“I would rather be born a Jew in Israel or a Palestinian in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza. This in-between existence is impossible — it kills me.” 

These were the words of a fellow Palestinian student at Ben-Gurion University, spoken to me during a coffee break on campus about a year ago. They have stayed with me ever since: in their exaggerated simplicity and sense of defeat, they managed to capture the schizophrenic existence of Palestinian citizens of Israel and, in particular, on Israeli university campuses since October 7. 

From the very first day of the war,Palestinian students at Israeli universities found themselves caught in an ongoing storm, straddling the line between two opposing realities — one in their mother tongue, Arabic, and another in Hebrew. As they rushed between classes, glancing at their phones for updates on the situation in Gaza, one notification would alert them to the “elimination of a Hamas terror cell,” while simultaneous reports flooded their screens detailing the “attack by the occupying army, with most of the dead being women and children.”

Now, a year and half later, Gaza counts more than 50,000 dead — excluding the thousands still missing and those who died from indirect causes like hunger and illness, casualties of Israel’s blockade on humanitarian aid and systematic targeting of medical facilities.

All of this carnage has unfolded just an hour west of Ben-Gurion University, which itself suffered heavy losses in the war’s early days. Many faculty members, their families, and university students were killed on the morning of October 7, so nearly everyone on campus has been affected by the attacks. And like at universities throughout Israel, 30 percent of Ben-Gurion students have been called up for reserve duty — a total of 6,500, which is twice the number of enrolled Palestinian students. Some carry their machine gun to class, serving in the reserves while simultaneously completing their degrees.

Existing both in and between these Jewish-Israeli and Palestinian worlds, Palestinian students have tried to continue their lives as best they can. Sometimes, while immersed in summarizing an academic article, a siren goes off and they run to a shelter, reminding them of just how close they really are to the war in Gaza. After the sirens fade, class resumes; assignments must be submitted, exams are approaching. 

‘I knew I wasn’t allowed to respond’

“I think the past year has taught me, and in fact most Palestinian students in Israel, how to hide, erase, and even suppress ourselves and our emotions,” said R., a Palestinian student who preferred to remain anonymous, like all the students I spoke with at the end of our latest exam period. “We learned to erase our belonging to our people and to try to define for ourselves what we are allowed to feel and say. It will take years before we fully understand what we have repressed and buried.” 

One humanities student I spoke with explained that even today, a year and a half into the war, “it is impossible to even consider [hosting] a political, social, or cultural student event in Arabic.”

Among other artsy stickers and logos on her laptop, there used to a Palestinian flag — something she hardly gave any thought to. “To me, it was a simple and beautiful act that expressed my views, nothing more. But since the war broke out, even that sticker hasn’t been spared from incitement. Any sticker with Arabic writing on it has become a target for agitators.” 

The story of the sticker, as small and simple as it may be, perfectly reflects the dramatic change that has taken place during the war, where Palestinian students may be harassed, suspended, and even arrested for expressing their views and identity. Most have entirely disappeared from social media, seeing how Israeli police use the flimsiest evidence to detain Palestinian citizens for “supporting terrorism.”

S., a student in the Department of Social Sciences, expressed similar sentiments. A friend of his who used to introduce himself as Palestinian became afraid to do so once the war broke out. In the eyes of his Jewish classmates, he and his Arab friends overnight became “the official spokespeople for Hamas on campus.” “Whenever he had to state his identity, he preferred to say he was Israeli,” S explained.

Y., also a student in the Department of Social Sciences, shared that daily life has turned into a political struggle — walking across campus, speaking Arabic with friends, even participating in classroom discussions. “Every action is accompanied by discomfort and even fear.”

For A., even when he has something to say in discussions, he hesitates. “There are people who will twist my words to fit their agenda, even if I meant something entirely different. Hebrew isn’t my native language, which only amplifies my fears.”

Now, many Arab students question whether it is safe enough for them to attend their classes. “I have friends who told me outright, ‘I don’t want to go to campus today,’” said R. “When I asked why, they answered, ‘Because I’m scared.’”

