Mornings in Jenin

We come from the land, give our love and labor to her, and she nurtures us in return. When we die, we return to the land. In a way, she owns us. Palestine owns us and we belong to her

The land and everything on it can be taken away, but no one can take away your knowledge or the degrees you earn

We're all born with the greatest treasures we'll ever have in life. One of those treasures is your mind, another is your heart.

For if life had taught her anything, it was that healing and peace can begin only with acknowledgment of wrongs committed.

I know she is crying. Her tears fall on the wrong side, into the bottomless well inside her.

Israeli occupation exposes us very young to the extremes of our emotions, until we cannot feel except in the extreme.

the reverse side of love is unbearable loss.

For I'll keep my humanity, though I did not keep my promises. ... and Love shall not be wrested from my veins.

Always" is a good word to believe in.

Toughness found fertile soil in the hearts of Palestinians, and the grains of resistance embedded themselves in their skin. Endurance evolved as a hallmark of refugee society. But the price they paid was the subduing of tender vulnerability. They learned to celebrate martyrdom. Only martyrdom offered freedom. Only in death were they at last invulnerable to Israel. Martyrdom became the ultimate defiance of Israeli occupation.

Amal,I believe that most Americans do not love as we do. It is not for any inherent deficiency or superiority in them. They live in the safe, shallow, parts that rarely push human emotions into the depths where we dwell.

I feel sad for him. Sad for the boy bound to the killer. I am sad for the youth betrayed by their leaders for symbols and flags and war and power.

An instant can crush a brain and change the course of life, the course of history.