On a brisk day last December, Ray Nacanaynay and Lea Campbell stood at a busy intersection in Gulfport.
Nacanaynay, an Air Force veteran and member of Veterans for Peace, invited Campbell, the founding president of Mississippi Rising Coalition, to join him at his first protest for the war on Gaza.
“He said, ‘I’m going to take my Veterans for Peace flag and a ceasefire sign, and I’m going to go stand at the intersection of Highway 49 and Highway 90 in Gulfport, and I would love for you to stand with me,’” said Campbell. “And I did.”
The protest grew into a weekly vigil for Gaza in Gulfport’s Jones Park. The initial actions were small — just Nacanaynay and Campbell. But soon, other organizers and students began to join them.
“It started to grow,” said Campbell.
Nacanaynay and Campbell are just two of scores of Mississippians who have been protesting the war on Gaza over the past year. October marks one year since Palestinian militant group Hamas carried out a surprise attack on Israel in which they killed about 1,200 people and captured 251 hostages. Since then, Israel’s subsequent ground invasion and bombardment has killed over 41,000 Palestinians in Gaza, many of them children, and displaced 90% of Gaza’s population.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the objective of this invasion is to eliminate Hamas. But a number of international human rights organizations have called Israel’s offensive a genocide, including a United Nations Special Rapporteur.
As the crisis worsened, organizers across Mississippi began planning events to protest U.S. policies that support Israel’s attack on Gaza, to mourn the lives lost, and to educate the public about the history of struggle for the land. Meanwhile, Mississippi lawmakers re-affirmed the state’s financial support for Israel.
And Mississippians have struggled to find common ground, grappling with the different, at times conflicting meanings of the centuries-old conflict for the state’s citizens.
Rabbi Eric Gurvis of Jackson’s Beth Israel Congregation cautioned that violence in the Middle East is “so complicated on so many levels.”
Gurvis, who believes there should be a Palestinian state, says that Israel is fighting a war against an enemy, Hamas, that rejects its right to exist.
“When Israel says we’re going to defend our citizens and try to stop those who are seeking to perpetrate the end of our existence, that’s not genocide,” Gurvis said. “That’s self defense.”
“There has to be a partner who will say, yes, there has to be an Israel as well.”
Others say the conflict is not so complicated.
Emad Al-Turk, a Palestinian-American Mississippian, said that with the war in Gaza, “Israel intends to ethnically cleanse and get rid of the indigenous people of Palestine.”
He finds himself pushing through despite the challenges to keep fighting. “For their sake, for their liberation, I try to push myself to find whatever strength I have to make sure we continue this fight.”
University of Mississippi senior Zynub Al-Sherri stands at the top of the Oxford, Miss. City Hall steps, waiting to give a speech before a pro-Palestine March on Nov. 26, 2023, in Oxford, Miss. Al-Sherri is Palestinian-American. Approximately 120 members of the Oxford community attended the march to call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, an end to the genocide of Palestinians, and an end to U.S. aid to Israel. Credit: HG Biggs, Independent Photographer
Where does Mississippi stand?
In the state of Mississippi, where lawmakers have consistently been vocal about their support for Israel, organizers say they have faced an uphill battle engaging people on the consequences of U.S. economic and military aid to the Middle Eastern country — for both Mississippians and Palestinians.
On Oct. 13, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a written ultimatum warning Netanyahu’s government to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Palestine within 30 days or face potential reductions in U.S. military support. The letter specified that Israel must allow at least 350 trucks to enter Gaza each day and institute pauses in fighting to enable the distribution of aid.
But the very same day, the U.S. promised to send Israel a missile defense system and troops to operate it. Since October 2023, the U.S. Congress has enacted legislation providing Israel with more than $12.5 billion in military aid.
Nacanaynay’s organization, Veterans for Peace, wrote a letter to U.S. State Department officials in February saying the country’s military support of Israel violates U.S. law, including the Leahy Law, which bars the provision of arms to foreign powers that have committed “gross violations of human rights.”
In April, Mississippi lawmakers voted to extend the Israel Support Act, a 2019 law prohibiting the state from investing in businesses that boycott Israel.
