Palestinian Americans Changed The Conversation
When Salim Totah and Dr. Fuad Shatara appeared before the U.S. Congress in 1922 to oppose the Balfour Declaration, they were asking America to pay attention to a people most Americans knew little about and a cause few cared to understand. Their audience was small, their influence negligible and the political odds overwhelmingly stacked against them. Yet those early Palestinian immigrants understood something that would shape the next century: Palestine would have to be defended not only in Jerusalem and Jaffa, but also in Washington, New York, Detroit, Chicago and every American city where Palestinians built new lives.