention than their own.
While I am relieved that divestment passed, the weeks leading up to this vote, and much of the rhetoric surrounding it, have been deeply painful. Every councillor and resident is entitled to vote as they see fit. But I hope we can do better than public discourse which erases, dehumanizes, and minimizes the experiences of Muslims, Arabs, Palestinians and those who advocate for their rights.
Alisa Khan is a resident of Third Street in Cambridge, a pediatrician and associate professor at Harvard Medical School.
