I began to write, believing that all I had to do to change things would be to write the other side, to tell the stories that I heard from my grandmother.
A lot of my friends in my student days complained about how their parents made them play an instrument when they were kids. I always felt compassion for them and didn't believe a parent could be so cruel, but when I check today, those complaining friends grew up to be quite successful, and many of them are now making their children play.
The truth is, I never travel without cash. I always take a few tens with me in case of an emergency. There's never been an emergency, and in time, I realized that Americans don't want to touch customers' dirty bills. They also don't want to touch your credit card: you have to put it through the machine yourself, with your own fingers.
Sometimes I wonder: What are the children thinking? And sometimes I wonder why the hell I'm not buying a tree like the other neighbors. After all, there is no mention in Christianity of Christmas trees, and even if there were - is there any good reason why I shouldn't be buying some red stockings?
What kind of people will these ghettos of Palestinians produce? What form of morality, national consciousness and hope will people be left with after so many years of stifling occupation and a sense of hopelessness?
It sometimes seems that the only plan the Israeli government has for the Palestinians is for them to sit quietly while Israel does whatever takes its fancy, equipped with its army, with laws it promulgated, and with courts it established.
The Palestinians have tried everything, and by God, it's Israel's governments that taught us that the only thing the Israelis appreciate is force.
'Arab Labor' was light, snappy. We got emotional over things, but from a safe place, from the terrace.
I tell you a joke to have you listen to me, and then maybe I will tell you another joke that we can laugh together and feel equal. And then I will tell you a story hopefully that will make you cry. So I think that's the way that I approach the columns, as a surviving tool in a way.
I always see my wife as the clever one, as the wise one in the family.
I couldn't lie anymore to my kids telling them that they are equal citizens in the state of Israel. They cannot be equal because in order to fit in and to be accepted and to be a citizen in Israel, you need a Jewish mother.
I use a lot of humor, and I follow the saying that if you want to tell people the truth, you better make them laugh first; otherwise, they will shoot you.
People who go far don't sleep an average of 14 hours a day.
Somehow, the rare trips to Tel Aviv give me the feeling that I have a career.
All in all, we Muslims have only two holidays, and they're always getting moved around from season to season, from month to month, because we're dependent on the moon and not the sun, and unlike the Jews, we haven't created a leap year, so we have no Adar Bet.
Whom do you speak to about introducing a leap year? Is it heresy to request such a thing? Why do the Jews have one and we don't?
Sometimes it seems as though all parents are certain that their children are victims of abuse by other children.
Somehow it seems that all parents are certain that they themselves were victims of abuse in school and that they will not allow this to happen to their children. Even though children can also be the cruelest group imaginable - especially the cutest of them.
It always seems to me that my life would look completely different if I didn't have to take care of the rent.
How I'd like to start a new life in a distant land. Not because of racism or politics. But to be in a place that I knew hardly anything about, in a place where I wouldn't even care to know the prime minister's name. A place where names and faces would have no meaning for me.
