Najla Said

“There’s something I want to explain. And I want to be clear about it. You can spend your life being a humanist, a pacifist, a thoughtful person who does not even think about hating, or does not even know what it is to hate—that is to say, you can really and truly be a human being who is tolerant and open-minded and humane, judging people by how they behave toward you, and treating them the way you wished to be treated, but when you are being attacked, when bombs are falling around you, planes are hovering over your head, when your life is in danger and you are scared, It is so easy to look up to the sky and feel abject, boiling hatred for the people doing this to you, and curse them out.

When you are fearful for your life, and you are being bombed by a certain group of people, you are not thinking, Oh, but I know that not all Israelis agree with this. There is no time for that. Just as there is no time for them to think that it is not all Lebanese attacking back. And there is no time to think about the Israeli pilot who wishes he weren’t in the plane dropping bombs on everybody. All you can think in these situations is, Fuck everyone. The summer of 2006 was the first time I had ever experienced this real, pure, true hate.”
― Najla Said, Looking for Palestine: Growing Up Confused in an Arab-American Family

“I was young, and confused, and torn between complex worlds I didn't understand, and as a result I became more shy, more quiet, and more comfortable escaping into the fantasy world of my books and the complex imaginary realms I would create in the privacy of my own room.”
― Najla Said, Looking for Palestine: Growing Up Confused in an Arab-American Family