First Respose, "States"

This essay didn’t really do anything for me except make me feel sympathy – which maybe was the author’s goal. It made me sad because I felt like he lost his identity. In the book on page 623-624, he writes, “There are no Palestinians. Who are the Palestinians? “The inhabitants of Judea and Samaria.” Non-Jews. Terrorists. Troublemakers. DPs. Refugees. Names on a card. Numbers on a list. Praised in speeches, but treated as interruptions, intermittent presences.”

When I read, the word terrorists, I felt bad, because when I think of the people from that area of the world, I do think Terrorists, and then I think of the phrase “one bad apple messes it up for everyone”. It just makes me think that from now on, I’m not going to judge every person from that side of the world as a terrorist anymore because that phrase is correct in this case for me.

I feel bad for them all because they did kinda lose their identity. The fact that the mother couldn’t tell any of her children about anything because it was illegal to even mention anything about Palestine, makes me want to cry. But if they keep their memories of what they have close, they won’t lose their identity. At the end of the essay when he talks to his friend, it makes he happy and sad at the same time to know that he’s not alone.