I am a Palestinian who has never been to Palestine. I am named after my grandmother, Sitto Fatima, who was forced out of Palestine in 1948. She rallied her children, took her animals to barter, and held on to her house key, thinking one day she would go back to her farm. She could never go back.


After being displaced from Palestine, they lived in a refugee camp in Lebanon. Thirty-seven years later, I was born in Lebanon. I was given refugee status—comically large passports and identification cards to make sure you are spotted [noticed]. Despite being a refugee, I did my best to fit in. Being Palestinian, I learned early on that to be landless means that one must endure humiliation, rejection, discrimination, and violence.


Since October 7th, in my sessions, I have been discharging to give up genocide patterns [distress recordings] and not settle for just surviving and enduring. I have been discharging on what it was like to be a refugee. Home for me as a Palestinian in the diaspora is a sensitive subject. Is it a place? Is it an idea? Is it temporary?


As a refugee in Lebanon, I lived through checkpoints and being a second-class citizen with limited opportunities. We lived through rationed electricity and tap water, which wasn’t drinking water. One summer we had to escape our home because of bombings. But I don’t know how it feels to live in an apartheid in one’s own homeland. 


I want my allies to stand with Palestinians without hesitation. What would it take [require of you] to put Palestinians in the center? What would it be like to welcome us home? What would it be like to humanize Palestinians in your minds and ask for a cease fire and stop Gazans from being wiped out [killed]?


I have been discharging about what it would mean to go home! I dream and weep about visiting my father’s and mother’s village in Palestine, praying in Al Aqsa Mosque, freely wandering the cities, and smelling the orange blossoms. I dream about eating figs and olives on our farm. In my dreams, I put my head on the land, and she whispers lovingly, “Habibti, you’re home.”