Mana, Japan

I’ve been in Palestine before and since then I’ve been studying about Palestine for two full years. Therefore, all the ‘facts’ I saw or was told in and out of Nablus were not completely new to me-maybe predictable.

However, hearing those ‘facts’ from the mouths of the Palestinians, who actually experienced it, in the exact places they occurred, was something totally different. It sounded as if it was completely new to me. It was much more shocking than reading it in a book on something. Incomparably painful; this meant a lot for me. It helped me define my imagination, helped me in my ongoing struggle to be genuinely compassionate with the oppressed.