IN STEREO

I want to ask a question. Are [tourists] taught the correct point of view, or the Israeli point of view? There are things that [Israel] deletes because they talk about the truth. That’s why the situation is hard. I mean, if a tourist group came and the council hosted them, if they made them food that we make, [like] mansaf, then got them out with someone… Take them to the Bedouin’s olive; walk with them in the streets. Show them the old city – it’s visible from here. Or go down to Al Haniya spring, really wonderful. I don’t know, I think talking isn’t useful. I think reality is what makes one remember. If they come here and we host them well, showing the things we have here, it stays in their minds. If you see and photograph and so on, it stays in your mind. Even if you forget, when you see the pictures, you remember: “I saw.”

But if I [just] tell you… I mean, we like to show the reality: how we live, that Israel oppresses us. We want [people] to see what Israel does to us, that we’re holding on in our homes. [But also] the plants and trees, and what varieties we have. And add to this all the new building that we’re doing, as the foreigners do. I mean, we have brains to build. They think that we’re like from old times, that we have sheep we run after. I mean, we [do] have people that have sheep and the like. There was life in the old days. There’s something called a castle, built of old rocks. People used to go out in summer, sit in it, stroll, stay up and sleep. There was life. This life was cut out for a while. They try to get back to this life because it’s a wonderful area. – Abu Fadi