Live updates: Follow the latest news on Israel-Gaza
When Laila Shaikh got word last week that she had received a letter at the local Islamic centre outside Cincinnati, she didn’t think much of it.
“I told them to go ahead and open it; I had class the next day so couldn’t come by and get it myself,” the 19-year-old student said.
Ms Shaikh is the founder of the University of Cincinnati chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, a nationwide college-based organisation.
The letter, which was handwritten, read: “Go back to Gaza you [expletive] Muslim [expletive]. We don’t want you here.” It was handed over to the police and a report was made.
She also believes her phone has been hacked and that someone has been sending recorded messages in Hebrew to her 13-year-old sister.
“It has been getting very unsafe for me personally,” she said.
“I’m a 19-year-old in Cincinnati speaking out. I haven’t been doing anything crazy.”
The Israel-Gaza war has fuelled and politicised Arab Americans such as Ms Shaikh to a level not seen for generations, with students leading the charge.
For the past month, young Arab Americans have been taking to the streets to vent their anger at the devastation and their own government’s response to the bombing of Gaza.
Across the country, students are threatening class walkouts when universities fail to meet their demands to issue statements condemning Israel’s attacks on Gaza.
Meanwhile, Jewish students have experienced rising anti-Semitism, with swastikas appearing on the door of a student dorm at American University in Washington last month.
In mid-October, Ms Shaikh, who grew up in Chicago and whose family comes from the occupied West Bank, organised a rally in Cincinnati that drew hundreds of people.
“I need to speak out, I need to advocate especially because our history has been taken away from us,” she said.
“As a Palestinian who has had the privilege of not living [in Gaza] and not being bombarded, if I do choose to speak out and to be a voice for the voiceless, I understand there will be repercussions.”
Since Israel’s bombardment of Gaza began, some Muslim groups in the US have had to hire security to protect people attending organised gatherings.
“[We have responded to] over 260 and counting incidents of suppression of Palestinian rights advocacy we have responded to in the last two weeks,” said Danya Zituni of Palestine Legal, a US-based non-profit.
“The scale is unprecedented; this is more than the number of incidents we addressed in all of last year.”
On October 24, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ordered the shutting down of Students for Justice in Palestine in the state for being “anti-Israeli”.
Free speech advocates across the political divide are aghast, fearing what it could mean for the country as a whole if Mr DeSantis were to become president following next year’s election.
“There’s no indication from the chancellor’s letter that any action from Florida’s Students for Justice in Palestine groups went beyond expression fully protected by the First Amendment,” said a statement from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, an advocacy group that defends free speech on university campuses.
“This directive is a dangerous – and unconstitutional – threat to free speech. If it goes unchallenged, no one’s political beliefs will be safe from government suppression.”
Arab-American students say they have been moved to action not only by seeing the devastation in Gaza play out on social media and TV, but by the responses of leading US politicians such as Senator Lindsay Graham who last month said: “Gaza is going to look like Tokyo and Berlin at the end of World War II when this is over. And if it doesn't look that way, Israel made a mistake.”
Israel-Gaza war latest – in pictures
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Smoke rises as displaced Palestinians take shelter at Al Shifa hospital. Reuters -
A Palestinian girl wounded in Israeli strikes waits for treatment at Al Shifa hospital, in Gaza city. Reuters -
Flames rage in a field near the border village of Burj Al-Mamluk, in southern Lebanon's Khiam plain, after an Israeli bombardment. AFP -
Smoke rises after air strikes during direct combat between the Israeli army and Hamas, near the beach road in Gaza city. EPA -
Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, looking for safety, camp on the grounds of Al Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. AFP -
People search through buildings, destroyed during Israeli air strikes in Khan Younis, Gaza. Getty Images -
Israeli troops during operations in northern Gaza. AFP -
A photo taken from the Israeli side of the border with Gaza shows the continued Israeli bombardment of the northern Gaza Strip. AFP -
Palestinian men pray over the bodies of members of the Abu Taim family before burial in Khan Younis. AFP -
Israeli soldiers stand amid rubble during the ground invasion against Palestinian militant group Hamas, in the northern Gaza Strip. Reuters -
A woman and two children evacuated from Gaza walk on the tarmac at the Baza 90 air force base in Otopeni, Romania, after arriving from Egypt. AP -
