They were amazed at the outpouring of emotion from Arab citizens who began talking openly about their own family stories from 1948. "Suddenly, Arabs opened up with statements of pain," Yehezkel recalled. "Liberal, well-meaning Israelis who thought they were building cultural bridges and alliances were forced to confront the fact that there were endemic problems and injustices in Israeli society that required much more than cross-cultural encounter and coexistence activity.
