By Diana Safieh
This article first appeared in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs of August/September 2024, pp. 20-2
ON 6 JUNE this year, at a Balfour Project conference in London, Palestinian political analyst Nour Odeh discussed the unique survivor’s guilt felt by Palestinians in the West Bank during Israel’s current war in Gaza. Conditions there are also oppressive, but the violence is not (yet) as widespread as it is in Gaza. This raises a pertinent question for the broader Palestinian diaspora: What is it like for those of us who escaped the camps and curfews entirely? Those who grew up in the leafy suburbs of London or townhouses in New York, who might be of mixed heritage but are 100 per cent Palestinian in identity?
Survivor’s guilt is a form of psychological distress experienced by those who escape a traumatic event while others do not. Our traumatic event, the Nakba, is ongoing. And we in the diaspora have not escaped it, but we live through a different version of it. Our families are scattered across the globe. We feel othered in our adopted home countries. Those of us who are lucky can return to our homeland on an insulting tourist visa, while others are not even permitted to return for a visit. But most of us in the diaspora grew up with near-total freedom, while others struggle daily to survive in Gaza, and that was purely a result of birth lottery.
The experiences of Palestinian refugees and exiles, scattered across the globe, are marked by a unique interplay of historical displacement, ongoing conflict and cultural identity, all of which contribute to the intensity of survivor’s guilt.
For those whose parents or grandparents fled or were exiled during the 1948 or 1967 wars or any other period, there is an acute awareness that our lives would be very different if we had grown up in our hometowns in Palestine or a camp in Gaza or Lebanon. The only curfew I had was set loosely by my parents, and I broke it often and with little consequence. My movements were not subject to the whims of teenaged armed guards at checkpoints; I did not risk being shot by a soldier for breaking curfew.
Our achievements and comforts feel like undeserved privileges
We grew up with stories of loss and survival, inheriting a sense of duty and emotional burden from our parents. This intergenerational transmission of trauma and guilt shaped our identities and life choices. How does this manifest in our psyche? My undergraduate dissertation focused on national identity among the Palestinian diaspora and, unsurprisingly, it found that our sense of being Palestinian is strong. We identify as Palestinian above all else, regardless of citizenship or having only one Palestinian parent.
We have luxuries and opportunities. We bear the burden of knowing that our compatriots back home do not. This knowledge can lead to an internal conflict where our achievements and comfort feel like undeserved privilege. We live with the reality that their safety and opportunities starkly contrast with ours. They resist simply by living in historic Palestine within Israel’s colonial constraints, and their opportunities are similarly constrained. Clearly they pay a higher price for asserting their Palestinian identity than those of us in the diaspora will ever pay.
Coping with images and stories from back home is challenging. I feel I have not slept a full night since 7 Oct. I have been obsessed with doom-scrolling on social media sites and catching up on al Jazeera. The constant flow of distressing news from Palestine—images of destruction, stories of loss and accounts of human rights abuses—is overwhelming. And I feel guilty mentioning sleeplessness because it is nothing compared to what people back home are experiencing all the time. The destruction is so severe that almost all of us have experienced a personal loss or have friends who have suffered losses. It is too much for us to bear and, given that, it is too painful to imagine what it is like to be in Gaza right now.
Listening to British MPs debate humanitarian law should scare everyone
Is it easy being an immigrant? Of course not. But is it a Herculean task, as it now is in Gaza, to stay alive, to make sure our families are safe? No. Anyone living away from their home nation faces challenges; the news of the home country, when it is presented at all, is often misrepresented or lacks context. In London, I have experienced racism and, ironically, Islamophobia; bigots do not check facts before expressing their ignorance. It can be unpleasant to contend with this repeatedly.
We in the diaspora are severely disappointed or even angered by the response, or lack thereof, of our adopted home nations. Listening to UK members of Parliament debate whether international humanitarian law should apply to a specific group of people should actually scare everyone. The restrictions on freedom of expression being imposed by some governments who are restricting the rights to boycott settlement goods is a violation of civil rights that should be a red flag to every citizen, even if they do not care a jot about Israel/Palestine.
How do we handle this guilt? Some struggle and do nothing, while others, occupied with their own struggles, cannot engage. However, many of us feel compelled to do what we can for those who cannot. Our activism is driven by the belief that our survival obliges us to fight for justice and the rights of those in Palestine. This constructive action is crucial for our own survival. And many of us, at home and abroad, seek comfort in those non-Palestinians offering their solidarity, through kind words, marches and other forms of activism.
I do not want to end on a pious note, and yet I will. It is one’s duty to take advantage of all the opportunities life presents to you to make the world a more hospitable place for all of us. It is not our privilege that is undeserved, it is the occupation, oppression and what I suspect the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice will confirm, genocide experienced by those back home. We must use our privilege to work toward a day when life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness will be afforded to us all.
Diana Safieh is a writer and podcaster whose areas of expertise are Palestine, true crime and anything slightly unusual. She currently works with the Balfour Project in the UK. She was invested as a member of the Order of St. John for her efforts, just like her father, Ambassador Afif Safieh, and her great uncle.