Activist Steven Pargett and rapper Tef Poe in Dheisheh Refugee Camp near Bethlehem.

This week, a delegation of African-American activists returned from a 10-day trip to Palestine. Black organizers, artists, and journalists from organizations including the Florida-based Dream Defenders, Chicago’s Black Youth Project, and Ferguson’s Hands Up United, among others, were able to witness firsthand the violence and brutality of the Israeli occupation in the West Bank. 

By sharing updates on Twitter and Instagram with the hashtag #DDPalestine, the activists expressed a deep understanding of— and complete solidarity with— the Palestinian struggle.

“How they [the occupation] out here trying to occupy the sky, the land, the soul of a people? The audacity of evil is what kills humanity,” poet Aja Monet posted on Twitter. 

The delegates visited Palestinian families and organizations in occupied Hebron (Khalil), Jerusalem, Dheisheh Camp in Bethlehem, and more. They crossed checkpoints via tiny, inhumane metal cages, saw Israeli soldiers jogging with assault rifles casually slung over their shoulders and connected with Palestinian hip-hop artists and BDS organizers. 

The delegates, interviewed by activist and Stanford graduate Kristian Davis Bailey for Ebony magazine, compared Israeli state violence against Palestinians to structural violence affecting Black American communities and expressed a desire to continue their Palestine solidarity work in the U.S. and connect Palestine to Black American issues and activism.

This was by no means the first Black delegation to Palestine or Black expression of solidarity with the Palestinian people. Black academics and artists such as dream hampton, Robin Kelley, and Jasiri X traveled to Palestine in the past few years and have continuously expressed their support. 

More recently, in Ferguson, Missouri, protestors against police brutality waved Palestinian flags and exchanged advice with Palestinians on how to deal with tear gas, tanks, and militarized police—all things Palestinians living under occupation are experts on. 

Not long after that, a group of Palestinian students from Birzeit University visited Ferguson and other cities—including Dearborn and Detroit—where they connected with not just Arab Americans, but also Black American residents and activists, exchanging mutual support and understanding of the other’s struggle. 

All this Black solidarity with the Palestinian struggle is gladly accepted, but in Arab American communities, rarely reciprocated. Many Black Americans have attended protests, joined Palestine solidarity groups, expressed support, and even traveled to Palestine to bear witness to the struggle. However, Arab Americans, especially in the Detroit area where we have the opportunity to bear witness to Black struggles every single day, refuse to show the same support. 

What does that say about our commitment to bettering ourselves and our relationships with other communities? Why can’t we, Arab Americans, understand Black issues instead of deflecting the same racism we experience at the hands of racist systems— from Israel to the U.S.— onto Black communities? 

While Black American delegations are acknowledging their own complicity in Israeli violence via American political and military support, many Palestinian and Arab Americans in Metro Detroit are calling Black people “abeed” (slaves); stereotyping Black women as welfare queens and Black men as violent criminals; and ignoring the ways in which Black lives are devalued—such as the fact that Black Americans are killed by police in America at disproportionately high rates. 

Although deaths are underreported and there is a disturbing lack of complete data, we do know that police are involved in around 400 killings per year and Black people were killed by White officers on an average of twice a week during a seven-year period ending in 2012. 

If we acknowledge that the occupation of the West Bank and siege of Gaza are human rights crises perpetuated by our own policies and tax dollars as Americans, we should also be able to recognize when we are complicit in oppressive policies—such as over-policing of Black communities—at home, too. If we condemn the Israeli Defense Forces for shooting Palestinian children, there is no reason for us to justify the shooting of Black youths like Mike Brown and Tamir Rice by American police—especially knowing that American and Israeli police often share “counterterrorism” techniques and strategies.

If our oppressors are collaborating, why don’t we also work together to counter racism and oppression from Detroit to Palestine? Why don’t we dream together? Our struggles bear so many similarities: from water and housing rights, to over-policing and mass incarceration, to the fight to retain our own histories and narratives. 

Of course there are nuanced differences, but ignoring the similarities only serves to keep us divided and our problems perpetuated when we could be coming together to create solutions. 

If we are serious about countering the racism and violence that we experience ourselves, we must realize that we can’t do so without reaching out to other marginalized groups with similar experiences. 

Those who pay lip service to Palestine but dehumanize Black lives at home have no place in Palestine solidarity, which is at its core an anti-racist movement that necessarily rejects all forms of oppression. Imagine what we could accomplish if we were willing to work with our Black allies on an equal footing instead of taking their support for granted and giving next to nothing back. 

We can return the support by joining local organizations that mobilize around issues affecting mostly Black communities (such as the People’s Water Board, Detroit Eviction Defense, or Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality); supporting the groups and artists that support Palestine; and calling out anti-Black racism when we encounter it in our own neighborhoods. 

It’s long past time for the Palestinian American community—as well as for all Arab Americans who claim to support the Palestinian struggle—to recognize and reject their own racism, to give back to the Black organizations that have the courage to speak up for Palestine, and to reach out in order to build a more just world together.

Efforts to start these conversations have been taking place and should be recognized for how important they are — such as the “Where Is The Solidarity? From Ferguson to Dearborn” event hosted last month at the Arab American Museum. We should continue down that path of dialogue and solidarity to empower our cause and our communities. 

-Amanda Ghannam is a University of Michigan-Dearborn alum and Palestine solidarity organizer.