Karam Dana, To Stand with Palestine: Transnational Resistance and Political Evolution in the United States (Columbia University Press, 2025).
Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book?
Karam Dana (KD): Several factors motivated me to write this book. I will highlight three that address the larger questions it poses. First, my longstanding interest in Palestinian society since World War I drove me to explore how the Nakba and the forced migration of Palestinians have affected their identity in transnational spaces. I am particularly interested in how these experiences contribute to forming a cohesive and resilient global Palestinian community.
The second factor pertains to being perplexed by how Palestinians are perceived and discussed in the United States, where they are often delegitimized before their individual and collective stories are heard. Palestinian lives are not regarded as equal to others, particularly those of Israelis. Despite abundant evidence legitimizing Palestinian claims to their homes, these claims are often categorically rejected. This led me to investigate the reasons behind the longstanding demonization of Palestinians.
The third has to do with a shift we have been noticing in recent years. The quest for Palestinian justice has garnered increasing attention and sympathy, particularly within Western societies and notably in the United States. This shift indicates a broader transformation in public discourse, where narratives that once marginalized Palestinian perspectives are now being critically examined and challenged. We notice that existing solidarities with the Palestinian cause are becoming stronger, and new ones are being forged in American society.
By addressing these factors, my book aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the historical and contemporary issues shaping Palestinian identity and the evolving discourse around Palestinian rights and justice. The book also explains the nature of the intensifying fight in American public discourse around the legitimacy of Palestinians as a people, and that of Israel.
J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures does the book address?
KD: The book delves into how the unique identity of Palestinians living in global settings or exile has become a source of power in various ways. In other words, Palestinians who are forcefully separated from their ancestral home do have agency! It explores transnational forms of resistance against colonization, arguing that an identity under attack becomes more resilient and determined to combat settler colonialism. Consequently, the Palestinian struggle transcends geographical boundaries. Additionally, the book examines how global socio-political, economic, and technological changes, particularly in the United States, have amplified Palestinian voices, allowing them to be heard and understood in unprecedented ways.
This work builds on and expands the arguments of several influential authors. It integrates the influential works of Edward Said: Orientalism, Covering Islam and The Question of Palestine. By synthesizing these works, the book provides a nuanced understanding of how Palestinian identity is distinct in its racialization compared to other ethnic, racial, religious, and nationalist identities. Recent scholarship has further developed Said's arguments, addressing Palestinian representation in Western contexts. One of these works is Keith Feldman's A Shadow Over Palestine, which connects the conceptualization of race in the United States to Zionism and the Palestinian struggle, while John Collins' Global Palestine examines the centrality and broad global impact of the Palestinian issue.
The book also draws on Marc Lamont Hill and Mitchell Plitnick's Except for Palestine, which highlights the disparity in how Palestinians are perceived in terms of justice, arguing for a necessary change. Saree Makdisi's Tolerance is a Wasteland critiques how progressive politics have historically excluded Palestinians, emphasizing the deeply ingrained Orientalism that persists even in progressive circles in the United States. By engaging with these diverse perspectives, the book aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the evolving discourse on Palestine, highlighting the resilience and transnational nature of Palestinian identity and resistance.
J: How does this book connect to and/or depart from your previous work?
KD: My positionality as a Palestinian American has profoundly influenced my research agendas. My previous work has focused on Palestinian society since World War I, examining how British colonial structures facilitated the emergence of Zionist settler colonialism in 1948, leading to an ongoing Nakba whose broader effects of colonization on Palestinian society continue to this day. Additionally, I have studied the various forms of racialization experienced by Arabs and Muslims in the United States, particularly post-9/11. As an interdisciplinary social scientist, I employ a multi-method approach, utilizing public opinion surveys, focus groups, interviews, and the examination of both official and unofficial records to construct comprehensive accurate narratives.
This book builds on my expertise in these interconnected areas. It situates the representation of Arabs and Muslims within the larger racial hierarchy of the United States while also addressing the decades-long plight of Palestinians globally. The book aims to give agency to Palestinians living outside of Palestine, whether as refugees or as part of diasporic communities. The presence of these Palestinians has increased exposure to the Palestinian struggle, garnering more sympathy and support. Palestinians have been integral to the activist movement in the United States, advocating for equal rights and contributing to new definitions of equity and inclusive politics. These alliances have fostered a socio-political and economic environment that understands the Palestinian plight through the lens of how minorities and marginalized communities, particularly Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and the LGBTQ+ community have been systematically racialized, targeted, and excluded. The Palestinian identity, which speaks a transnational language of resistance and solidarity, intersects with broader struggles for justice and equality. There is now a growing number of more informed and empathetic public discourse, fostering greater solidarity and support for Palestinian rights.
