Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen. First I would like to thank Mr. Samer Khoury for this overwhelming introduction. I would like to thank the board of ATFP, and especially my colleague and friend Dr. Ziad Asali for this distinguished award. I am sure there are many people more qualified to receive it. I feel that this award really belongs to the great philanthropists and generous people who have contributed to the process that I am doing and made it possible for me to achieve what I do in medical education, great people like Mr. Hasib Sabbagh and others who made great contributions to this achievement.

What I really do nowadays is very simple. I pick up an intelligent, underprivileged young Palestinian or other person, and give him an opportunity for higher education. You pick them one at a time and make their lives better. It is just like lighting a candle instead of cursing the darkness. That's what you need to do, one step at a time, and it is amazing what you do when you pay special attention to a young man, how much transformation you can achieve in his life. You can bring someone from misery and make him a real contributor to society and hopefully to the world in general.

I want to thank you all for being here. I appreciate the generosity of the ATFP board and I hope that we will all continue our efforts to find a peaceful solution in our part of the world, that we all hold dear. Thank you so much.

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