The law also authorized the Mississippi treasury to increase its initial $20 million investment in Israeli bonds up to $50 million. The state has earned over $2.2 million in interest from the bonds, according to the state treasury.
Spokespeople for House Speaker Jason White and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann did not respond to requests for comment.
However, not all elected officials have lent unconditional support to Israel’s actions. Democratic 2nd District U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, for instance, was one Mississippi congressman who signed an open letter in December 2023 along with 10 other members of Congress, urging for a bilateral ceasefire.
“Too many innocent lives have been lost already. The bloodshed must end,” the letter said.
And though the Israel Support Act passed both chambers of the Mississippi Legislature with a significant majority, it drew criticism from some lawmakers.
During House debate on April 3, Rep. Jill Ford, R-Madison, cited the biblical verse in Genesis, saying, “God will bless those that bless Israel and curse those that curse Israel.”
But Rep. Daryl Porter, D-Summit, responded that Mississippi lawmakers have neglected other scriptural instructions.
“Are you aware that the Bible also tells us to do a lot of stuff, like take care of the sick, feed the hungry, take care of the poor, and we fail to do that in this body?”
Candace Abdul-Tawwab, a Jackson-based organizer who protested against the law when it was first proposed in 2019, echoed that she objects to Mississippi’s ongoing financial support of Israel when there are so many needs closer to home.
“They’re sending our money to this country that’s committing these atrocities, when Mississippi is one of the poorest states in the nation.”
Finding common ground
Aala’a Matalgah, an Ole Miss student of Arab origin, grew up in Mississippi. She remembers seeing pictures and videos of Gaza even as a child. But she also remembers feeling frustrated when no one else at school knew what she was talking about when she would mention it. “It was shocking because I was like, how can something be so intense, and so many people don’t know about it?”
Everything changed in October 2023. “Now,” Matalgah said, “every single person knows what Palestine is.”
Gurvis described the war as “horrific.”
“I wish that every innocent Palestinian mother, father, child, grandparent that has died were not dead,” he said. “They’re human beings. They’re created in the image of God, just like us.”
With Palestine in the spotlight, organizers said they have had to challenge ingrained narratives and pervasive stereotypes about Muslims and people of Arab origin.
“We’re really fighting against the prevailing anti-Muslim narrative,” said Campbell. “The prevailing narrative in the South is that Muslims are terrorists … we’re really having to unpack and deconstruct that narrative and lack of awareness, and that’s very challenging.”
Muslim brothers pray Salat Al Asr, the afternoon prayer, in front of City Hall after a pro Palestine march on Nov. 26, 2023, in Oxford, Miss. Approximately 120 members of the Oxford community attended the march to call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, an end to the genocide of Palestinians, and an end to U.S. aid to Israel. Credit: HG Biggs, Independent Photographer
At one of Nacanaynay’s vigils, when he was holding a sign that said “Boycott, Divest, Sanction Israel,” a man drove up by the sidewalk and told him, “Go to effing Palestine.”
Still, in a state protective of its veterans, Nacanaynay, who moved to Mississippi from Washington state in 2023, feels he is positioned to “do much more than a lot of other people” to organize for Palestine.
“Maybe someone sees me holding a sign or shares a few words with me, and that’s what changes them,” he said. “That’s what turns them around.”
Mississippians gather for a vigil outside the International Museum of Muslim Cultures.
Credit: Mukta Joshi/Mississippi Today
During a pro-Palestine protest at Ole Miss in May, a white counter protester made monkey noises at a Black student participating in the protest. The counter protester’s fraternity, Phi Delta Theta, removed him from membership, while the university opened an investigation into his conduct.
Kristin Hickman, assistant professor of anthropology and international studies at the University of Mississippi, said in her personal capacity that she was “incredibly impressed” by the students’ persistence in organizing around Palestine, despite the racist backlash they faced.
Matalgah, a member of University of Mississippi for Palestine, expressed a sense of sadness at the counter protestors’ behavior.
“They didn’t know anything about Palestine or Israel,” she said. “They were just there because they hated us.”
But she also recounted a moment where both sides realized they had something in common.
