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DEARBORN: The pro-Palestine narrative faces challenges at every level of US society, speakers warned during panel discussions hosted by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and attended by Arab News on Friday.

ADC officials presented awards for “courageous activism.” 

Jewish and Arab education professionals said schools are targets of pro-Israel activists who conflate Judaism with Zionism, and criticism of Israel with antisemitism, as well as vilify those who defend Palestinian or Arab rights.

“Many teachers are afraid to teach some aspects of the Middle East and the Arab world because of Palestine and criticism of Israel, and that has a negative impact on the US population,” said California teacher Dr. Samia Shoman.

Sim Kern, a Jewish teacher from Texas, agreed, saying politically manipulated class instruction feeds these biases that stay with Americans as they grow into adulthood. “There’s an immense lack of knowledge that Judaism and Zionism aren’t the same,” he added.

Medea Benjamin, co-founder of activist group CodePink, said the challenge against anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian biases is most pressing in US politics, among both Democrats and Republicans.

“Knowing what the Israelis are doing, it gives me a sense of responsibility — especially as a US citizen — to know that it’s our tax dollars and our bombs that are killing people,” she added. “As a member of the Jewish community, that makes me feel an extra sense of responsibility.”

Benjamin said her parents sent her to live in a kibbutz in Israel, where she first met Palestinians “and came to love them and their culture.”

In her protests, she has confronted members of the Senate and Congress with the same question: “Why do you support the genocide and killing of women and children in Gaza?”

Benjamin, who has been arrested and detained numerous times, posts their lack of responses on her social media accounts, including to nearly 300,000 followers on TikTok and 200,000 followers on X.

ADC officials presented awards to Benjamin and to Palestinian activist Hazami Barmada, who has confronted members of both the Trump and Biden administrations.

“My job is to simply hold up pictures and ask people as they walk in and out of the White House, ‘Is this something you’re proud of?” said Barmada, a social entrepreneur and strategy consultant for the UN and founder of The Barmada Group, a Washington-based consulting firm.

“The haunting question carried me into the streets not because taking a risk to stop the genocide wasn’t scary, but because not taking the risk felt like betraying not only Palestinian children but my own child.”

Barmada said she has been “spit on, repeatedly sued, dragged through federal court, harassed, doxxed, repeatedly assaulted, slapped, punched, arrested, and I even had a gun pulled on me.”

In one protest, she confronted former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his family, spilling fake blood in front of their home as they drove past in their black limousine.

Barmada asked how they could be so upset about fake blood when real blood is being spilled from civilians in Gaza because of US military and financial support to Israel.

She has confronted many other officials, as well as members of the national media who fail to report on the genocide.

Another panel featured speakers who addressed how “lawfare” is being waged against pro-Palestine activists in an effort to silence or stifle protests.

The law panel included Amy Greer, an attorney with Dratel & Lewis; Amir Makled, an attorney with Hall Makled Law; Edward Mitchell, deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations; and Jenin Younes, ADC’s national legal director.

ADC also presented awards to Celine Semaan on behalf of environmental and social justice nonprofit organization Slow Factory, Hamza Ali on behalf of film production and distribution company Watermelon Pictures, media personality Hussein Hachema, former Michigan State Rep. Abraham Aiyash, and the Yemeni-American founder of the Haraz Coffee chain, Hamzah Nasser.

The evening was capped by music performed by a Middle Eastern ensemble, and by a live taping of the show “We’re Not Kidding with Mehdi & Friends,” hosted by journalist Mehdi Hasan with his guest, Egyptian comedian Bassem Youssef.

They discussed the hypocrisy of how the US defends free speech and morality “except when the issue is Palestine.”