Aziz Abu Sarra

I think you're right.

Most people see how horrible things are and decide to go on because we feel we've been sold this idea that there's nothing we can do.

There is no influence we have and the world around us.

And I know it from my own life.

My brother was killed when I was a kid.

Nobody reached out to me then.

I was 10 years old.

No one reached out to me.

And it took eight years of me, you know, living under occupation, having to pass checkpoints, being frisked at checkpoints.

I think first time I was shot at, I was seven or eight years old.

And I was very angry as a kid.

And then I went to study Hebrew in Ulpan.

And my Hebrew teacher was Israeli Jewish woman.

And it was the first time somebody reached out to me.

It was the first time somebody Israeli Jewish who treated me truly like a human being saw me as an equal.

And so it stuck with me that I want to do the same.

People, I think, don't realize one small action, one kind word, you never leave the person you meet the same after you've interacted with them.

And I wanted to do that for Maoz and for others.

I love Maoz, but he wasn't the only person I sent this message to because I didn't even know Maoz before.

I knew him, met him only once a few years earlier.