I’m looking for the true Palestine, the Palestine that's more than memories, more than peacock feathers, more than a son, more than scars written by bullets on the stairs … for him, Palestine is something worthy of a man bearing arms for, dying for. For us … it's only a search for something buried beneath the dust of memories.

For me, a return home is not merely the redemption of my family's history and our pain, nor merely the absolute requirement of acknowledgement and apology, but a radicalisation of thought that endeavours to always speak truth to power.

Kanafani: You don't mean exactly peace talks. You mean capitulation. Surrendering.

Carleton: Why don't you just talk?

Kanafani: Talk to whom?

Carleton: Talk to the Israeli leaders.

Kanafani: That is the kind of conversation between the sword and the neck, you mean.

Carleton: There are no swords or guns in the room. You could still talk.

Kanafani: No. I’ve never never seen talk between a colonialist case and a nation liberation movement.

Carleton: But despite this, why not just talk?

Kanafani: Talk about what?

Carleton: Talk about the possibility of not fighting.

Kanafani: Not fighting for what?

Carleton: Not fighting at all, no matter what for.

Kanafani: People usually fight for something, and they stop fighting for something. So you can't even tell me what should we speak about what.

…

Carleton: Talk to stop fighting, to stop the death, the misery, the destruction, the pain … of Palestinians, of Israelis, of Arabs.

Kanafani: Of the Palestinian people who are uprooted, thrown in the camps, living in starvation, killed for 20 years, and forbidden even to use the name Palestinians?

Carleton: It's better than death.

Kanafani: Maybe to you. Not to us. To us, to liberate our country, to have dignity, to have respect, to have our human rights is something as essential as life itself.