Over the course of my internship with Al-Shabaka this summer, I’ve tried to continue to remind myself about the importance of positionality and its effect on my own work. In particular, I’ve had to think about how to edit pieces and write about Palestinian society in an ethical, responsible manner – particularly as a non-Palestinian, working from New York. I’ve seen that this question of representation is also at the forefront of my colleagues’ minds: as an organization whose staff and members are located not only within Palestine, but also in Jordan, Egypt, Europe, and the United States, Al-Shabaka’s own institutional and political positions are guided by an awareness of how taking such positions may impact people differently depending on where they live.
These issues came up during a recent assignment, where I was tasked with ghost-writing a draft of an op-ed for one of Al-Shabaka’s policy analysts. Building on the analyst’s previous scholarship, the op-ed discussed the recent anniversary of the 2018 Jewish Nation-State Law as evidence of the failure of the partition paradigm – the idea that historic Palestine should ultimately be divided into separate Jewish and Palestinian states. It argued that Palestinians should move away from advocating for a two-state solution, and towards the idea of a single civic, democratic state in Israel/Palestine that guarantees the equality of all its citizens. And it suggested that the Unity Intifada of 2021 illustrated the potential for a new, grassroots Palestinian political movement that could coalesce around a one-state platform.
While I was working on this op-ed, the editorial board of Metras – an online Palestinian media outlet known to be fairly progressive – published an openly homophobic letter. This followed a spate of attacks on members of the LGBTQ community in Palestine, in addition to other publicized homophobia. It was not only disturbing to witness these brazen acts occur out in the open, but also a disheartening reminder of the social and religious fractures within Palestinian society, fractures that may very well undermine the call for a unified political movement. From abroad, it can seem easy or self-evident to argue that the Palestinian people are united in their struggle against Israeli apartheid – and it may be necessary to do so, in order to articulate certain political demands – but such a claim may also distort the reality that many Palestinians (and those, in particular, within the LGBTQ community) face.