Peace begins at school and at home

Khaled Diab

After visiting the elders, we went to a nearby town to meet some of the area's youngest citizens. We visited a joint Jewish-Arab school which Tzachi and Anat were considering sending their children to. The school's head teachers, Yochanan Eschschar and Noha el-Khatieb, kindly gave us a tour of their experimental establishment.

The school is still a young one, with only 200 kindergarten and primary school pupils, half of whom are Jewish and the other half Arab. Each bilingual class has two teachers, one Jew and one Arab, and the lessons are conducted in both Arabic and Hebrew. It being Memorial Day, the children were encouraged to work on activities and project in which they learnt about each side's pain and suffering, particularly with Independence Day around the corner for Israel, which is regarded as the nakba (Catastrophe) by Palestinians.

"We handle this sensitive subject by accepting the idea that there are two narratives, both of which are valid to their people. And we encourage both sides to be aware of the other's pain," Noha explained. "We want to encourage these children to set off together into the future," Yochanan continued.

But with only a handful of cash-strapped schools like this across the country, the difficulty of attracting Jewish children (who have so many options and whose parents fear Palestinian-Israelis) to study with Arabs, enlightened education like this will have little impact, despite its potential. "It's a drop in the ocean," Amos kept repeating sadly.

Hopeful conversations
In the evening, Amos and Tzachi decided to launch an oil-fuelled kite which took off and travelled for kilometres, with father and son chasing after it like maniacs afraid it would land somewhere and start a fire. Luckily, it touched down somewhere safely.

During dinner, the air-raid siren which goes off to inform Israelis that Memorial Day has begun went off and everyone stood up to stand silently for two minutes in private contemplation. I used the moments to reflect on my unusual day and the fact that I was here in Israel during its most intensely emotional time.

Before, during and after dinner a diwan­-style or round table debate started up between me and several generations of Israelis – my hosts, Anat's father, a recent arrival from America, an immigrant from Colombia and a young Israeli couple at university. It was incredibly constructive, informative and entertaining for all involved and we all came away with the impression that if only the rest of the world could communicate like this.

©Khaled Diab. Text and images.

Don't grieve me alone

Khaled Diab

"The Jewish people have suffered for 2,000 years and now we'll make you suffer with us," was Tzachi's friendly introduction to the coming Memorial Day ceremonies that evening.

And pain, grief and loss were all around and almost tangible on my second day. In the morning, Amos and I went off to a nearby Arab village, Meyser. There, we met with the town's unofficial council of elders, the local senior citizens' club, some of whom were friends with Amos.

We started by chatting about their activities and the importance of sport at their age. They told me how things were gradually getting better over the years for the Palestinian citizens of Israel. But they also complained about how difficult it was for their community to send their children to university because of the cost and some bureaucratic obstructionism. "Many of our children go to Jordan or Europe to study because it is easier," one of them told me.

On the way, Amos had told me about all the left-wing Kibbutzim in the area and how good their ties were with the local Arab population. The subject with the elders soon switched to the sense of grief they still feel at the loss of their land, being as they were from the 1948 generation.

"We miss our confiscated land," one of them asserted. "The memory of our loss is alive in our children," rejoined another.

"My father's land is 250m down the road from here. They told me that you're father isn't here and so it is not yours."

The others went on to list the various legal tricks that they claimed were used to dispossess them of their land.

"Our youngsters need houses but they cannot get permission to build in the village," the oldest of the elders, who had been nodding off in a corner under the apparent weight of his kifeya, suddenly piped in.

They also complained about how they are neither her nor there. "Here we have Israeli identity cards but are not considered full citizens. In the Arab world, we're seen as Israelis. Neither side accepts us," one described.

But the conversation ended on a note of hope.

"The Jews around here are from Argentina and South America and so they have an 'eastern' outlook and it makes it easier for us to live together."

They discussed an experimental council of eight Jews and eight Arabs which went some way towards building bridges between the two communities.

"There are joint Arab-Jewish schools in some villages which is promising for the future generation," one of the old men observed.

©Khaled Diab. Text and images.