As the Middle East peace process disintegrates and the second Palestinian Intifada begins, Wendy Pearlman, a young Jewish woman from the American Midwest travels to the West Bank and Gaza Strip in a quest to talk to ordinary Palestinians. A remarkable narrative emerges from her conversations with doctors, artists, school kids, and families who have lost loved ones or watched their homes destroyed. Their stories, ranging from the humorous to the tragic, paint a profile of the Palestinians that is as honest as it is uncommon in the Western media: that of ordinary people who simply want to live ordinary lives. As Pearlman writes, "the personal stories and heartfelt reflections that I encountered did not expose a hatred of Jews or a yearning to push Israelis into the sea. Rather, they painted a portrait of a people who longed for precisely that which had inspired the first Israelis: the chance to be citizens in a country of their own."

When the occupied territories exploded following the collapse of the Camp David talks and Ariel Sharon's inflammatory visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, Wendy Pearlman, a young Jewish woman from Nebraska, immersed herself amongst ordinary Palestinians and, a la Studs Terkel, recorded their lives. A remarkable oral narrative emerges from the school principals, professors, TV reporters, school kids, mothers, doctors, engineers, filmmakers, shop owners, victims of shellings and forced house removals that spoke to her: "The personal stories and heartfelt reflections that I encountered did not expose a hatred of Jews or a yearning to push Israelis into the sea. Rather, they painted a portrait of a people who longed for precisely that which had inspired the first Israelis: the chance to be citizens in a country of their own."

One of the first books to tell the Palestinian story from the point of view of Palestinians living in the occupied territories.