The thing people forget when they are looking for solutions is there is nothing final in history.
Amira HassLuckily I was not born in Eastern Europe, because I might have been born into the communist establishment and I'm glad I was not. But in Israel, communists were dissidents. So you grow up in an environment which is very critical of Israeli policies.
Amira HassIn the end there is a choice. And my choice is to be against the occupation, and not only the occupation but the whole system of discrimination and dispossession.
Amira HassI think these questions about what will happen are questions for activists and about the agency of people in the course of events. This is not a question for a journalist, but for activists.
Amira HassAs a child, I remember asking my parents when I was five years old, "How come if you are not Zionists, you came to the country?" I was surprised at myself that I asked this question. It means that it was always in the air. Then years later I understood it was because of the Holocaust, because they were refugees. They did not come as immigrants and, because of the illusions of the '50s and the late '40s, my mother said, "The world must be better." She could not imagine that it wouldn't be different.
Amira Hass