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" I hate it when I have to abandon my children. I politely turn down most of the invitations I get from abroad and try to fly only when it's absolutely necessary. "

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" When I come to the airport, they always send me with all the other Israeli Arabs to the foreign workers' line. I don't mind. I feel like I belong more with all the people from abroad and the foreign workers than in the Israelis' line. "

Sayed Kashua

Always

People

Mind

" They're completely American. When I served my son falafel in a pita the other day, he said, 'Daddy, this taco is very good.' "

" I don't know how it works with the Jews, but here in Beit Safafa, as in every self-respecting Arab community that is respected in turn by the state, there are no street names and no house numbers. "

" 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. "

Sayed Kashua

Start

Life

" To be critical of television is almost like questioning the fact of God's existence. "

Sayed Kashua

Television

God

" My children don't even know who Fairuz is - a horrifying thought. "

" All Israelis think Arabs steal cars. "

" I'm always sad when Dad doesn't like my columns. He waits for them every week and usually likes them, in which case he doesn't say a word - it's only if he's critical that he bothers to call. "

Sayed Kashua

Always

Only

" 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. "

" When there's a revolution in Egypt, you can't really get depressed about not knowing what happens after you die. When there are millions out on the streets, that's not the time to start panicking about contracting swine flu. "

" Somehow, the rare trips to Tel Aviv give me the feeling that I have a career. "

" I wanted to tell, in Hebrew, about my father who sat in jail for long years, with no trial, for his political ideas. I wanted to tell the Israelis a story, the Palestinian story. "

" I don't really wake up in the morning and say, 'Ohmigod, I'm a Palestinian in a Jewish state.' I wake up in the morning and say, 'Ohmigod, I have to make sandwiches for my kids.' "

" I wanted the Israeli mainstream audience to meet different kinds of Arabs - not just terrorists or politicians - and to listen to their language and their stories. "

" Americans are connected to the situation in the West Bank and Gaza and Israel because, generally speaking, Jewish Americans were always there, and many American Jewish people connect their nationality to the Israeli one. "

" We were, as Arabs in Israel, educated not to leave our villages, in order to protect our identity. "

" Thanksgiving is the only day of the year when most of the stores here are closed during the day and reopen after midnight. Even restaurants shut down for the holiday, except for the fast-food chains. "

" I'm not representing anyone - not Israelis, not Palestinians - I'm just a storyteller trying to raise more questions than give answers. "

Sayed Kashua

Answers

Just

" 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? "

" Sometimes I think that if we have to go back, then it certainly won't be to Jerusalem. Not to the Jerusalem beset with racism that we left at the height of the last Gaza war. "

Sayed Kashua

War

Back

" If there was genuine desire on the Israeli side, even without a solution, it would be possible to solve a large percentage of the problems between Israelis and Palestinians by means of simple statements from the Israelis. "

" As I see it, religion shouldn't interfere in a relationship. "

" Sometimes it seems that what really worries the Israeli governments, even more than the Muslim Brotherhood, is the real Egypt. "

" There's a lot of hypocrisy and condescension in Israel's institutionalized support for Mubarak's tyrannical rule, in its backing of a corrupt leader who established a brutal secret police state to suppress his citizens and keep their mouths shut. "

" Israeli independence - what we Arabs call al-Naqba, 'The Catastrophe' - it created Palestinian identity more than anything else. "

" 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. "

" I'm afraid of a gas leak, although I installed detectors. I'm afraid of a blown fuse that could cause a fire, and that's why I don't turn on electrical appliances at night. "

" Somehow, since I became a family, every minute in which I am alone and not listening to two kids screaming in stereo feels like a vacation. "

" When Jewish youths walk down the street and demand the death of Arabs simply because they're Arabs, then I've lost my own small battle. "

" Christmas is relentless. It's around the clock. I sit with my little ones in front of the TV screen, and we watch movie after movie after movie. "