J: Who do you hope will read this book, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?
KD: This is an academic book, but I wrote it with wider audiences in mind. I hope this book reaches a diverse and broad audience, including scholars, students, activists, policymakers, and anyone interested in understanding the complexities of the Palestinian struggle and the evolving discourse around it, especially in transnational spaces. This book can be useful for those interested in social movements, decolonization, transnational resistance, racialization, and the politics of the status quo.
The impact I envision is multifaceted. I hope to challenge and expand the prevailing narratives, encouraging readers to critically engage with the information they encounter. By contributing to the growing body of scholarship that highlights the racialization and marginalization of Palestinians, I aim to draw parallels with the broader racialization of Arabs and Muslims through Orientalism. Additionally, I seek to create knowledge that pushes against the status quo in relation to how racialized and marginalized communities have been treated and represented. By doing so, I hope to shed light on the systemic injustices faced by these communities and advocate for more equitable and inclusive representations.
In a sense, I aim to inspire and empower advocates for Palestinian justice. This book provides a comprehensive resource that underscores the importance of equitable representation and human rights. Ultimately, my goal is to contribute to a more informed and empathetic public discourse, fostering greater solidarity and support for justice for Palestinians and other racialized peoples.
J: What other projects are you working on now?
KD: I am embarking on two research projects, both of which have transnational components. The first project investigates the socio-economic, political, and cultural factors that shape both local and national xenophobic attitudes towards immigrants in Western societies. I hope to provide an analysis that contextualizes local perspectives on identity within broader narratives related to transnationalism, colonialism, and xenophobia.
The second is a co-authored book project with a friend, sociologist Keri Iyall Smith, on socialization around race, ethnicity, and difference in the United States. This book will provide an opportunity for more nuanced analysis and informed theoretical understandings of how exposure to status quo institutions perpetuates entrenched conceptualizations of race, ethnicity, difference, and privilege. It also examines other questions of how global economic systems influence and reinforce racial and ethnic hierarchies.
J: How does the book address the role of traditional media, as well as non-traditional media like TikTok and other social media platforms, in shaping public perceptions around Palestine and Palestinians?
KD: The book critically examines the role of both traditional media and social media platforms in shaping public perceptions and views of issues related to Palestine and Israel. It explores how mainstream media outlets have historically framed the issue in a fashion perpetuating racism and marginalizing Palestinian voices and experiences. This framing is analyzed through the lenses of media bias, Orientalism, and the political interests that influence media coverage.
The book also delves into the transformative impact of the internet and social media platforms, such as TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. The internet has allowed for more access to information. Social media platforms have democratized information dissemination, allowing Palestinian voices to reach a global audience directly. The rise of social media has enabled real-time sharing of personal stories, on-the-ground footage, and grassroots activism, which have played a crucial role in shifting public discourse.
The book highlights the discrepancies in reporting and the impact these have on public understanding. It also discusses how social media has provided a space for Palestinian voices and their advocates to be heard and construct a narrative, and contributes to the shifting discourse. The book aims to foster a more informed and empathetic public discourse, encouraging readers to challenge dominant narratives and to support more balanced and inclusive media coverage.
Excerpts from the book (from pages 6 to 7, 233 to 234, and 246)
More than half the Palestinians in the world now live outside of Mandatory Palestine. They are holding the memory of a place, a people, a culture, and a nation and keeping them alive without an independent nation-state. This unique situation has affected the agency of the Palestinian people, and the transnational characteristic of their existence in the global sociopolitical and economic landscape has given them new opportunities to create solidarity and a strong shared national identity. Studying Palestine through a transnational lens captures the nature of processes that affect Palestinians and are affected by them, and it provides us with insights into the role of the scattered diaspora that itself has become the reference point for identity, social norms, and Palestinian nationalism and perseverance. Any analysis of Palestinians should take these issues into account as fundamental, given the nature of their struggle. The question of Palestine is no longer geography-bound but rather a global phenomenon.
