(RNS) — Last Friday morning (Jan. 16), students at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside of Washington, arrived for school to be confronted with graffiti spray-painted on a wall. The hateful, violent Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian messages were chilling and explicit: “F*** Muslims.” “Nuke Palestine.” Beside these phrases was a Star of David.

More than vandalism, the graffiti was meant to intimidate, dehumanize and cause fear in Muslim and Palestinian students walking into what should be a place where they feel as safe as any other in their lives.

That evening, I spoke with the father of a Palestinian American student at the school. “I am a U.S.-born son of a Palestinian father who came to the United States 64 years ago,” he told me. “Tonight, my father is lying in his grave likely thinking, ‘I never thought it’s harder to be a Palestinian American today than it was in 1962.’”

This man spoke not as an activist, but as a loving parent deeply worried about his child’s safety, dignity and mental well-being. He said he had never seen his son so distraught, so confused or scared. In a single morning, the sense of belonging that many families believed they had built in Bethesda was shattered.

What appeared on a school wall in Bethesda did not begin there; it is the inevitable consequence of a culture and society that have scapegoated or intentionally turned away from the pain of Palestinians and Muslims. The relentless dehumanization of Palestinians and Muslims in public discourse naturally fuels acts of hate like this one. When the members of thriving American communities are reduced to caricatures, they are denied empathy and become accepted as targets for graffiti like this. 

This incident cannot be separated from the broader context of the last two and a half years, during which Palestinians in Gaza have endured Israel’s relentless campaign of mass killing, displacement and destruction, which renowned international human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and even Israeli groups such as B’Tselem have asserted as genocide. 

Alongside the unfathomable physical devastation has been a dangerous campaign of systematic erasure and justification. Palestinian lives are routinely minimized, Palestinian suffering is rationalized, and calls for accountability are dismissed. This creates the conditions in which hate is normalized and violence is emboldened across languages, borders and continents. 

Let’s be clear: The presence of a Star of David alongside anti-Muslim slurs does not represent Jewish people any more than these messages represent the values of our educational institutions. Hate thrives on manufactured correlations and false divisions, and we must refuse to take the bait.

The elected leaders and school officials in Montgomery County, where Walt Whitman High is located, moved swiftly to condemn this incident and reaffirm that hate has no place in our schools or county. That response matters. It signaled to impacted families that their safety is being taken seriously.

But condemnation is not enough. Students need to see their identities reflected in school curricula. They deserve to have their histories taught with accuracy and dignity, their lived experiences recognized and their cultures acknowledged as part of the American story. 

Like all of us, they have witnessed Gaza’s flood of carnage, death and devastation in their social media news feeds — in some cases seeing images of their own loved ones. Culturally competent, trauma-informed care and counseling should be made available to students impacted by these kinds of incidents that risk exacerbating secondary traumatic stress. 

Palestine is not just a hashtag or slogan. For many, like the parent I spoke with, it is family. History. Memory. And faith is not something to apologize for. It is a source of values, resilience and compassion for millions of Americans — including Muslims. No student should have to choose between safety and their identity.

When hate tries to divide and isolate us, we must organize. When it wants to silence us, we must speak louder. 

To the students to whom the words on their school wall were directed: These words do not define you. To the families struggling to navigate these challenging times: You are not alone. And to those who believe intimidation will make us retreat or disappear: Know this — you will not succeed.

We will stand up for our students and families. And we will continue to reject fear and build communities rooted in dignity, justice and hope. 

(Zainab Chaudry is Maryland director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)