Palestine Exists!

In this conversation, Habuba and Petra delve into various hot takes surrounding the Palestinian cause, normalization, and the role of diaspora. They discuss the implications of normalization in the context of current events, the influence of AI on society, and the dynamics between Palestinians in the diaspora and those living under occupation. The conversation also touches on the challenges of anti-intellectualism and the need for nuanced discussions within the Palestinian community. In this conversation, Petra and Habuba delve into the complexities of Palestinian identity, the implications of victimhood, and the importance of agency. They discuss the cultural heritage of Palestinians beyond suffering, the role of the diaspora in advocating for Palestinian rights, and the political responsibilities tied to U.S. policies. The dialogue critiques the fetishization of armed resistance and emphasizes the need for strategic evaluation and building a cultural and political infrastructure to support effective resistance. In this conversation, Petra and Habuba delve into the complexities of Palestinian identity, the fetishization of violence, and the dehumanization of individuals in conflict. They discuss the dangers of viewing Palestinians solely as resilient figures or victims, emphasizing the need for accountability and agency within the community. The conversation culminates in a poignant reminder of the importance of humanizing those affected by the conflict, particularly through the stories of martyrs.

Your name is the one thing they still cannot take.
Every empire tried to catalogue us. Israel’s the first to try to delete us. This episode looks at how Palestinian names carry proof when everything else is gone: houses, land, photos, documents. Hiba walks through how language, law, and paperwork are used to erase a people, and why a last name like Al-Nabulsi or Majdalawi says more than any document. She also sits with what it means to name a child after someone who was killed, and why that turns memory into something that breathes.
In This Episode:
The fundamental difference between Arabic naming (recognition) and colonial naming (possession)
How Palestinian geographic names directly contradict the "empty land" myth
Why names like Saffuri and Lyddawi are evidence that Palestinians did not just appear in 1948
The weaponization of bureaucratic systems to distort and erase Palestinian names
The weight carried by children named after martyrs and the impossible choices families make
Remember What They Want Forgotten
Learn the original Palestinian names of places, not their made-up Hebrew versions
Record elders telling your family stories before they're gone
Resources
Humanize Gaza: Submit and read stories of those killed
B'Tselem: Documentation on Palestinian children denied registration
Adalah: Legal work against residency revocation through paperwork
"Your forgetting was never my responsibility." — Hiba
"You name your child after a martyr because you're betting that their name carrying that history is worth the weight that it puts on them, that it's better for your kid to carry a name that still hurts than for that name to be forgotten completely." — Hiba

Childhood is constructed, protected, and in Palestine, deliberately destroyed. This episode traces how Palestinian children are stripped of the word “child” before the bullet lands: through media framing, military law, biometric surveillance, and bureaucratic erasure. From cortisol in the hair to frozen trauma on school grounds, Hiba shows how childhood becomes a criminal and what it means to remember, name, and protect it anyway.
Take Action
Media Accountability
• DCIP Media Toolkit: Learn how to identify and challenge headlines that erase Palestinian children and obscure Israeli violence
• Visualizing Palestine Language Guide: Tools to call out framing that dehumanizes or criminalizes kids
Legal Defense & Documentation
• Defense for Children International – Palestine: Defends detained minors and documents Israeli violations in military courts
• Al-Haq: Legal analysis and international advocacy for Palestinian children under occupation
Memory & Narrative Protection
• BADIL Resource Center: Archives children’s stories, displacement histories, and art—what the occupation tries to delete
• Share names, photos, and stories while they’re alive. The state wants memory to start at martyrdom. Don’t let it.
Sources Referenced
Palestinian Children's Rights Organizations:
• Defense for Children International-Palestine
• Addameer Prisoner Support
• Al-Haq
• BADIL Resource Center
Mental Health & Research:
• Gaza Mental Health Foundation
• UNICEF - Children in Armed Conflict
• UN OCHA

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See more martyr stories, here.
"If you remove the word child, suddenly there's no contradiction between protecting children and shooting them." -Hiba

White on Paper, Invisible by Design
About This Episode: In this solo episode, Habuba breaks down how bureaucratic erasure becomes physical violence against Palestinians and Arabs in America. From census forms to FBI databases, hospital records to immigration files, she reveals the deliberate system designed to make us vanish—not by accident, but by architecture.
In This Episode: Habuba takes you through:
Why that "White" checkbox on forms is about more than paperwork—it's about who lives and who dies
The century-long legal manipulation of Arab "whiteness," shifting whenever it served American interests
How the FBI deliberately erased anti-Arab hate crimes from official records for 23 years while violence skyrocketed
Why Palestinian Americans like Shireen Abu Akleh and Wadea al-Fayoume receive no justice, even in death
The direct connection between campus surveillance from the 1970s to today's repression of Palestinian students
How being classified as "white" leads Arab women to die in childbirth and communities to miss critical health resources
The brutal truth about conditional solidarity and which communities benefit from Palestinian erasure
What actual implementation of the MENA category must look like beyond symbolic recognition
Take Action:
Check if your local agencies have implemented the 2024 OMB MENA classification change
Ask your city's police department if they code and track anti-Arab hate crimes
Support organizations like ACCESS, Arab American Institute, and ADC who are fighting for accurate data
Demand your representatives advocate for investigations into Palestinian American deaths abroad
Resources:
Office of Management and Budget 2024 MENA Classification Standards
Arab American Institute Foundation Report: Underreported, Under Threat
ACCESS Health Justice Program
Palestine Legal's Resources for Students and Faculty
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See more martyr stories, here.
"They didn't make us white to make us safe. They made us white to make us quiet." – Habuba"

In this episode, Habuba examines how religion in Israel isn’t just about belief—it’s infrastructure. From military operations named after biblical events to laws that erase Arabic place names, this is a system where theology becomes policy. Palestinian existence is framed not as a people with rights, but as a theological violation in need of correction. Genocide becomes sacred. Reproduction becomes nationalized. Language, geography, and bodies are regulated through a framework that transforms elimination into divine mandate.
This isn’t religion gone wrong. This is how it was designed to work when fused with state power.
Support: humanizegaza.org
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