Mohammed Ahmad Prism
The region is home to one of the largest Palestinian diasporas in the country, and since the genocide in Gaza began, community members say there’s no going back to “normal” life
Southern California is home to one of the largest Palestinian diasporas in the country, and at least 57,000 Palestinians are spread across the state. Despite decades of oppression and displacement by Israel, generations of these Palestinian families persevered and now call Orange County and the Los Angeles area home.
Southern California is also home to one of the U.S.’s largest Israeli communities, with at least 80% of the population in LA asserting that Israel is an essential part of being Jewish, according to a 2021 study.
In part, this is why many Palestinians in the region say that outside of their immediate families, they feel isolated and detached from their broader community.
These feelings only worsened after Oct. 7, 2023. Following Hamas’ Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Israel escalated its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, eradicating entire blood lines, bombing homes, hospitals, universities, and sacred sites—efforts that continue, despite a so-called ceasefire that was announced last year.
Following the first months of the genocide in Gaza, Palestinians in LA grappled with survivor’s guilt. Under the warm Southern California sun, they watched with the rest of the world as Israel razed Gaza, targeting schools, orphanages, hospitals, women, and children.
Talal Kachkouche, a Palestinian in LA originally from Haifa, told Prism that during the earliest days of the genocide, LA “felt completely dystopic.” Now, as Israel and the United States are engaged in a larger regional war in Iran, he finds himself in a “constant state of fear and worry” for his family in Lebanon, Kuwait, and across the Southwest Asia and North Africa region.
“Life in LA can be so insanely sunny and cheerful and even hopeful, that it comes off entirely delusional,” Kachkouche said. “Sometimes I’ll walk around my neighborhood and wonder how any of this is real. I’ll ask myself why the entire world doesn’t have it like this. This life … is such a far reach from so many people I know.”
According to three Palestinians who spoke to Prism from across Southern California, their communities continue to grapple with feelings of alienation while also being ostracized in their workplaces, schools, and social circles for simply being Palestinian and speaking out against Israel’s war crimes. Many report they’ve lost friendships or otherwise withdrawn from their social life as they struggle to maintain everyday routines while the devastation in Gaza continues.
No end in sight
For Palestinians in Southern California today, their geographical distance from Palestine has widened another kind of chasm: a persistent sense of hopelessness as they watch from afar as Israel kills their loved ones and destroys their ancestral homelands.
August 2026 marks two years and 10 months since Israel’s genocide in Gaza began. After agreeing to a ceasefire on Oct. 9, Israel has violated the agreement more than 3,000 times: carpet bombing Gaza, preventing humanitarian aid and food from entering the Gaza Strip, and continuing military operations that have killed thousands of Palestinians, Al-Jazeera reported last year.
Israel’s genocidal efforts continue to be carried out with unconditional diplomatic and military backing from the United States. For Palestinians in Southern California such as Hanine Tarifi, the profound grief they feel watching all of this unfold has changed how they exist in the world. As a Palestinian American living in West Hollywood, she said “normal life” now feels like “a very subjective idea.”
“I still have normal dreams, hopes, and goals, but my understanding of what a ‘normal’ life is has changed. Many of the assumptions I once had about the world have been shattered. I now realize how difficult it can be to live a truly normal life within systems that often fail vulnerable people,” Tarifi told Prism.
Palestinians across the U.S. continue to carry immense survivor’s guilt, which for some manifests in their refusal to celebrate birthdays or other life milestones. Many report it feeling difficult to go about their daily lives, knowing Israel is killing their kin back home.
Dina Bdaiwi, a licensed family and trauma-informed therapist from Irvine, California, told Prism that the mental health field is limited when it comes to processing what is happening in Gaza.
According to the therapist, since October 2023, many of her Palestinian clients are experiencing secondary trauma, emotional distress that occurs when you are exposed to the traumatic experiences of others. Over the last few years, Palestinians in the U.S. have been bombarded with violent imagery, and their guilt drives them to bear witness to the suffering of their people in Gaza, Bdaiwi explained.
