The small distance separating me, my sister and my father was filled with delicious Jordanian delicacies; zesty vine leaves, tangy chicken Fatteh and warm Msakhan rolls. We discussed the different Arabic cuisines, drawing similarities between the Mjaddara and our native Koshary, and tracing back the roots of Fattoush salad.

And then, as we always do – as every Arab has done over the past year – we talked about the attacks. Every time we meet, a different attack takes centre stage: Al-Shifa hospital, Rafah, North Gaza – the list goes on, infuriatingly so. This time, it was Beirut. The steam rising from the aromatic Mansaf my father and I were sharing was replaced by the heat in our words.

As Arabs, we are perpetually angry. Even when you see us smiling and laughing, as we often are (let’s face it, we’re hilarious), we are still fed up. We’re fed up with the lies, the propaganda, the dehumanisation. We’re tired of constantly having to justify our existence.

We’re tired of seeing our people slaughtered, followed by some white man in a suit, thousands of miles away, explaining how it was unavoidable—how it was for the good of the world. What world? It’s certainly not for the good of the world we Arabs live in. And if we zoom out and compare today’s atrocities with historical events, we’ll see that, eventually, it’s catastrophic for all of humanity.

If there’s one thing the past year has shown us, though, it’s that Arab people are nowhere near as fragmented as Western media would like everyone to believe. I’ll admit, I had fallen for that distorted narrative for a long time. Instead of drawing similarities, like my sister and I had done with the Jordanian Mjaddara and the Egyptian Koshary, I’d focused on our differences. Who’s the funniest (Egyptians), who has the best fashion sense (Lebanese), whose food slaps the hardest (Palestinians), and who hummus really belongs to (the jury’s out, but we all know it’s not “Israel”).

This year, we all shed tears for Palestinians like they are our own flesh and blood—because they are our own flesh and blood. We’re praying for Lebanon like it’s our collective homeland. Regrettably, I have never set foot in either place, but seeing their streets reduced to rubble shatters my heart in a way I thought was only reserved for witnessing the destruction of your own childhood home.

Our pain is collective, and so my heart bleeds for your childhood home too.

On the bright side, through the hurt and the destruction, the tears and the anger that poured out of me in the final year of my 20s, my Arab pride rose like a phoenix. Not in the superficial way it used to—through Amr Diab and Nancy Ajram, movie quotes, or natural curly hair routines. Don’t get me wrong, those are great ways to feel connected to your Arab roots, too. But this time, my Arab pride went bone-deep. It flows through my veins. We are one, and I am so damn proud of that.