NUHA KHOURI'S hands dance as she speaks, slice the air when she is angry, twirl when she is exasperated, form boxes as she tries to explain a concept and gently come together on her lap when she concludes.

At the sound of an Israeli armored vehicle rumbling past her house, she shrinks, at first, and then seethes.

"Nobody has the right to decide if I can come out of my house," she said. "Not some young man sitting in a tank who, if he changes the angle, can destroy my house."

At 36, Ms. Khouri may be one of the United States' best hopes for a durable peace in the Israeli-Palestinian struggle.

She lived in the United States for 15 years, received four degrees from the University of Michigan and returned here voluntarily after the signing of the Oslo accord to build a nation. She represents the thousands of Palestinians who studied or worked abroad and returned here at the prospect of peace. It was hoped that they would serve as an influential, moderating force, but the recent Israeli offensive has undermined them in the eyes of other Palestinians and tested their own beliefs.

In many ways, she seems like an American liberal. She is a Woody Allen fan, loved "Moonstruck," and she says she did not cry during "Titanic." She reads Maya Angelou, Milan Kundera and Ha Jin and says her favorite book is Gabriel García Márquez's "Of Love and Other Demons." She voted for Jesse Jackson in the 1992 Michigan primary, loved her two months living in Greenwich Village and hated visiting Utah. "Understanding Judaism" is one of the titles on her bookshelf.

She teaches students at Bethlehem University who come from the same refugee camp as the teenage girl who killed herself and an Israeli teenage girl in a bombing in March that shocked Israelis, Americans and the president of the United States. Last month, another young woman, this one from a village only five miles from Ms. Khouri's home, killed six Israelis in Jerusalem. The trend leaves Ms. Khouri despondent. She teaches her students to resist by living, not dying.

But her anger flared when an Israeli patrol passed by her home. There is a clash, she readily acknowledged, between her intellectual desire for restraint and her anger. Her tension reflects the resilience of rage and suspicion here.

She spoke in the musty Bethlehem living room she grew up in. Faded couches sat on a faded brown carpet. Antique clocks ticked loudly. Her grandfather, a Lutheran minister who moved into their stately limestone home in 1947, stared down at visitors from a formal black and white portrait.

Below the portrait was a satellite television. Ms. Khouri said she spent her time confined to her house checking channels that reflect her two worlds, CNN and Al Jazeera, the Arabic satellite channel. She spends the rest of her days reading three books, "an autobiography of a woman in the Chinese revolution" and "two trashy novels."

BORN in Bethlehem and the eldest child of a prominent Christian family, she attended a church school and protested when Christian administrators barred a Muslim woman from wearing a head scarf in school. "It's her right, if she wants to put something on her head," she said. "Now, if someone is telling her to put something on her head it's totally different."

At 18, she moved to Flint, Mich., virtually another planet. Her father, worried about instability as the first Palestinian intifada brewed, moved his family to Flint because his sister lived there. An inn operator in Bethlehem, he opened the "White Feather Inn and Restaurant" in Piconning, Mich.

Ms. Khouri enrolled in the University of Michigan as a freshman and spent the next decade there earning two master's degrees and a doctorate in Middle Eastern studies. Her young brother graduated from high school in Flint and became a manager for a Ramada Inn near Washington. Her younger sister also received degrees from Michigan.

The family returned to Bethlehem in 1996 to join other Palestinians who hoped to build an independent state. Both sisters teach at a cultural center that produces concerts, exhibitions and arts classes for local youths.

Her classes introduce Palestinians, both Muslims and Christians, to other religions. Palestinians view her and her sister as "Palestinian women who are Americanized or Westernized," she said. Unmarried, she is considered an old maid here. A Palestinian once asked if she would consider marrying a man with less education than she has. "I said `yes,' " she said. "I've seen lots of men with Ph.D.'s who are really not very educated."

MS. KHOURI'S years in Michigan made her American in some ways and Palestinian in others. Her feelings about politics, family and her land are Palestinian, she said, intense, passionate and loyal.

Her views about women, and her pragmatism and optimism, are American, she said. She recognizes Israel's right to exist and believes the creation of two states is the key to peace. She would like to see a Palestine made up of all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but believes Palestinians may be forced to settle for less. She added, "We will have a state. There is no doubt about it."

But with a standoff between Israeli and Palestinian forces dragging on in the nearby Church of the Nativity, Israeli forces have confined Bethlehem residents to their homes for the last 32 days. The military curfew is lifted for four hours every three days. "We have to get out of the house," she said last night. "I'm just going to die."

The experience has radicalized her, as it has other Palestinians. She blamed Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, for provoking Palestinians to violence. Once skeptical of Yasir Arafat, she, like many Palestinians, now defends him and criticizes Mr. Sharon and the United States for what she sees as a "colonial attempt" to dictate to Palestinians who their leader should be. She accused Israeli hard-liners of trying to bludgeon Palestinians to "give up our land and be their slaves."

But she also mourns over the conflict's increasing cruelty. Suicide bombings are a wrenching statement about "the soul of the Palestinian people," she said.

"We lose some of our humanity with each bombing," Ms. Khouri said.

She said that as soon as the military curfew lifted, she would go to her office and "resist in a more clever way" by going online. She helps produce a pro-Palestinian newsletter that is sent by e-mail to 3,000 civic and religious groups in the United States and Europe. Her target is Americans, Europeans and liberal Israelis.

"We won't do it through suicide bombings, we will do it through engaging people in conversation and making them understand they would not want to live under occupation themselves," she said.

"Thank God for television and the Internet and education."