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Excerpt: But for all the misgivings that he held against the Israelis, Sarah said, he realized when he was 18 that he needed to learn Hebrew so he could work in Jerusalem. And, he said, "the best place for me to do that was to go to Ulpan, where newcomers to Israel come to learn Hebrew. I was the only Palestinian in the class."
Sarah said that after spending "weeks and weeks" learning alongside these Jewish classmates, he came to see Jews in a light entirely different from the stereotypes with which he had been raised.
"They were incredibly nice, not like the Jewish settlers who used to attack my neighborhood," said Sarah, who has been working at the George Mason University Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution in Arlington, Va., since last year. "I even heard Jews talking about Palestinian rights.
"It made me realize that you can't make generalizations. There are different segments of every community, and we aren't doomed to stay in our situations."
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