Minnesotan says being Palestinian comes with ‘survivor’s guilt’ amid war in Gaza
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More than 200 Palestinians — half of them children — have died of starvation since Israel's war in Gaza began.
This week, the foreign ministers of 24 countries, including Canada, Britain and Australia, called for urgent action to end the famine in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he plans to expand the war in Gaza and denies that starvation is happening there.
We’re continuing our coverage here at MPR News, hearing how the war is affecting Minnesotans.
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Mnar Adley is the founder and director of MintPress News, an independent organization covering international news, including Israel’s war on Gaza.
She is also a Palestinian-Minnesotan. Adley spoke with MPR News editor and guest host Brandt Williams about her story.
Press play above to hear their conversation, or read a transcript below, edited for length and clarity.
Tell us a little bit about your personal story.
I was born and raised here in Minneapolis and my parents moved myself and my siblings back to where they are originally from, to Palestine, Jerusalem, when I was about 9 years old. And it was really hard not to notice that I had just moved from a free society here in Minnesota to living under Israeli occupation and apartheid.
I saw with my own eyes homes being bombed by Israeli jets. I crossed through checkpoints where children were being denied from crossing while they were wearing their backpacks on their way to school.
And so when I had moved back to the United States, when I was about 13 years old, it was very difficult for me. I suffered from PTSD and anxiety, survivor’s guilt. While my physical body had left the war, the war had never left my nervous system, and so since then, I have been very curious to understand the relationship between this country that I was born in and why we our government is supporting and arming and financing an apartheid state.
You have a podcast called MintCast. You’ve interviewed a war surgeon and a nurse about the brutality there. How do you manage covering this trauma every day, especially when you have such personal connections to this news?
We don’t have any other choice. You know, this is part of that survivor’s guilt that we carry with us every single day. I’m also a mother. I’m a single mom. I have two boys, and every day I look at them and I think what a privilege it is for me to be able to feed them and provide them with safety and warmth and shelter where they can wake up every day, not having to fear if a bomb was going to be dropped on their home, because I once lived that life as well as a teenager when I was in Palestine.
So I do feel like it is part of my life journey to have experienced that, so that I can bring that here, back into my work in journalism, right?
What do you make of the increased international calls to end the starvation in Gaza? Do you think they’re going far enough?
Well, the tides are turning against the State of Israel right now, because during this genocide, the State of Israel has really exposed itself, and also the western countries that finance and arm Israel have exposed themselves to the lie that humanitarian or self-defense wars are possible. They’re not.
