Nazareth, Haneen Zoabi's home city in northern Israel, is a chaotic mess of streets and nondescript buildings that has seen better days from an architectural and planning perspective.

It is a kind of metaphor for the member of the Knesset's major constituency, the little over a million Palestinian-Arabs or Arab-Israelis living inside the state of Israel today.

The childhood home of Jesus was actually a small, beautiful historical town in 1948 that never really recovered from an overwhelming flood of refugees that had managed to escape the ethnic cleansing of 700,000 Palestinians in what is called the Nakba or catastrophe by the armed forces of the then new state of Israel.

In July, activist Rachel Marcuse spent 10 days in Israel as part of the Taglit-Birthright program -- a fully sponsored trip for young North American Jews to learn more about the country. She went to bear witness and ask questions about the Israeli state's treatment of Palestinians, and to learn about other complex issues in Israel today. After the program, she spent another 10 days elsewhere in Israel and the West Bank of Palestine talking to Israeli Jews, Arab Israelis, international activists, and Palestinians. This is the third of a seven-part series on what she found.

Day 5

An Arab member of the Israeli parliament, who was on board the international flotilla that was attacked on Monday as it tried to take humanitarian aid to Gaza, accused Israel yesterday of intending to kill peace activists as a way to deter future convoys.

Haneen Zoubi said Israeli naval vessels had surrounded the flotilla's flagship, the Mavi Marmara, and fired on it a few minutes before commandos abseiled from a helicopter directly above them.

Terrified passengers had been forced off the deck when water was sprayed at them. She said she was not aware of any provocation or resistance by the passengers, who were all unarmed.