#PalestiniansSpeak: Rima Qasim

- How has the occupation impacted your family?

- Well, the first thing is that my parents are expelled. Therefore, I am expelled, really. I can go for a visit as an American with a three month visa, but they decide when I have to leave. I have no real right to live as I please. Every time we travel there, we are extremely humiliated, especially my teenage daughters by the Israeli Forces at the, either at the airport or at the bridge when we cross from Aman. We are forced to wait 6 to 8 hours, for no reason whatsoever except that we are originally Palestinians. We were once expelled. One time we went, we were trying to cross the bridge and we were kicked out and we were told that we could not enter today, you have to come back tomorrow. Just as a punishment. They're trying to punish us for no reason, except that we're Palestinians and we're trying to come home. Plus, my kids did not have the privilege to live in their own country. We were expelled by Israel. So the occupation does not give me rights as a Palestinian to live there comfortably, as it does with the Jews who come from all over Europe.