Bridgeview, Illinois – Standing outdoors his native mosque in suburban Chicago, Robhi Gharallah noticed that Israel’s conflict in Gaza is on everybody’s thoughts in his neighbourhood.
“We’re praying. We’re protesting. We’re elevating funds. We’re doing all we will for Gaza,” Gharallah mentioned after Friday prayer.
However Gharallah mentioned there may be one motion he and his neighbours are unsure about — and that’s the right way to vote within the upcoming presidential election.
Gharallah lives in Bridgeview, Illinois, an space informally often called Chicago’s Little Palestine. It sits in Cook dinner County, house to an estimated 22,518 Palestinian Individuals — one of many largest Palestinian communities in the US.
Sporting a cap with the colors of the Palestinian flag — purple, white, inexperienced and black — Gharallah underscored that the Palestinian diaspora is a outstanding presence in Chicago’s cultural and enterprise sectors.
However he mentioned Palestinian Individuals are dealing with a dilemma within the subsequent election, with each the Republican candidate Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Kamala Harris displaying staunch help for Israel.
“There isn’t any good in Ammar nor Amira,” Gharallah mentioned, utilizing female and male names in Arabic to characterize Trump and Harris.
“We’re Americans, and we need to vote, however we don’t know for whom. Whether or not you vote for this one or this one, it’s the identical factor. And in the event you don’t vote, it’s such as you don’t exist [politically].”
Bridgeview was within the nationwide highlight this month, because the Democratic Nationwide Conference arrived in Chicago.
Only a day earlier than Gharallah spoke to Al Jazeera, Harris appeared on stage at Chicago’s United Middle — solely 24km (15 miles) away from Bridgeview — to simply accept the Democratic Social gathering’s nomination for the presidency.
In her acceptance speech, she pledged to proceed arming Israel.
For Chicago-area Palestinians confronting the devastating conflict of their homeland, the conference served as a possibility to deliver consciousness to their trigger.
However residents and neighborhood advocates informed Al Jazeera that the occasion was additionally a bitter reminder that the Palestinian id continues to be vilified and pushed to the political margins, together with by Democrats who declare to worth inclusivity.
They pointed to the Harris marketing campaign’s refusal to characteristic a Palestinian American speaker on the principle stage of the conference. That exclusion, they mentioned, added insult to harm, given the scale of Chicago’s Palestinian neighborhood.
‘Not regular’
Jinan Chehade, 26, decried “the ethical apathy and dissociation from the truth” she noticed as Democrats gathered to have fun Harris, whereas US bombs dropped on Palestinian civilians.
“That’s why it’s so necessary for us to deliver individuals collectively and remind them that this isn’t regular, that we’re not going to be filtered or drowned out,” Chehade informed Al Jazeera, as she sat at a Bridgeview cafe with a mural depicting the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.
In Bridgeview, a city of 17,000 individuals, Palestinian symbols are nearly by no means out of sight.
On the cafe, there have been a number of work associated to the conflict, together with depictions of Palestinian victims comparable to Hind Rajab, the six-year-old lady who was stranded in her household’s automobile and gunned down by Israeli tank hearth earlier than rescuers had been capable of attain her.
On the entrance counter, a map of historic Palestine — drawn with espresso beans — was organized over the phrase “Palestine” spelled out in Arabic.
Chehade, a lawyer and protest organiser, mentioned that, whereas Chicago-area Palestinians have all the time had a robust sense of id, the neighborhood has seen a “transformation” over the previous 10 months, with pro-Palestinian activism reaching new heights.
“The factor about Palestinians, the very first thing you’ll learn about them is they’re Palestinian particularly right here as a result of all people may be very proud to be representing a Little Palestinian,” she informed Al Jazeera.
Little Palestine
Like a lot of the suburban US, Bridgeview has broad stretches of city sprawl: low-rise buildings and rows of outlets related and separated by multi-lane roads.
However in Bridgeview’s Little Palestine space, lots of the companies — eating places, cafes, barbershops, jewelry shops and clothes boutiques — are distinguished by Arabic indicators and Palestinian flags of their home windows.
In the course of the Democratic conference, some storefronts featured posters selling the protests outdoors the United Middle.