In one of R.’s classes, students passed around a phone with an image of Gazans taking food from aid trucks. “I heard horrifying comments like ‘Look at these zombies’ — and that was one of the milder cases,” she said.

“At that moment, I was afraid and didn’t know what to do: Should I respond? Say something? What would the other students think? Do they even see Gazans as human beings?” R. asked herself.  “I didn’t know what I was allowed to say and what was forbidden. Since the war began, racist remarks have reached an unprecedented level. Almost every time I heard something political or a reference to the war, I felt like it was directed at me — but I also knew I wasn’t allowed to respond.”

Y. pointed to the mainstreaming of unabashedly racist views in Jewish Israeli society and regular incitement against Palestinians: “Since October 7, it feels like calling for the killing of [Palestinians] has become the norm, and that anyone who thinks otherwise is seen as insane.”

‘Israelis live in a parallel reality’

On top of struggling to understand the new hostile reality that has engulfed public life along with its rules of survival, Palestinian students are grappling with the guilt of the dissonance between their lives in Israel and the violence their state has unleashed on their people in Gaza.

“When I have a break between classes during the school day, I check the news, mainly from Arabic sources,” A. said. “On social media, I see horrific images: bombings, killings, wounded people, the destruction of schools and hospitals, children who don’t even have a piece of bread to eat or water to drink. Then, when I lift my head and look around me, the reality here is completely different. I have everything: food, water, a laptop, money. Even if I lack something, I can just go out and buy it. That feeling tears me apart inside. It’s hard to describe the psychological toll — it leaves me not knowing how to function.”

“Israelis live in a bubble,” said R. “The university reflects society: Israelis live in a parallel reality where only they can express their pain and sorrow, while forgetting that there are others who suffer too, and who might even be sitting next to them in class.”

But as excluded and alienated as they are from Jewish-Israeli society, Palestinian citizens of Israel interact with Jewish-Israelis all the time — unlike their brethren in Gaza and the West Bank, whose contact is limited to Israeli soldiers and settlers. “We know Jewish-Israelis up close and don’t see them as monsters. On the other hand, we don’t see the Palestinian people as monsters either,” R explained. “We are trapped — for better and for worse. While our people endure genocide, we sit here watching the news.”

Toward the end of my conversation with R., I asked her opinion about Ben-Gurion University’s week-long suspension of Professor Sebastian Ben Daniel over social media posts made under the pseudonym “John Brown,” in which he condemned the Israeli army for killing Palestinian civilians. She explained that it put her and other Palestinian students in a strange predicament. 

On the one hand, R. said, “I admire [Ben Daniel]  because he openly says things I’m too afraid to even think. If a Palestinian had spoken like that, they’d be in prison at the very least.”

R. fully understands what it means that a Jewish professor may now be suspended for expressing unpopular views in Israeli society, as well as the dangerous consequences awaiting Arab lecturers and researchers. Yet it is not lost on her that this kind of censorship and punishment has long been wielded against Palestinian lecturers, and not just by the extreme right.

“If Israeli society is collapsing into full-fledged fascism, why should I save it from itself? Yes, we [Palestinians] will suffer the most, but what [National Security Minister Itamar] Ben Gvir does openly and without class, [opposition MK Benny] Gantz will do in a fancy suit and in a more elegant way.”

Through these conversations with students, it became clear that if before October 7, we Palestinians faced an identity crisis in Israeli society, then during the war, our experience has transformed into an ongoing exercise in psychological survival. Our senses have dulled to the point that we have slipped into a kind of sub-existence, functioning on autopilot: Arabic or Hebrew? Am I allowed to grieve right now? How can I go on with my day in class while the sobbing waits outside the door? While the sleepless nights linger?

During these conversations, it was as if I could hear my fellow Palestinian students silently screaming and pleading: “Is there a place for my pain on this campus?”

A version of this article was first published in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here.