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No Child Is Born A Terrorist

What happens when Palestinian youth must choose between the art of theater and a life of violence or even martyrdom? Philanthropist and filmmaker Charles Annenberg Weingarten and the explore.org team enter the most radicalized refugee camp in the Palestinian Occupied Territories and discover that perhaps the greatest tool of liberation is not the gun, but the stage.

At the center of a labyrinth of graffiti-covered streets lies the Jenin Freedom Theatre, founded in the 1980s to dissuade youth from entering a life of hostility. Juliano Mer-Khamis, director of the theater, takes Charlie on an eye-opening journey through Jenin, where Israeli soldiers regularly patrol and suspicious behavior too often ends in gunfire. As he walks the dirt roads with Juliano, Charlie is presented with a rare and risky opportunity: the chance to meet Zakaria Zubeidi, whom Israelis consider the most dangerous terrorist in Palestine.

Though Charlie battles his nerves on the way to meet Zubeidi, his notions of “terrorist” are immediately challenged when he encounters a gentle family man who dreams of a future where Israelis and Palestinians can live together in harmony. Stereotypes are shattered as it becomes clear that the terrorist images portrayed on Western television tell only a small part of the story.

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