Notes from Palestine 101

Contributed by Elliott J. Detjen

Between problem sets last Sunday, I happened to glance at my inbox. Amid the spam, the subject line “PSC Palestine 101” caught my eye. Intrigued, mostly to know when to hand out more humanitarian aid in the form of bagels, I checked the email. It invited me to a “teach-in” at Sever Hall on Tuesday, covering the “comprehensive history of the occupation of Palestine” and “deep suppression of pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses.” This new class, “PAL 101,” promised to contextualize “the current moment, in all its dimensions.” With “intellectual vitality” now in vogue, I figured PAL 101 could be the missing link in my liberal arts education.

But I couldn’t waltz in looking like a fed—or worse, a normal person. So I shed my slacks and button-down, traded my loafers for sandals, slipped on some pajama bottoms, forgot to shave, ruffled my hair, prepared my pronouns, and donned the final touch: a COVID mask. I was ready…to look like an average resident of Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was time to educate myself.

I arrived early to get my bearings. Only a couple of other students milled about. One woman was conversing with a friend, a sociology concentrator, about how she “got into activism.” She explained that, predictably, it was the result of her social studies professor preaching about climate change in a class. As more students trickled in, I felt more out of place without a tributary keffiyeh, the true sign of an insider. But even if I had worn one (over my mask, of course) with my fellow white women, I still would have been an outsider as one of five white males in a crowd of 55. 

Finally, though twenty minutes late, class began. The lead “instructor” was Lea Kayali, who introduced herself as an “unfortunate alumna of Harvard Law School” and a coordinator for the Boston chapter of the Youth Palestine Movement. A quick internet search unearthed her recent poetry, which included, “We will not rest until Palestine is free, from the river to the sea,” “F**k every colonizer and settler,” and with brevity but little wit, “F**k Israel.” Between this and the first slide of the presentation, “What the F**K Is Happening at Harvard,” we were ready to roll.

Lea kicked off the presentation by calling the class an “orientation” for new, interested students, designed to help them participate in the “great intersectional struggle” of our day. The rest went exactly as one would expect. After a cursory survey of Palestinian history, Kayali used “historical oppression” to justify Hamas’s “natural response on October 7th” to “years of Israel’s genocide.” When death tolls from previous conflicts flashed on the screen, there was no mention of Israeli deaths. At various points, Lea claimed that “Hamas is a political party, obviously,” “Israel simply used the Hamas surprise attack as an opportunity to accelerate its genocide,” and “The phrase ‘river to the sea’ is not antisemitic; it just means equality for Palestinians.” The presentation then turned to events on Harvard’s campus. Suddenly, a chorus of snapping erupted as the instructors relived a past victory: removing a genocidal hummus from the dining hall.¹ 

When the presentation finished, I began my intersectional reflection. It is true–no history is black and white, and perhaps Americans should pause before celebrating foreign, multi-million dollar efforts to oust U.S. congressmen, however unsavory. But for an event touting its exploration of “all dimensions” of a complicated issue, PAL 101 tried to leave me with some rather dense conclusions: that all borders are fake tools of oppression invented by colonists like Cecil Rhodes, Zionism is a ruse deployed by American white supremacists teaming up with the Jews, and Palestinian resistance has been “mostly peaceful”—with “intifada” reduced to a few schoolboys lobbing confetti and the occasional rock at a tank. And, of course, I learned the true reason why Claudine Gay was fired: the anti-blackness of the far right. 

But by the end, I felt almost bewildered. Sure, the presentation was questionable, but what’s the point of it all? What’s the point of lining the Yard with latrines, or sending incendiary letters to the Harvard administration? What’s the point of recruiting new radicals through PAL 101? What’s the point of drafting an army of white girls with zero connection to an ancient, foreign conflict? Perhaps they want to reset the clock to before 1948, or some other date, when Palestinians could lay claim to their “stolen land.” But what makes it “their land” when “borders are fake,” or when “ethno-nationalism” is a cardinal sin? Weren’t the concepts of property and statehood concocted by those terrible European men? It just didn’t compute. But my bewilderment resolved itself when Lea closed with these words: “It is not just about Palestine, this is about everything…by planting the seeds here, we unmask the oppression of capitalism and imperialism everywhere.”

Finally, it was clear. Like Scooby and the gang unmasking a villain, the “real goal” of gender ideology, critical race theory, mass immigration—and now Palestine—was always the same: “death to the West.” Its pallbearers march on, and our liberal democracy, ever tolerant and aided by Harvard, hands them the shovel.

1.  The dining hall previously served Sabra Hummus, a brand jointly owned by Israeli nationals.