"There is something historically inevitable in this. Immigration from countries and backgrounds against which the US has waged military and ideological war eventually yields not a cowed assimilation, but a sort of political cosmopolitanism – kryptonite for American exceptionalism."

Zohran Mamdani after the ceremony to mark the 25th anniversary of the September 11 2001 attacks in New York, 11 September 2026. Photograph: Adam Gray/Reuters

 

The US right still paints Muslims as the ‘enemy’. But they are fighting for a brighter future for Americans

Progressive politicians such as Zohran Mamdani offer answers to the bitter post-9/11 legacy of failures at home and abroad 

Nesrine Malik

Mon 14 Sep 2026

Twenty-five years after 9/11, two pieces of journalism, describing two different phenomena in contemporary New York, tell us a great deal about a city, and indeed a world, caught between two eras. In one, New York Magazine dives into “Habibi City”, a New York where a “cultural shift is underway, led by a generation of New Yorkers coming into its own”. This new generation is labelled as originating in “SWANA” – south-west Asia and north Africa, a region that “includes countries from Palestine to Iran to Sudan”. In the other, Vanity Fair describes calls for Zohran Mamdani to not attend the 9/11 memorial ceremony as partly founded in “inchoate, emotional” impulses, that see “the city’s first Muslim mayor as a stand-in for the 19 Muslims who hijacked four planes and turned them into deadly weapons, part of the ‘them’ who attacked ‘us’.”

Together they capture what has changed over a generation, and what remains stubbornly the same. Members of a diaspora of Muslim background are indeed breaking through and accumulating, as New York Magazine says, “clout”. They are no longer simply a fixture of bodegas and halal carts, but of Saturday Night Live, upmarket dining, entertainment and politics too. Mamdani is both the expression of that cohort and the catalyst of its recognition as an emerging force. They care deeply for their local communities but also for those in Gaza and beyond.

I use the descriptor “of Muslim background” rather than “Muslim” because this diasporic identity is a diverse one that is rooted in a religion but expands to encompass everyone from the practising to those for whom Islam is a cultural totem.The capaciousness of this heritage is demonstrable in its integration – without compromise – into mainstream American society. Mamdani and the Democratic Senate nominee for Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, recuse themselves from the rote fealty to American glory and dare to point out both US support for Israel and the calamitous outcomes of the “war on terror” in the Middle East.

This is the result of this new generation of Americans coming from an immigrant background that has cultivated a less parochial and supremacist view of the US. There is something historically inevitable in this. Immigration from countries and backgrounds against which the US has waged military and ideological war eventually yields not a cowed assimilation, but a sort of political cosmopolitanism – kryptonite for American exceptionalism.... READ MORE   https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/sep/14/9-11-anniversary-islamophobia-us-politics-zohran-mamdani

  AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies here, there- and everywhere]

This Week in Palestine- Digital Horizons: Entrepreneurship and Economic Resilience

Issue: 331, February 2026

This rendering of the sunbird, Palestine’s national bird, copyrighted by Paltrade, was chosen to represent high-tech export. 

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO see art or read good articles or quotes  IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies]

https://thisweekinpalestine.com/331-Feb-2026/ 

Palestine painting by Mohammed Jabr, an artist from Gaza https://thisweekinpalestine.com/mohammed-jabr/

Message from the Editor

The war in Gaza is continuing unabated despite the so-called ceasefire, as tens of Gazans are killed on a daily basis. Yet the world has turned to other hotspots, emerging due to a resurgence of imperialist colonialism – or is it simply gaining greater visibility as it is not confined to more distant areas? And while many of us feel helpless in the wake of events and our inability to end the aggression against Gaza and the West Bank, there is one way in which we can make a difference: through the outsourcing of business services that include software development, business management, finance and accounting, and marketing. When internet and electricity are available, a skilled, resilient, and adaptable workforce of Palestinian young professionals and recent graduates can support businesses abroad. At the same time, their resilience can be strengthened as they are enabled to earn livelihoods for themselves and their families.   