“They were, at one point, chanting ‘Fuck Joe Biden!’ And we looked at them and we started chanting it back because obviously…fuck Joe Biden! And they were so confused — they all got quiet for a second.”
From Gaza to Mississippi, a shared story
Terron Weaver, who has been door-knocking and holding teach-ins in northern Mississippi and Jackson as a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, said his organizing boils down to an experience many Mississippians share: “Not getting a fair shake in life.”
Weaver said he’s had considerable success “just bringing those conversations to people.”
“People are not necessarily conservative,” Weaver said. “I think that people here are just oppressed.”
He said that many Black Mississippians he’s spoken with identify with Palestinians’ experiences.
“Most Black people here know what it’s like to live basically in a police state and that type of oppression,” Weaver said. “I don’t think I’ve met another Black person that I’ve had a conversation with on Palestine…that they don’t resonate with it in some way.”
Al-Turk, whose relatives from Gaza have been repeatedly displaced in the past year, described how Palestinians in the occupied territories must display different license plates than Israelis. They must take meandering, poorly maintained roads littered with checkpoints, separate from smoother, direct routes reserved for Israelis. Human rights organizations, including an Israeli group, B’Tselem, and an independent human rights expert of the United Nations, have termed the system made up of such differential rights for Israelis and Palestinians an apartheid.
These experiences, Al-Turk said, have parallels in the liberation struggles of Black Americans and Black South Africans, and even the Irish movement for independence.
“It’s all the same,” he said. “It’s seeking dignity and being recognized as an equal human being who has all the rights that others who live in that land are entitled to. That is not endowed by government, but it is endowed by our creator.”
Many also see parallels with the Holocaust.
Sophia Williams, an Army veteran and a native Mississippian of German descent, found out two months ago that a distant relative had served as a Nazi guard in Dachau. As she connected the dots, she struggled with feelings of shock that slowly combined with horror.
“I wondered, how could the Holocaust have happened?” Williams said. She felt like she was forced to grapple with this question twice: while processing her discovery about her family history and their role in the atrocities committed on Jews in Germany, while simultaneously watching the news over the past year.
“Unfortunately, I’m getting the answer now,” Williams said. “The pattern that I’ve seen is one of dehumanization.”
Many Mississippians consider it even more important to organize for Palestine, given its history.
“This is the seat of the civil rights movement,” Abdul-Tawwab said. “This is in our spirit. This is in our soul. So why would we not join in the fight for Palestinians? This is part of our legacy here. We’re fighting for ourselves, and at the same time fighting for them.”
“To me, the most important point is this: neither apartheid nor segregation are acceptable anywhere, at any time, under any circumstances,” said Hickman. “Israel does not have the right to impose a system of apartheid on Palestinians. Southern readers should understand that better than anybody else.”
Many have fond memories from this past year of coming together in an attempt to build community.
Maya Purohit, a student at Mississippi State University, remembers one moment in particular that took place at a vigil in October 2023, when the names of Palestinian victims were being read out.
“Everyone in the room was just overcome with this wave of grief, and love as well, for strangers across the world that you don’t even know. Everyone was either in tears or bawling. It was crazy, yet beautiful,” Purohit said.
“And that really gave me hope that, okay, there are people all the way across the world who care for this cause. Even in a place like Mississippi, where we’re not really known to be progressive or to be super empathetic to people who don’t look like the average cis white person, heterosexual person.”
Hickman emphasized that while many Mississippians might think of the violence in the Middle East as something that’s happening “far away,” there are university students, some of whom were raised in Mississippi, who are Palestinian.
“This is not a ‘far away’ issue for them,” Hickman said. “Their family members are getting killed with the help of American tax dollars.”
Margaret Lawson, an archivist of queer history in Mississippi, highlighted the importance of recognizing the multitudes even within rigid political spaces.
“If you look at an electoral map, you see a red state,” they said. “But our state is much more diverse than that. Mississippi is the Blackest state in the nation. Jackson is the Blackest city in the Blackest state in the nation.”
Lawson expressed the need to honor the views not just of the privileged few, but also those whose demands are not being met by their governments.
“That is a part of Mississippi’s story, too,” Lawson said.
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