Day 11: The Boy Who Cried Wolf: A Reflection for Arab American Heritage Month from a Palestinian in Mourning by Anam Salem

It’s hard to write these days.

Words feel small. Powerless even.

So instead, let me tell you a story.

It was the summer of 2006. My brother and I — a college freshman and senior in high school — took a trip to Palestine. We were going to visit our grandfather, who had just been diagnosed with kidney cancer and had started dialysis.

We had visited Palestine many times before — sometimes for the summer, sometimes for longer stretches when our parents chose to raise us there for a while. But this trip was different. This was the first time we traveled alone, young adults stepping into a journey shaped as much by love and longing as by loss.

Our parents had warned us about the airport — about the interrogations, the marking of passports, the waiting rooms with no windows. And sure enough, when we landed in Tel Aviv, our American passports were stamped, and we were asked to step aside.

But no warning prepares you for humiliation.

We were separated, interrogated in small rooms with stone walls that felt carved out just to contain us. They asked us about our family lineage — who our parents were, where we were staying, and the phone numbers of relatives. They asked us what we were majoring in university. Political Science for myself and my brother, Business Technology. That did not sit well and led to more probing.

At one point, I requested the soldier not to call my grandparents’ house. Our visit was meant to be a surprise. I thought maybe—maybe that would appeal to his humanity. I explained that my grandfather was sick. That we were coming to be with him. To sit beside him during what we feared were his final months.

He looked at me for a moment. And then he smirked.

“Do you know the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf?” he asked.

Confused. I said nothing. Is this a joke?

“You Arabs are all the same,” he continued. “When you come to Israel, it’s always the same story — someone is getting married, or someone is sick, or someone is dying. And you expect us to believe it, just like that.”

I remember defending myself. I remember the heat rising in my face — not from shame, but from bewilderment. The cruelty was so casual. So rehearsed.

Back then, that story — The Boy Who Cried Wolf — felt like an insult hurled at us, Palestinians. A way to discredit our grief. Our love. Our very existence.

But now, all these years later, I realize something else.

That soldier wasn’t just insulting me. He was confessing.

He was telling me the playbook.

He was revealing what the system he served believed – that ‘our’ suffering was not real unless ‘they’ said it was real. That truth was ‘theirs’ to define, not ‘ours’ to tell.

Today, as I write this reflection in the shadow of unspeakable grief, as I mourn the genocide unfolding in my homeland, I hold onto that story differently.

Because back then, yes, we were accused of crying wolf. We were dismissed. Silenced. Told that our pain was exaggerated, our history fabricated, our losses unworthy of recognition.

But today, after decades of documenting every imaginable and unimaginable human rights violation, after the relentless testimony of survivors, journalists, scholars, and everyday people, I believe the tides are turning.

The world is watching. The world is listening.

And every time another lie unravels — every time tired propaganda crumbles under the weight of evidence — I think of that soldier’s words.

Not with anger anymore.

But with clarity.

Because I know now who the real boy who cried wolf is. And I know the truth will always outlast the lie.

This Arab American Heritage Month, I carry my Palestinian identity with sorrow, yes — but also with fierce love and unwavering memory.

We are not crying wolf.

We never were.

We are crying for justice.

And I still believe — I have to believe — that the world is beginning to hear us.