The Nativity Is Our Story — Yet We’re Still Denied Our Human Rights

It’s the time of year when schools across the country dress children to reenact the Nativity — the story of a Palestinian child born to a woman from my village, in the region of Nazareth, in Palestine.

My home. My people.

Yet even as our clothing, culture, and history are reenacted in classrooms, many still label Palestinians as “terrorists.”

This is my father. He was born during the forced march from his family’s home in 1948. His Nakba never ended. He has never been allowed to return — a right protected under international law, yet denied to millions of Palestinians in the diaspora.

As conversations about human rights, equity, and justice continue across professional spaces, I ask this:

When will Palestinians in the diaspora be recognised as a displaced people with the right to return to their homes? When will our human rights be acknowledged with the same urgency afforded to others?

This Christmas, as children dress as Palestinian refugees for the Nativity, remember that real Palestinian families are still denied the right to go home.