The experience of exile, while agonizing, has helped reshape a Palestinian identity inspired by Palestine, the place, and also by views on justice, resistance, and resilience. Exploring the internalized, involuntary condition of exile serves as a useful concept in thinking about the collective global Palestinian condition. The story of Palestine and Palestinians is one that transcends borders, lands, and oceans. It is a story found in most societies in the world today, diversely represented by the Palestinians who are now living outside of Palestine. The stories of and around Palestine and Palestinians have created identities, often challenged and contested, and often pragmatically negotiated through interactions with others in different host societies, some of which are friendlier than others. Palestinian identity, a product of forced diaspora, constantly evolves and takes on new meanings within the contexts of each particular society.
Living as refugees with forced immobility, physically and politically, has confined the Palestinian diaspora to reside in exile in host countries while belonging to no internationally recognized state. The transnational Palestinian identity is reinforced through the shared experiences of discrimination and exclusion experienced by the Palestinian diaspora and is strengthened through the diaspora communicating and sharing in the borderless world of the internet. Palestinians in the United States face their own unique set of discrimination and exclusion politically and socially but maintain their transnational identity and community ties. The transnational Palestinian identity has become that which ties together Palestinians living in various host countries, with the same wish felt by every Palestinian in diaspora: for political change in their homeland, an end to the discrimination against and exclusion of their community, and shared feelings of place and belonging to their ancestral land of Palestine.
[…]
Policy decisions over Palestine are made at different levels of U.S. political institutions, from local to state to federal. These decisions are made with little, if any, input from or consultations with Palestinians. Yet these decisions affect the lives of all Palestinians, whether living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, living inside Israel, or living as refugees in other countries in the Arab world and around the world. The way in which Palestinians are affected is very clear: ever since it was founded, Israel has received increasing U.S. funds and patronage. The sum of these funds is unparalleled in U.S. foreign policy yet has received little to no scrutiny. The funds, the political patronage, and the protection that Israel enjoys because of the United States directly disadvantage the Palestinian condition, reflecting the interconnectedness of the two people. The fate of Palestinians, in historical Palestine or transnationally, is connected to how the Zionist nationalist narrative around which Israel was created and is told, legitimated, made into policy, and implemented.
In recent years the transformation of the Palestinian narrative has been met with intensifying Zionist narratives, leading to sponsorship of laws equating critique of Israel to anti-Semitism. Almost all U.S. states either have passed laws or have bills in process that criminalize engaging in boycotting Israeli products or academic institutions. In July 2019 Representative Rashida Tlaib, the only current Palestinian American member of Congress and one of two Palestinian Americans to ever serve in this capacity, spoke on the House floor advocating against a bill condemning boycotting Israel. “I stand before you the daughter of Palestinian immigrants,” Tlaib said the morning of the vote. “Parents who experienced being stripped of their human rights, the right to freedom of travel, equal treatment. So I can’t stand by and watch this attack on our freedom of speech and the right to boycott the racist policies of the government and the state of Israel. I love our country’s freedom of speech, Madam Speaker. Dissent is how we nurture democracy.”
And dissent among the American public, and among some politicians, is growing. Senator Bernie Sanders has pushed for a reconsideration of military aid to Israel. He introduced a resolution to condition Israeli aid on adherence to human rights guidelines, which was defeated.191 As mentioned earlier, public support for Israel is fading. Increasingly, supporting Israel’s war against Hamas is looking like supporting a war against civilians. The erosion of this support is bipartisan and may indicate a future change in the nature of the U.S. relationship with Israel.
[…]
Despite the geographic distances and cultural differences, the experience of being racialized unites communities across the world and creates deeper understanding of one another’s struggle for equality and liberation. Many Black men and women, from intellectuals to laypeople, have spoken in support of Palestinian liberation. Apartheid is understood by Black Americans because their conditions are products of apartheid-like systems, from segregation and redlining to job discrimination and incarceration. It should not come as a surprise that racialized communities comprehend the experiences of other racialized communities, both locally and transnationally. Just like societies of the Global South, for example, understand the experiences of Palestinians, the African American community also sees the experiences of Palestinians as familiar, due to experiences of racialization, criminalization, and control that the Black community has endured for generations. Similarly, when Palestinians living under Israeli occupation experience violence at the hands of Israeli soldiers, they understand the suffering experienced by the Black community in the United States and understand that the system is parallelly oppressive.