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.

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.

My father's biggest achievement with us as children was that he taught us that everyone is human and equal, even your enemy has the same needs and wants that you do: understanding, love, inclusion.

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.

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.

My whole childhood was about being in the garden. It wasn't really a religious place to me. The love I felt there... was in contradiction with what I saw in the streets. It was a different world.

There's a deformity in the information that the public in the United Statesis receiving. It's contained in kind of a bubble and one day this bubble will explode.