NUHA

“The one thing I have never dared ask my best friend, a Jewish Holocaust survivor, is why she agreed to come to Palestine and why didn’t she leave when she became aware that she was living on my land. And while I feel very bad about what happened to the Jews in Germany and Poland – the massacres – but that still doesn’t give them any right to my land any more than I have a right as a Muslim from Jerusalem to take up residency in Mecca and evict the Saudis. Nor do I see where the Bible gives the Jews the right to evict us from our land and make it a land for Jews, and Jews only.

That is why one of the happiest days of my life was when the UN passed Resolution 242 in 1975, saying that Zionism is racism. This acknowledged how we were treated by the Israelis. I had always felt that Israel had taken away my identity when they took away my land. In my mind, though, Haifa and Jaffa were always part of Palestine.

I am realistic and know that Israel is not going away. But it is not right that there is a Jewish state without a Palestinian state. I have a right to this land because I was born here and my family has lived here for as long as it has existed. How can Jews, knowing this, stay here?

The ones I blame for the situation today are us – the Palestinians. Why haven’t we learned to be better negotiators? I think the only thing the Palestinians can find consensus over is our dream of a homeland.”