“We won’t give up,” learn a mural above a retailer that sells hijabs and abayas, subsequent to a bakery that raised funds for Gaza by promoting pins that say “Free Palestine”.
An digital billboard outdoors a barbecue spot cycled via a number of slides: one calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and one other displaying a Palestinian flag in between ads for job openings.
Motorists particularly put their Palestinian id on show of their automobiles, with flags, keffiyeh-patterned headrest covers, watermelon air fresheners and bumper stickers calling for an finish to the occupation of Palestine.
For lots of the residents who spoke to Al Jazeera, being Palestinian isn’t just in regards to the keffiyeh and merchandise.
They defined that it’s an inherently political state of existence, one which requires them to always humanise and spotlight the plight of Palestinians below occupation and bombardment within the Center East.
Sereen Atieh, a 20-year-old Palestinian American immigrant, mentioned whereas Little Palestine looks like house, she has struggled with a deep sense of disappointment because the begin of the conflict on Gaza.
So she has turned to activism on her school campus.
“All I can take into consideration is my brothers and sisters being killed in Palestine,” Atieh, draped in a Palestinian flag, informed Al Jazeera at a protest outdoors the Democratic conference.
“I’ve been making an attempt to do all the pieces I can to assist individuals perceive that this isn’t only a battle however a genocide, the place Israel is making an attempt to take away the Palestinian id.”
‘They need to dwell’
In Bridgeview, Mohammad Numan, who works in digital media and promoting, mentioned individuals locally are attempting to do all the pieces they’ll to face with their brethren in Palestine.
“These are people. They’ve desires. They need to dwell. So we’re with them till the final second,” Numan informed Al Jazeera.
When requested about Harris’s help for Israel, Numan mentioned Palestinian Individuals won’t help any politician who doesn’t help Palestinian human rights.
“Now we have a robust neighborhood. We stand collectively at each flip,” he informed Al Jazeera.
A number of others vowed to not vote for Harris, however Illinois stays a solidly Democratic state. Which means the Palestinian diaspora in Chicago doesn’t have the identical electoral sway as their fellow Arab Individuals in Michigan, a key swing state, the place even a small minority of voters can determine the result of the vote.
However what they lack in swing-state leverage, Chicago’s Palestinian Individuals make up for with advocacy and activism. Locals have led weekly protests for Gaza because the begin of the conflict, and so they organised demonstrations every single day of the conference.
Whereas the Palestinian American neighborhood is concentrated in Bridgeview, they’re outstanding throughout your complete Chicago space, which is house to main Palestinian rights organisations, together with American Muslims for Palestine, the US Palestinian Group Community and Palestine Authorized.
Chicago is cosmopolitan and liberal, however that has not spared it the hate and violence that Palestinian Individuals — and Arabs and Muslims extra broadly — have skilled because the outbreak of the conflict.
In October, six-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume was stabbed 26 instances in a suspected hate crime within the Chicago space. The alleged perpetrator, a neighbour, shouted, “You Muslims should die”, as he attacked Al-Fayoume, based on the boy’s mom.
His funeral was held on the Mosque Basis in Bridgeview.
Nouha Boundaoui, a 32-year-old native activist of Algerian descent, mentioned she was fearful within the first few weeks of the conflict, particularly as a Muslim girl who wears a hijab in public.
“I can’t converse for the entire neighborhood, however personally, I believe being on the protests, organising and seeing simply how a lot individuals have been activated within the final 10 months has made me really feel safer,” she informed Al Jazeera.
Different communities have proven solidarity with the Palestinian Individuals in Chicago. Nader Ihmoud, the editor-in-chief of the Chicago-based Palestine in America journal, mentioned Israeli atrocities in Gaza have pushed extra Individuals to be sympathetic to Palestinians and study extra in regards to the concern.
Nonetheless, with political rhetoric heating up forward of the elections, nervousness persists in Chicago, and Ihmoud says town’s visibility as a house for the Palestinian diaspora makes it weak to violence.
“Freaks come out at evening,” Ihmoud informed Al Jazeera. “And proper now, these subsequent months, I think about them political darkness.”