This issue of TWiP highlights organizations that support Palestinian professionals by facilitating online work opportunities. We hope that this exposure will not only create visibility but also encourage greater engagement from abroad in this invaluable resource for our people who, while persevering under great hardship – unimaginable in the case of Gaza – excel in ways that might be unanticipated for many.... READ MORE  https://thisweekinpalestine.com/message-from-the-editor-331/

Table of Contents

https://thisweekinpalestine.com/table-of-contents-331/

 

From Aid to Agency

Building an Investment Ecosystem for Palestinian Innovation

By Sharareh Noorbaloochi

Humanitarian aid remains indispensable. In moments of acute crisis, it saves lives and preserves dignity. But aid alone cannot rebuild economies, restore agency, or create long-term self-reliance. For that, investment is also essential. Not symbolic investment, and not charity framed as capital, but structured, accountable investment that treats Palestinian founders as builders on equal terms. 

The highest form of solidarity is not donation. It is investment on equal terms, with shared risk, shared upside, and shared accountability. For impact-focused investors and ecosystem enablers, this approach shifts engagement from supporting activity to building durable systems grounded in ownership, incentives, and long-term alignment. 

Why Success Stories Matter
Venture capital follows a power-law dynamic: A small number of successful companies generate the majority of returns. For emerging ecosystems, building even a handful of investable success stories can unlock follow-on capital, talent retention, and long-term economic momentum.

Innovation does not thrive in isolation. It scales when talent, capital, and markets are connected through a functioning investment ecosystem. In deeply fragmented contexts, entrepreneurship can also serve as a unifying force. It creates shared incentives where politics often divides, and measurable value where rhetoric alone cannot. When paired with the right capital structures, innovation becomes a practical tool for rebuilding systems, restoring livelihoods, and creating durable pathways to growth... READ MORE https://thisweekinpalestine.com/from-aid-to-agency/

The Palestinian Diaspora

A Strategic Asset for the Tech Sector

By Feras Nasr

The Palestinian diaspora refers to the large community of Palestinians living outside historic Palestine, forming transnational networks connected to their homeland. Currently, nearly 8 million Palestinians live outside historic Palestine, with the majority residing in the Middle East and around 1 million living in North and South America and the Far East. Despite decades of displacement, the Palestinian diaspora continues to maintain close ties to its homeland and plays a significant role in preserving Palestinian national identity while providing social, cultural, and economic support. 

Know Thy Heritage Diaspora Conference 2025.

Members of the Palestinian diaspora have achieved notable successes across various fields and have been advocates of the Palestinian cause around the world. Names include Edward Said in academia, Rashida Tlaib in politics, Amer Zaher and Mo Amer in arts and culture, and the Hadid family in fashion. As entrepreneurs and business executives, Palestinians have created enormous value with well-known leaders such as Talal Abu Ghazaleh, Elia Nuqul, Farouk Shami, Samer Khoury, Ibrahim Dabdoub, and others who have founded and led multinational enterprises. 

In addition to these well-known figures, the Palestinian diaspora includes countless individuals who provide vital support and solidarity to their homeland... READ MORE https://thisweekinpalestine.com/the-palestinian-diaspora/

 * Know Thy Heritage Leadership Program empowers Palestinian youth in the Diaspora by strengthening their knowledge of their Palestinian identity, culture, history, traditions, as well as their understanding of the Palestinian economic environment, political landscape, social structures and conditions.  https://www.kthps.org/

 

UpScrolled

Born from Resistance, Built for Digital Sovereignty

Courtesy of UpScrolled

We’re living in a world where mainstream social media platforms are actively suppressing voices that aren’t toeing the line. Freedom of speech has become monetized, colonized, and villainized. When an expression of solidarity or critical thinking results in users being shadowbanned, marginalized, or cancelled, the premise of real connection and human engagement turns into empty slogans and hollow promises. 

The throttling of Palestinian voices and the online deletion of the Palestinian struggle has made this undeniable. For over a year, independent journalists documenting Gaza have watched their reach collapse overnight. Accounts that built audiences over years suddenly couldn’t reach their own followers. Posts with verified footage were buried while misinformation circulated freely. They simply made it invisible. 

Founder of UpScrolled, Issam Hijazi, at Web Summit Qatar 2026.