“What I do see coming up for a lot for folks is this description of survivor’s guilt, of ‘that could’ve been me,’” Bdaiwi said, noting that many of her Palestinian clients postponed weddings or canceled graduation ceremonies in late 2023. “There is a lot of guilt and shame that Palestinians here carry; that they are the ones that get to live here without the threat of current genocide.”
What makes these dynamics more difficult for Palestinians is that the trauma is ongoing; it is generational trauma rooted in decades of violence, displacement, and dispossession by Israel. Bdaiwi said many of her clients are processing these difficult realizations in isolation. To help, she emphasizes the importance of understanding retraumatization. This is particularly important as Israel continues acting with impunity, which lends to the feeling that there is no end in sight to the violence.
And the violence is astounding, and multifaceted. It is not only measured in the countless lives lost, but through the decades of displacement, imprisonment, and destruction of Palestinian land and homes.
Since the start of the genocide, Israel has detained thousands of Palestinians in inhumane conditions, and many of these civilians have been detained with no charge. This includes hundreds of children, who report being tortured and sexually assaulted. Israel also targets children outside prison walls, including the infamous killing of Hind Rajab. The 5-year-old was in a vehicle that was shot at over 300 times by the Israeli military, which initially denied targeting the child.
For Palestinian Americans in the U.S., there is a particular kind of anguish knowing their own government is working against them, aiding in the torture and killing of people who look just like them.
Dani Marzouca, a Palestinian American living in LA, told Prism that it’s “forever changed” them to see children who look like their brothers carry pieces of their family in plastic bags, “simply because they are Palestinian and refuse to abandon their land.”
My Palestinian identity has gifted me a depth of agony and fierce love for life.Dani Marzouca
There are the before times, and the after times, according to Marzouca. Before Oct. 7, they said they boycotted, signed petitions, protested, and wept for martyrs. But along with the continued fight for Palestinian rights, they also cherished replicating their grandmother’s malfoof, for example, and they loved the magic of weaving and gifting tatreez. After Oct. 7, it’s been difficult to move beyond agony and rage. Watching the genocide from afar was akin to “soul death,” they said.
Almost three years into the genocide, their feelings continue to evolve.
“My Palestinian identity has gifted me a depth of agony and fierce love for life that has pushed the boundaries of my courage to disrupt industries of death everywhere,” Marzouca said.
Israel’s attack on Palestinians, layered with the military occupation in Gaza and the West Bank, suspends diaspora Palestinians between two realities: being deeply and emotionally tied to Gaza, while physically present in Southern California. By extension, this also means existing in a country that supports, funds, and provides weapons for Israel’s genocide.
But some also report an expanded worldview they did not previously have. For example, some Palestinians who spoke to Prism described a greater awareness of global struggles.
“The disconnect between everyday life here and what people are experiencing elsewhere can feel surreal and sometimes painful,” Tarifi said. “At the same time, it has helped me understand the power of denial—I was also affected by it. Maybe I was not ready to face how cruel the world can be. But going through this experience has also made me appreciate that my perspective has expanded. I feel more aware and able to see the world from different angles.”
Tarifi told Prism that as brutal as it’s been to witness the genocide, it has also made her more proud of being Palestinian and that it’s inspired her to learn more about her ancestral homeland.
“I began to understand how trauma, displacement, and oppression can make people feel disconnected from their own identity and homeland,” Tarifi said. “Now, I understand more than ever how the world works and what is actually happening, without trying to minimize it or dismiss it as something beyond my understanding.”
Intimidation campaigns
As Palestinian Americans witness the genocide from afar, they have also become targets.
With support from the White House and elected officials, Zionist institutions have weaponized accusations of antisemitism against pro-Palestinian voices, leaving Palestinians in the U.S. navigating job loss, harassment, doxing, and other abuse largely due to their identities. Some have even faced serious legal threats from the state.
Marzouca was one of those victims.
