Hekmat Bessiso Naji
Project Assistant with Medico International for health services
The world hides its ears and eyes from the miserable life of the refugees in the camps in Gaza and the West Bank. The issue is not just living here, but who’s responsible for this and when will this change. For refugees, all our lives have been under a question mark. [...]
Vivian Silver
Executive Director of Negev Institute for Strategies of Peace and Development
For Israel, the critical issue internally is how the Jewish majority treats its Arab minority. We have a lot of answering to do. Once your eyes get opened, they can never be closed again. I have had the privilege of being exposed to life as Arabs and Palestinians live it, so I can never go back. For me as a Jew, it’s an existential moral question. All citizens have to be treated equally, with dignity and respect. [...]
Reem Alshareef
Principal of Cordoba School in Hebron
I adore Hebron, my city, my people, my children, and the school. I refuse to leave. Whatever the circumstances, I insist on staying. My roots are here even though we are now under Israeli control. [...]
Episode 4: Children
Listen to what Israeli and Palestinian women have to say about the conflict’s impact on children.
Amira Dotan
Member of Knesset and retired Brigadier-General
Feminism is the ability to do what you want to do. It must be on the table immediately that there are two different genders. Women need to believe that men are who they are and we are who we are, and to be proud of who we are instead of spending so much energy imitating men. Then we will have more energy to do what we want to do, and questions of harassment and violence lessen because men see you as equal. [...]
Jumana Odeh
Founder-Director of Happy Child Center
I argue with Israeli soldiers at the checkpoints. I say “I am human,” but they don’t want to see me as human. They are in denial. They are there to defend and protect their country. When they pass by hundreds of Palestinians, they don’t want to see the suffering children.
Barbara Sofer
Journalist and Director of Public Relations for Hadassah
I’ve been in rooms where people are taking care of terror victims while everybody around the table had to worry that day about being blown up as well—and at the same time, a terrorist would be taken care of. When people come into these hospitals, they move a switch inside and elicit their best selves. We’ll never have a future unless we switch off the static of all the anger and conflicts to move ahead to peace.
Buthaina Doqmaq
Chair of Mandela Institute for Human Rights
More than 380 Palestinian children under 18 years of age are in Israeli prisons. They need to be educated—not tortured, abused inside prisons, deprived of their parents’ visits. The Israelis tour the world demanding the release of one abducted soldier. I demand the international community intervene to free prisoners who are seekers of freedom and peace. We want our detained children home with their families.
Tova Dmbulu Gette
Conversion Counselor for the Rabbinical Courts
It was like the Exodus from Egypt. We slept during the day and walked at night so robbers wouldn’t catch us. We walked, hungry and thirsty. I was with my parents and two of my brothers. We carried them on our backs and put them on donkeys. We had only [...]
Haviva Ner-David
Rabbi and activist for equal religious rights for women
When my kids are fighting, I sometimes get impatient and exclaim, “Why can’t you just get along?” In the same way, I feel the Arabs and Jews to be siblings, and I am like a mother figure looking on and saying, “This is ridiculous. Everyone take a [...]
