What's your name?
"What's your name?" It's a dreaded question if you're flying into Tel Aviv and you have a name that sounds Palestinian/Arabic/Muslim. If your name sounds suspicious, you will be asked about your parents' and grandparents' names, too, in order to determine if you'll be allowed in Israel.
"What's your name?" is a constant refrain in Dheisheh Refugee Camp in Bethlehem, Palestine. 40% of Dheisheh's 17,000 inhabitants are children. "What's your name?" they call out to me in English. "What's your name?" I ask them, one by one. Mohammed, Mira, Fatoom, Mousa, Sadeel.
"What's your name?" After the 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi slapped an Israeli soldier who was illegally trespassing on her family's front yard, she and her mother were jailed for 8 months. The Tamimis of Nabi Saleh have become a symbol. A girl's physical outrage stops a gun.
"What's your name?" Mousa asks me before he teaches me to dance a traditional Palestinian dance. "I am Kremena," I tell him. "And you are now my teacher."