Many people just won't connect the social problems with the history of dispossession of the aboriginals. There is one problem with pro-Palestinian activists in Europe and the U.S. with the way they portray Israel as though it were an island of evil in an ocean of goodwill. Unfortunately we are not. This world is not made of benign, progressive states with Israel as the one exception.
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 HassI think most Israelis prefer not to know. So for them, texts about the occupation are like something that's been written in a foreign language that they can't understand. If they want, you can translate it to them. But it is their choice. In general, though, I think Israelis don't want to know. Very few do. Basically, I write to the converted.
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 HassIf a baby is born in Gaza and is not registered with the Israeli Ministry of the Interior, that baby does not exist, it does not count. I get very annoyed when my Palestinian friends complain, 'Why didn't they give me a permit, I am not a terrorist,' because it is not about the person, it is about a policy that people can't articulate because there is no discourse to explain the political intention behind it.
Amira Hass