"We are not trying to heal their violence. We try to challenge it into more productive ways. And more productive ways are not an alternative to resistance. What we are doing in the theatre is not trying to be a replacement or an alternative to the resistance of the Palestinians in the struggle for liberation, just the opposite. This must be clear." Juliano Mer Khamis, former director of the theatre. Killed in 2011 on productive resistance.

" [...] For us in the Freedom Theater, the whole idea is about conflict, and it starts from conflict—conflict on different levels: a personal conflict, identity conflict, political conflict. And all that started from Juliano and his mother, Arna. She was an Israeli Jew; she was part of the Israeli army, she served in the Israeli army. But when she found the truth and discovered what was going on, she decided to stop serving in the army and became an activist for Palestinian rights. She got a Nobel Prize, an alternative Nobel Prize, and she opened children's houses in the camp where, during the first intifada, they closed their schools, and the children were sitting in the streets writing and reading.

In that way, I'm also trying to focus on the community and the power of the community around you. If you can win the community, then all your work will be much easier, much stronger, and more effective in different situations. In the second Intifada, most of these kids became armed resistance leaders, and most of them died. In the second Intifada, Juliano, the son of Arna, came back and made a documentary—I hope everyone can see it on YouTube—called "Arna's Children." It explains a lot about the Freedom Theater and the journey of the Freedom Theater. 

When the Israelis invaded the whole West Bank, they destroyed the Stone Theater. At that time, it was called the Stone Theater because the Palestinians were fighting with stones in the second Intifada. In 2006, the people gathered together, three founders, one of them became the Al Aqsa Brigade leader in the whole West Bank and was wanted number one by the Israeli army, Zakariya Zubaidi. He believed in the role of art and culture to resist and explain our story. In the West, when people hear about a freedom fighter, they think of a man with a big beard, a big belly, four wives, and ten children. But when they meet Zakariya, they find out he's a young man who believes in culture besides the gun and resistance.

At that time, we opened the theater and used it for resistance. I, myself, was an armed resistor and have been in prison for four years. But then I lost all my friends and houses, and started to believe that there should be another way to fight. The idea is not to die; the idea is to resist and stay alive as long as you can to tell your story. "