My first memory as a child growing up is of playing in the gardens, the mosque is really a gigantic garden, probably the biggest in all of East Jerusalem. Our house was about 100 meters from the mosque.

I hope there's a window that opens in American television where the rest of the world is viewed in a less censored light. There is something about the world outside the United States that is not understood here - that seems threatening to Americans.

I was protected behind the walls of my house, the walls of the mosque and later, walls of my school. I didn't know that I was Palestinian. I knew that I was a girl, but the identity issues came later when I was 12 or 13 - then, they came in a very strong way.

As a woman, you don't have really much freedom of choice in the Middle East - very often, by the time they are 13 or 14, girls get married.

My first memory as a child growing up is of playing in the gardens, the mosque is really a gigantic garden, probably the biggest in all of East Jerusalem. Our house was about 100 meters from the mosque.

There's something that scares me. It's the way media in the United States presents the rest of the world. I feel like people in America are getting a completely different picture of what's going on in other countries than what is reality.

What I love most about New York is that I can walk in the street and nobody is looking at me as if I'm different. In my country and in Italy, you have to choose sides. I was a famous journalist and I was also an immigrant and ultimately I never stopped feeling like I was a guest.