Later, the entity began to invade our imagination as a threatening and dangerous thing. Acts of resistance against it were glorified. A sense of false optimism led many to believe that the day of liberation was at hand. Every time a major disappointment occurred, the dream was pushed back, but it never was pushed out of our imagination. Palestinians live under intense pressure.
Daily life is extremely difficult.
It is more complicated now during the so-called era of peace. Closures mean that people cannot go from one town to the next or sometimes from one village to the next. Visiting Jerusalem, which is the intellectual, social, economic, and spiritual center of Palestinian life, is next to impossible. Trying to get a permit to travel to Jerusalem or to go to Tel Aviv Airport to fly overseas becomes a major hurdle. Palestine has turned into the land of permits, of barbed wire fences, of checkpoints, and of strict bounderies that keep shifting at the expense of the Palestinians.