UpScrolled was launched in 2024 by Issam Hijazi, a Palestinian-Jordanian-Australian technologist, with support from Tech for Palestine. The creation of UpScrolled was an act of resistance and solidarity. If a platform cannot advocate for everyone, then it becomes a mouthpiece for its billionaire founders’ agendas and just another place to gatekeep truth and determine what discourse does or does not have value... READ MORE  https://thisweekinpalestine.com/upscrolled/

PALESTINE PAINFULLY BEAUTIFUL

By Patricio Hales  https://thisweekinpalestine.com/palestine-painfully-beautiful/

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO see art or read good articles or quotes  IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies]

Palestine Is Poetry by Sabrin Hasbun ..... "Grief and loss and violence and pain have been forced on us constantly, for over 75 years."

           THE RECIPE

I found a recipe

to make

apple biscuits.

I had all

the ingredients:

the flour,

the eggs,

the apples,

the sugar.

I had all

the good intentions…

Arriving at home in time,

taking a warm shower,

preparing the biscuits in pajamas.

But I opened the news.

Just a quick

look,

a quick look.

It has been

two hours.

The dust

not that of flour

the shelling

not that of eggs

the cutting

not that of apples.

The sweetness

is all

gone.

The biscuits, the pajamas, the shower,

my home

smell of our blood.

---

A few days after I posted this poem on social media, someone close to me accused me of sensationalism. That it was not poetry. Poetry should not speak about those things.

Since then, I have heard the same or similar refrain again and again, every time we Palestinians tried to talk about Palestine.

In short, it sounds something like: Art should not be political. Education should not be political. Music should not be political. Family gatherings should not be political. Music should not be political. Journalism should not be political. TV should not be political. Sport should not be political. Politics should not be political.

I have heard that sentence all my life. A few times I even believed it in the name of some sort of lightness that was required from me. Oh come now, don’t be such a downer. Do not be so political!

We were entering the full brutality of the attack on Gaza and people wanted us to shut up. To die in silence. Not to upset them with our tragedy.... READ MORE   https://thisweekinpalestine.com/palestine-is-poetry/

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

 

This Week In Palestine April 2024 Palestinian Voices of the Diaspora      https://thisweekinpalestine.com/articles-312/

Palestinian cartoonist Naji Al Ali's Handala & the Palestinian Diaspora

Handala

“The child Handala is my signature everyone asks me about him wherever I go… His name is Handala and he has promised the people that he will remain true to himself. I drew him as a child who is not beautiful; His hair is like the hair of a hedgehog who uses his thorns as a weapon. Handala is not a fat, happy, relaxed, or pampered child. He is barefooted like the refugee camp children, and he is an icon that protects me from making mistakes.”

Palestinian cartoonist Naji Al Ali (1938 – 29 August 1987)

HANDALA posts on my blog

"The Immigrant" a painting by Sliman Mansour of Palestine

Sliman Mansour painting The immigrant (المهاجرة), oil on canvas, 2017

"The scene in this painting presents a significant contrast, as though a woman fled her hometown and found herself estranged in a large and Western metropolis city. The painting expresses the tremendous attachment to Palestine that Palestinians in exile hold dear in their hearts, which only grows the longer they reside in the diaspora. This picture might also represent the deep emotional connection Arabs across the world share towards the Palestinian struggle and inherit one generation to the next." Sliman Mansour

 

Palestinians in the Diaspora—A Story of Existence

http://www.thisweekinpalestine.com/details.php?id=3553&ed=200&edid=200

Handala, the iconic Palestinian character.

Palestinians in the Diaspora—A Story of Existence
By Mohammed A.K. Owaineh

Mohammed Owaineh is a Palestinian who was born in Dubai and spent his early childhood in Jordan. He now is fortunate enough to live on the land of his grandfathers. Owaineh currently works at the Centre for Cultural Heritage Preservation (CCHP) and can be reached at mowaineh@cchp.ps.

As a young child, I saw Palestinians in the diaspora as merely numbers I learned about in my “national education” books, a subject of discussion that my father and older brothers used to have, or, as I recall, videos of the massacres of Sabra and Shatila camps in Lebanon that were shown on TV. These were the very first images that were shaped in my mind about this particular Palestinian group. As I grew older, my understanding has grown along with me. Things became clearer as I began to understand that these people are not as miserable as I thought they were, and that misery was just a single aspect of this group.