Gazans inspect the Khaled bin Al-Walid Mosque, which was destroyed during Israeli air raids in Khan Younis. Getty Images -
Residents flee from Al Shatea refugee camp during combat between the Israeli army and Hamas in Gaza city. EPA -
An artillery unit moves near the border with Lebanon, in Tel Aviv, Israel. Getty Images -
Smoke rises during direct combat between the Israeli army and militants of the Ezz Al-Din Al Qassam militia, the military wing of the Hamas movement, at the beach road in west-centre Gaza City. EPA -
People search for survivors and bodies after a building was hit by Israeli bombing in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. AFP -
A boy learns his father has been killed in an Israeli air strike at a hospital in Khan Younis. Reuters -
Israeli soldiers training in the upper Galilee region, near the border with Lebanon. AFP -
Destruction in the northern Gaza Strip, as seen from Sderot in southern Israel. Reuters -
A girl looks on as bodies of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes are laid out at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Reuters -
Mourners pray next to the bodies of members of the Daher family, who were killed by Israel strikes, at the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip. Reuters -
A satellite image shows the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt. Reuters -
People search through the rubble of buildings destroyed during Israeli air raids in Khan Younis. Getty Images -
Smoke rises over the northern Gaza Strip, as seen from Sderot. Reuters -
An ambulance transporting injured Palestinians to Egyptian hospitals for treatment waits on the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing. Reuters -
Palestinian doctor Mohammad Abu Namoos, who chose to stay in Gaza to treat patients, says goodbye to his family before they leave. Reuters -
The funeral of three children and their grandmother killed in an Israeli air strike in Blida, Lebanon. EPA -
Palestinian children denouncing the killing of children in Gaza by waving banners and flags during a sit-in protest at the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut. AFP -
Men pray during a rally in support of Palestinians outside Barclays Centre in Brooklyn, New York. AFP -
A teddy bear symbolising hostages and missing children is placed on a bench in Tel Aviv, as people gather for a vigil to mark the one-month anniversary of the October 7 attack by Hamas militants on Israel. Reuters -
A survivor of the Nova Festival attack, May Hayat, takes cover as rocket sirens sound, during her first visit to the scene of the attack, near Re'im, Israel. Reuters -
Palestinians flee Gaza city to the southern Gaza Strip on Salah al-Din street in Bureij. AP -
A satellite picture showing the Rafah border crossing to Egypt. AFP -
People gather in Tel Aviv for a candlelit vigil to mark the one-month anniversary of the October 7 deadly attack by Hamas militants on Israel. Reuters -
Doris Liber, whose son Guy Iluz is being held hostage in Gaza, during a press conference with House Republicans at the Capitol in Washington. AP -
Palestinians flee to the southern Gaza Strip on Salah al-Din Street in Bureij. AP -
Mourners attend the funeral of four Palestinians killed by Israeli troops at Tulkarm refugee camp, in the occupied West Bank. EPA
To counter this narrative, student activists have attempted to highlight the history and context of the Arab-Israeli conflict for Americans who may not be familiar with what has transpired over the past 70 years. But some of these efforts have been thwarted.
An event the University of Cincinnati chapter of the Students for Justice in Palestine had planned to hold to talk about the effects of Zionism was cancelled following opposition from a host of local groups and a news report in the local media that claimed the meeting equated to anti-Semitism.
“We were told that this could be interpreted as hate speech and that we could lose our funding if it went ahead,” said Ms Shaikh. “I just don’t understand why there’s not common knowledge that Zionism is not Judaism.”
Former president Donald Trump’s so-called “Muslim ban” in 2017 led Arab Americans to seek and win political office as members of the Democratic Party in local, state and national races across the country in 2020.
But President Joe Biden’s stance on Israel’s attacks on Gaza the conflict has seen his popularity sink among Muslim and Arab Americans. This could boost the profile of activists such as Ms Shaikh, who represent a disillusionment with mainstream politics in America.
For her, among the problems she and other Palestinian Americans face is the narrative that speaking out for Palestinian rights is associated with Hamas’s actions.
“We are a student organisation in Cincinnati, they are a political faction in Gaza … I’ve never been out of the country,” she said. “I don’t even own a passport.”
Instead, one role the Students for Justice in Palestine group is finding itself involved in is helping friends dealing with loss. Ms Shaikh said a member of the organisation’s board has lost 40 members of his family to Israeli air strikes.
“Part of what we’re trying to do is just comfort people who have lost family members,” Ms Shaikh explained.
