The incident that to me typifies my emotional reaction occurred on my first trip in the winter of 2002-2003 several months after the horrible Israeli invasion in the second intifada.

I was in the Deheisheh refugee camp in front of the Ibda’a House and I was talking to people and right across the way I could see the wall, the barbed wire on the wall, and the guard tower on top of the wall, and all these images flooded back to me from World War II, and I thought of my father, how relieved I was that he was dead and didn’t have to see this because flying over the guard tower was the flag with the Jewish star on it, and I completely broke down.

I just sobbed, and during that trip I cried every day. My traveling companions were so annoyed with me, I was over the top. But I don’t have to explain to you the significance of those images.