A persistent breeze lifted the thin curtains, fluttering a few moments of tranquility into the turbulent day.

Amal,I believe that most Americans do not love as we do. It is not for any inherent deficiency or superiority in them. They live in the safe, shallow, parts that rarely push human emotions into the depths where we dwell.

How can one find the first moment of love? When, in what instant, does the night's dark sky become blue?

For I'll keep my humanity, though I did not keep my promises. ... and Love shall not be wrested from my veins.

Toughness found fertile soil in the hearts of Palestinians, and the grains of resistance embedded themselves in their skin. Endurance evolved as a hallmark of refugee society. But the price they paid was the subduing of tender vulnerability. They learned to celebrate martyrdom. Only martyrdom offered freedom. Only in death were they at last invulnerable to Israel. Martyrdom became the ultimate defiance of Israeli occupation.

Under the broken promises of superpowers and under the worlds indifference to spilled Arab blood.

The roots of our grief coil so deeply into loss that death has cometo live with us like a family member who makes you happy by avoidingyou, but who is still one of the family. Our anger is a rage that Westerners cannot understand. Our sadness can make the stonesweep. And the way we love is no exception