On one September morning in 2003, while I was walking to school, I saw pictures of Edward Said (the Palestinian-American intellectual) spread all around my home city of Bethlehem. When I came back home that precise day, the first question I had was, who is Edward Said? I asked my father, and he answered me, “Son, people like Edward Said are why Palestinians are still not whipped on this planet.” Then he gave me a short biography about him that I don’t remember understanding a single word from.

It took me four years to understand what my father meant. It was then, and only then, that I began reading Said and I found out that he is truly “one of a kind.”

Every time I read more about the achievements of Palestinians who have lived outside of Palestine, I came to the same realisation that these people and their achievements have participated heavily in setting Palestine on the world map.

The mass emigrations of Palestinians began in the late nineteenth century, keeping up with Arabs from other communities, such as Syria and Lebanon. They mainly emigrated in order to flee the policies of the late Ottoman Empire, which included conscription and high taxes forced on peasants and landlords. The emigration of the Palestinians came to a climax in 1948 during al-Nakba (or the Palestinian Exodus), as approximately 720,000 Palestinians (nearly 70 per cent) fled to other countries after being forced to leave their villages and towns in an attempt to escape the brutality and the mass murders of Zionist groups, which were in the process of creating their own state.

Understanding the accomplishments of Palestinians abroad is essential to understanding our background as a determined people. Members of the Palestinian diaspora have defied every single barrier put in front of them. Let us take refugee camps (outside Palestine) as an example. Palestinians are well known in the Levant region for their contributions in different areas such as the press, arts, and literature. People like Ghassan Kanafani, Salma Jayyousi, Naji al-Ali, and Ismail Shammout have affected the literature and the arts of the areas they lived in. Despite spending their childhoods in refugee camps, they were able to shine by presenting new forms of writing and painting, and adapting existing ones in order to make them more lively and descriptive. The aesthetic value of their works is highly appreciated all over the globe. Others like Abdel Bari Atwan and Jamal Rayyan have left an impact on modern Arabic media.

The political involvement of Palestinians living abroad is a significant achievement as well. Even though they do not have a state, their “instinctual political subtlety” has allowed them to be one of the most politically active people around the world. Even though most of them were not born or raised on Palestinian soil, they have been carrying their people’s matters for a long time in order to present them to the international community. Their writings and thoughts have largely impacted international activists, helping them to see things in a clearer light. However, Palestinian political involvement has never been just “local.” Their participation has also been strong in other political regimes, such as in Jordan. The most notable person is HRH Queen Rania of Jordan who is originally from Tulkarem. Palestinians have also been able to leave the borders of their region by holding posts internationally, for example John H. Sununu, the former governor of the American state of New Hampshire, and Antonio Saca, the former President of El Salvador, who won the 2004 presidential elections against another candidate with Palestinian origins, Schafik Handal.

One could argue that it is not just Palestinians, every minority has its achievements that it boasts about. This is true. But what distinguishes Palestinians is they have not dissolved completely into the communities they are living in. They still believe that being a Palestinian cannot be limited to living in one particular spot on earth, but it is more of a “state of mind” in which they must somehow contribute to what they see as “Palestinian global achievements.” Because of this, Palestinians who are living in refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria still keep the keys of their old houses, and pass them from one generation to the next, as if they were a precious family belonging. They do this to remind their children and grandchildren about their homeland, even though they have been far from it for 63 years, and because they still believe that the right of return is an undisputed right.

I’d like to finish to finish my article with this statistic. There are approximately eleven million Palestinians on this planet and around 4.3 million (which is less than half) are currently living in what is called the Palestinian Territories. The rest are either emigrants, refugees, or Palestinians living within the areas occupied in 1948 and 1967. The numbers illustrate the significance of the diaspora to us. They might not have shared this land with us, but they share our common history of despair and destruction, which caused our shattering. That is why whenever a Palestinian travels abroad, the probability of him or her coming back and saying, “I met a Palestinian there,” is quite high.

Return to Palestine, Art work by Anas Barbarawi, At-Talibiyyeh refugee camp, Jordan. Courtesy of Filistin Ashabab.