Finding a fourth way

This is what sumud looks like.

Here in the West Bank, where I am staying for a few weeks this winter, Palestinians can see through Israeli aggression and tactics. That doesn’t mean they have the power to stop the things that the occupation is doing—random and intense harassment at checkpoints, confiscation of Palestinian-owned land, home demolitions, or even the reports we heard out of Beit Jala this week in which families of prisoners who were about to be released in the hostage exchanges had their homes raided and trashed by the Israeli military and were told that if they had any kind of party to celebrate the return of their loved ones, their imprisoned family member would be released in Gaza instead. Seriously!

In the face of this kind of life, this targeting and discrimination and dispossession, Palestinians seem to have three options. The first is to put your head down and take it: a life without dignity, lodged somewhere between slavery and the Jim Crow south. The second is to respond with violence, feeding into the Israeli (and Western) narrative of Palestinians as terrorists. The third option is simply to leave, which is ultimately, and transparently, the goal of Israeli policy toward Palestinians. If the people leave the land, there is nothing to inconvenience the expansion of Israeli settlements.

None of these options sit right. The first is humiliating, the second is dehumanizing. The third is heart-wrenching. Half of the world’s Palestinians live outside of Palestine already, almost entirely because of the Zionist project. To force somebody to leave their homeland is not a new thing in this world: the United States inflicted genocide and displacement on the Indigenous inhabitants of its land, most U.S. Americans have family histories of migration that was either forced or a grief-filled choice for survival, and there are many places around the world today that have such terrible conditions—economically, or in terms of violence, or climate induced—that emigration is the best option. But the Palestinian case seems particularly brutal, because it is so current, and the violence being done against Palestinian people is racially based—genocidal.

This is where the concept of Sumud comes in. I’ve heard Sumud translated as steadfastness, durability, immovability, or resistance. It is a fourth way, a way of responding to occupation that doesn’t play into the occupation’s narrative. Sumud happens when a farmer refuses to give up their land—not to sell it for gobs of money, not to stop cultivating it even if it requires the accompaniment of international volunteers to keep them safe from violence while doing so. Sumud happens when kids and teachers continue to go to school, day after day, through military checkpoints that intimidate, harass, humiliate, delay, and sometimes detain them. Sumud happens when families find ways to stay housed despite demolition orders preventing them from building or repairing their dwellings. Sumud happens when Palestinians file cases in both Israeli and Palestinian courts, forcing an official look at what is happening, some form of self-reflection for the occupying forces. Sumud happens when Palestinians find joy and love despite it all.

I find myself reflecting on the situation in the United States right now—I flew out of the country on January 20, so my experience of the second Trump administration is from a distance so far. It’s seeming pretty awful. My people are being impacted, my farm is being impacted (which means that I am being impacted). And it’s pretty clear to me that options 1, 2, and 3 for U.S. Americans are not satisfying. We certainly can’t put our heads down and take it—too many people are in precarious situations right now. I’m hopeful that we can learn lessons from the Sumud of Palestine. That we can keep ahold of our humanity even as our government’s policies deny it.

The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative

I’m proud to be part of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Each Sunday, Julie Gammack shares a roundup of articles that collaborative members have written in the past week. Check out the most recent roundup, here.