Leila Sarsour, who is 17 years old, lives in Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in Palestine. She has a dream that everyone can live in peace, but she and her schoolmates are exposed daily to harassment, violence and intimidation from Israeli settlers.
For the Palestinian school girls in the city of Cordoba School in Hebron in the West Bank, it is impossible to remain unaffected by the Israeli occupation. The school is surrounded by military checkpoints, barbed wire and fanatical Israeli settlers. The path to school has become a path of degradation. Leila and her classmates are exposed daily to the indifference of the Israeli soldiers and laughter and stones from settlers. But in spite of constant harassment and racist slogans, Leila retains a belief and hope in peace and justice. She refuses to let bitterness and hatred to control her life: “We can all live together. Muslim, Jew or Christian, there is no reason to hate each other,” she says in Terje Carlsson’s documentary Welcome to Hebron.
That’s a TRUE Israeli with a real Jewish conscience talking in this film. It’s HIS Israel and Leila’s Palestine that will survive to co-exist. The “settlers” will eventualy move on as they are only like parasitic mosquitos looking for nudist camps where they can suck blood. They feel they owe nothing to anyone, neither Israel (which they don’t deem legitimate) nor Diapora (which they ALWAYS accuse of persecution), but feel free to throw stones at anyone, be it in Hebron or on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn. They are inbred insane and the poor Israeli soldiers in their “Gift from the people of the USA” uniforms are driven mad defending their antics. The Haredi poison has invaded Israel’s veins and is damaging that nation’s brain. But worry not, there will always be Israelis and Palestinians who realize that there can be no GREATER ISRAEL just as there can be no elimination of Israel. These girls should ask these soldiers: what will you do when the settlers leave for another nudist camp and the Americans say; no more guns and armor for you because we need it for ourselves to fight wars into which the Zionazi neocons drove us?