Palestinians are usually completely ignored or viewed negatively as extremist Muslims.
Learning
I was born in the city of Haifa, Palestine, in 1940. In 1947, Haifa was a metropolitan city of 70,000 Christian and Muslim Palestinian Arabs and 70,000 Jews. Fighting erupted in the city between Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Jews in late 1947, and by the end of 1948 only 2,000 Palestinian Arabs remained in the city. My family was forced to seek refuge in Lebanon temporarily until the situation quieted down. However, our family settled in Lebanon when it became clear that Israel would not allow us to return to our homeland because of our religious and ethnocultural identity.*
I immigrated to Canada in May 1965 seeking a better future free from racism and was employed, a month later, as a systems analyst by IBM Canada. But, I have experienced racism as a Palestinian and an Arab in Canada despite my initial hopes of a racism-free reality. I know that Indigenous and racialized peoples living in Canada have, and continue, to also experience racism.
Here are a few of my family’s experiences with racism:
- In 1967, I was invited by a Canadian activist group to speak about the situation in Palestine after Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. A couple of days after the event, an RCMP officer called me at work and demanded that we meet at lunchtime. The officer’s questions showed that my actions were being closely watched by the RCMP, and his tone implied that this could affect my employment.
- My daughter, who was studying at university, joined a large student protest against a university event honouring an Israeli official. She was suspended for one term for expressing her pleasure, on a TV interview, that the event was cancelled.
- In 2006 I volunteered to drive a friend to Buffalo. I had to undergo two hours of questioning at the US border about the purpose of my visit because my passport indicated my place of birth as Haifa, Palestine, and I was serving at that time as the president of the Canadian Arab Federation. I was finally allowed to proceed to Buffalo simply because they found out I was a Christian Palestinian.
- My grandson attends a Catholic elementary school. In 2024 he went to school wearing a T-shirt printed with the photo of a traditional Palestinian scarf, the keffiyeh. On his way home after school, a parent driving by shouted “Enough of this Palestinian sh-t,” then drove away. My daughter complained to the school and was later informed that a student accused her son of being anti-Jewish. The school took no further action.
Add to the above some facts:
- Leading human rights organizations (Israel’s B’Tselem in January 2021, US-based Human Rights Watch in April 2021, and UK-based Amnesty International in February 2022) have documented Israel’s crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution against the 7 million Palestinians under Israel’s rule and control, and the 6 million Palestinians denied the right to return to their homeland.
- Palestinians are usually completely ignored or viewed negatively and falsely as “extremist” Muslims. This leads people to ignore the reality that Christianity was born in Palestine.
- Since the Israeli occupation of 1948, the state of Israel has advocated for the erasure of Palestine’s history, culture, and communities and publicly denies the existence of the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination.
Normalizing anti-Palestinian racism in society becomes a slippery slope to justifying—or, at minimum, not actively opposing—Palestinian dehumanization. As Palestinian Canadians, our continued oppression/repression is seen as a “justifiable” response to our perceived “lack of humanity,” so I have heard people say that they “get what they deserve.” The same strategy is already used on other racialized groups—for example, Black and Brown people are already negatively perceived as more “inherently” criminal, violent, threatening, etc.
The catastrophe unfolding in Gaza since October 2023 has rallied hundreds of thousands of Canadians of all faiths and backgrounds to express their support for the rights of the Palestinian people and to call for an immediate ceasefire.
Faith Reflection
Please join me in prayer and action.
I pray for the day that we can all call out anti-Palestinian racism, anti-Arab racism, Islamophobia, and dehumanization, as well as the anti-Jewish racism that is on the rise. Let us all pray and work against all forms of oppression, all forms of bigotry, and all forms of stigmatization so that we can build a society that is pluralistic and accepting of all of us as spelled out in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Living It Out
People across the church should staunchly reject the false claim that Israel—a regime that is on trial for plausible genocide by the International Court of Justice and has been called on to immediately end its illegal occupation and colonization of Palestinian territories—represents world Jewry, since such a claim is a contributor to anti-Jewish racism. I call upon people from across the church to act urgently against anti-Palestinian racism, as the dehumanization and demonizing of Palestinians and their supporters in Canada has deepened and threatens the rights and freedoms of all Canadians.
*Israel has never officially recognized United Nations Resolution 194, passed in 1948, which recognizes the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland, a right to which all refugees are entitled.
—Khaled Mouammar (he/him) is a Christian Palestinian Canadian whose family originates from Nazareth, and was forced to flee Haifa, Palestine, in early 1948 and seek refuge in Lebanon. He immigrated to Canada in 1965. Khaled is a founding member and served three terms as the National President of the Canadian Arab Federation, and is a former Member of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (1994 to 2005). Khaled received the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Award from the Governor General of Canada in 1977.