In recognition of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on Nov. 29, NYU Abu Dhabi’s chapter of the international student advocacy group Students for Justice in Palestine organised a series of online events. Starting on Nov. 27 and closing with an event titled ‘1001 Palestinian Stories’ on Nov. 29, the series consisted of four film screenings, followed by Q&A sessions with the directors, a talk on the history of the Palestinian struggle by NYUAD faculty member Rana Tomaira and a final storytelling event.

The Gazelle reached out to Dania Dekedek, Class of 2022 and President of SJP at NYUAD, to learn more about the programming. She shared that the move to an online platform allowed for SJP at NYUAD to host a sustained three-day series of events rather than a single one and to expand from movie screenings and cultural events to talks, storytelling sessions and Q&As with the directors of the movies, joining remotely. Director Annemarie Jacir joined attendees after the screening of the film Wajib and director Mahdi Fleifel joined after the screening of three short films, an experience Dekedek described as engaging and insightful.

She particularly emphasized the role of engagement with professors in the genesis of the event. “The faculty members here … the Arab ones, the Palestinians ... are so amazing; they’re very supportive. They actually reached out to us … [to] think of ways to [collaborate and] elevate SJP and … get this message across our community,” she said.

This collaboration led them to plan first for SJP at NYUAD. Dekedek shared that in her three years of experience with SJP at NYUAD, they had not hosted a series of events dedicated to the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

“We never really had anything like [‘1001 Palestinian Stories’] … It was different, it was something new,” she shared. The event was a webinar style discussion with five speakers, available to all NYUAD students or faculty members.

“They just spoke about their stories, and the point of this event was to highlight [what the Palestinian struggle meant for NYUAD’s] community members … today. We thought it would be intimate if we invite people from our own community to share,” she said. “It was such a powerful event … some of the speakers were actually crying. I cried. I know a lot of the attendees cried as well.”

The event, which was initially planned for an hour, ran well over two and a half hours, and was attended by 43 people.

On discourse surrounding Palestine on campus, Dekedek noted that there was room to grow: “There are a lot of people who have heard of what’s going on but they don’t really know anything about it, and these are the people who usually show up in our events.”

“I think there is definitely plenty of room for people to explore the topic for what it actually is, versus looking at it as a conflict,” Dekedek explained. She emphasized that it was critical to understand that perceptions around the topic are often built around skewed media perceptions, making it all the more important to frame the issue correctly and move away from its categorisation as a conflict.

Rana Tomaira, Research Scientist and Lecturer at NYUAD who will be teaching a new course in Arab Crossroads Studies called Colonization of Palestine, highlighted similar concerns about Palestinian history. She said, “The Palestinian cause … is something that is the most talked about or discussed issue … but it’s the least understood.” Tomaira explained that it was important to not indulge in the hyperbole of defining the issue as one rooted solely in religion, but to contextualise it in the broader and understood history of settler colonialism.

With regards to the scope of operability of SJP at NYUAD, Dekedek emphasized the importance of storytelling: “I think we need to keep retelling our stories because, at the end of the day ... for people to actually listen, they need to engage with … our stories. If you throw a paper … at someone and [say] ... ‘Just read this’, how effective is that? ... It won’t resonate the same as a story … That’s why I think storytelling is such a powerful tool for us.”