The Zionist social media account StopAntisemitism that targets vocal anti-Zionists doxed Marzouca in January 2024. They said soon their inbox was filled with “transphobic death wishes,” along with an interview request from The Washington Post. The Post revealed that the primary investors in sites such as StopAntisemitism are Adam and Gila Milstein. The millionaire Israeli American real estate moguls fund these anonymous organizations through their
Milstein Family Foundation.
American Zionists pour millions of dollars into efforts aimed at intimidating and silencing Palestinians and their allies in the U.S. But the U.S. government also appears to have launched its own campaign against these populations.
In 2024, the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ reported its Southern California office “received numerous complaints” from members of the Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim communities, alleging they were questioned by the FBI due to their identities.
This is par for the course, according to Kachkouche, who told Prism that Palestinians need people outside of their communities to stand with them, speak out against the genocide, and generally “do more.”
“Do more to safeguard us here in LA with our jobs and our positions and our rights to protest, but also for the amazing humans in Palestine who have been up against a most narcissistic and brutal imperial regime,” he said.
Endurance and resilience
In the years since the genocide first began, humanitarian aid workers, activists, human rights lawyers, academics, and others have referred to Palestine as a litmus test—gauging the world’s commitment to justice, liberation, and human rights. Young people have shown a fiercest commitment, putting their bodies, educations, careers, and futures in the U.S. on the line, asserting that Palestinian solidarity is a nonnegotiable.
Many of us are heartbroken because we cannot accept seeing this happen to any group of people. My concern comes from a sense of shared humanity, not only from my Palestinian identity.Hanine Tarifi
Palestinians in the diaspora also remain fiercely committed to activist movements, holding sacred spaces to collectively grieve the genocide and fight for a free Palestine.
These efforts, though born from tragedy, create a deeper unity within Palestinian communities, according to Palestinian Americans who spoke to Prism. This is especially true for those who’ve never set foot in Palestine, said Tarifi.
“When people ask whether I have family in Palestine, I sometimes wonder if they assume my sadness comes only from having a personal connection,” Tarifi said. “The reality is that many of us are heartbroken because we cannot accept seeing this happen to any group of people. My concern comes from a sense of shared humanity, not only from my Palestinian identity.”
The world is watching Gaza closely in ways it never has before, thanks in part to social media, community reporters, and videos from everyday Palestinians surviving the genocide. These efforts have not just transformed political conversations, The Nation reported; they have “changed U.S. politics forever.”
Tarifi characterized this reality as “emotionally complex.” The solidarity from people around the world is “beautiful,” she said, but the polarization—in which Palestinian suffering is “debated rather than simply acknowledged”—remains deeply painful.
Equally complicated is how members of the diaspora feel about the possibility of Palestinian liberation in their lifetimes. Tarifi told Prism that on a personal level, it’s difficult to even envision being able to see family in Palestine. For Kachkouche, liberation is not possible without the “complete dissolution of the militarized colonial apartheid state of Israel.”
Still, even as Israel continues its genocidal campaign with impunity, Palestinians in the diaspora remain unequivocally committed to liberation, something they say they have learned from their kin in Gaza.
Kachkouche told Prism that beyond the despair felt by Palestinian Americans is “a zest” to prove they are here and they deserve not just to live, but to one day return home and thrive.
“It’s best described using the Arabic words ‘sabr’ and ‘sumud,’” Kachkouche explained. “Two profound Arabic words meaning ‘endurance’ and ‘resilience.’”
Editorial Team:
Tina Vasquez, Lead Editor
Lara Witt, Top Editor
Stephanie Harris, Copy Editor
Mohammed Ahmad is a Palestinian-American journalist based in Los Angeles, covering Palestine, the SWANA region, and communities impacted by genocide and displacement.
Editor’s Note: At a moment when the once vaunted model of responsible journalism is overwhelmingly the play thing of self-serving billionaires and their corporate scribes, alternatives of integrity are desperately needed, and ScheerPost is one of them. Please support our independent journalism by contributing to our online donation platform, Network for Good, or send a check to our new PO Box. We can’t thank you enough, and promise to keep bringing you this kind of vital news.
You can also make a donation to our PayPal or subscribe to our Patreon.