She holds a bachelor’s degree in Middle Eastern and North African studies and shared this reflection with The Sopris Sun. It wasn’t about history or diplomacy or “conflict resolution.” It was about a quality of resilience so profound it has its own word: sumud. Steadfastness. I saw sumud in the teachers who educate children in schools, now open only three days a week because tax revenues have been withheld for years. Palestinians do not need our hashtags as much as they need us to stop fueling the machinery that oppresses them.