Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

The Writing Was on the Wall

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #61
    Joe Klein, Time Magazine

    Burned Books in the Holy Land
    Jewish and Arab parents watch as Israel’s hopes for peace fade

    The Vandals started the fire in the first-grade classroom with a pile of textbooks. But textbooks apparently don’t burn so well. The classroom was destroyed, and the one next to it damaged, but that was all. It was a Saturday evening. The janitor called the principal, Nadia Kinani, to report the fire, and she rushed to the school. She saw that it wasn’t only a fire. There was graffiti that turned her stomach. First she saw kahane was right, a reference to Meir Kahane, a deceased Jewish extremist leader. And then she saw no coexistence with Cancer. And death to Arabs. Kinani is an Arab, and her school is the rarest of things–a bilingual academy whose students are nearly 50% Jewish and 50% Arab, in the heart of Jerusalem. “My first thought was, Our dream is finished,” she told me three days after the fire. “No parents will want to send their children here anymore.”

    The hand in hand school in Jerusalem–one of five such–opened in 1998, after several years of careful preparation. It was a moment of hope. The Oslo accords had been signed by Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin; peace was surely on the way. “I believed that if you want to solve any problem, the way to begin is through education,” says Hattam Mattar, an Israeli Arab who sent his daughters to the school. “Some of my friends said, ‘Your daughter will marry some Jew guy.’ But I figured my daughters could meet Jew guys on the bus. I thought that this school would give them a stronger sense of their own identity and who we are living with.”

    The school is totally bilingual. There are two teachers per classroom. All holidays are celebrated–or at least noted and discussed, as in the case of Nakba Day, the Palestinian remembrance of those forcibly removed from the land during the 1948 war. In fact, everything–every riot and bombing and “protective” wall–is discussed by parents and children alike. There is no political consensus about one state or two states, just a feeling. “We are all here,” Kinani told me. “We have to figure out a way to live together.”

    The school was built next to a railroad track and is close to the original 1948 border between Israel and Jordan. It was built in an Israeli neighborhood but is adjacent to an Arab area. “They say we live in a bubble, but it is more like a cauldron,” said Rebecca Bardach, the school’s director of resource development and strategy, as she led me to a terrace that overlooked a wadi. On the other side of the valley was the arena where the Beitar Jerusalem soccer team plays. The Beitar fans are notorious; one of their favorite chants is “Death to Arabs.”

    There was a time–during most of Israeli history, in fact–when such sentiments were considered way out of the mainstream, unacceptable in polite society. But that is changing. There is rising tension in Jerusalem, with near daily acts of terrorism and humiliation by both sides. Last summer, three Israeli children were kidnapped and killed by Palestinians on the West Bank; some Jews responded by killing a Palestinian child. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted with emotional disgust to the vengeance killing, but his government has been promoting an entirely unnecessary, and quite possibly meaningless, law that would make Israel a Jewish state. And so you have a steady bloody dribble of horror in the streets. Palestinians murder four rabbis in a synagogue. Israeli thugs torch the Hand in Hand school.

    Gradually, the Oslo dream of two states, Israel and Palestine, living peacefully side by side begins to seem unlikely. There are all sorts of sane arguments for a two-state solution. The West Bank occupation has smashed Israel’s moral compass, and Israel’s democracy will be destroyed as the West Bank Palestinian population increases and is refused the right to vote. But in the Promised Land, fantasies have always trumped reality. There is the fantasy now of a Greater Israel; there is the fantasy of no Israel at all. These views are held by minorities with the dead-eyed arrogance of majorities.

    Almost immediately, on the night of the fire, the parents went to the Hand in Hand school. At first, Kinani’s fears seemed justified. A parent told her she was withdrawing her child. But there was a discussion in the library that night, a classic Hand in Hand discussion, with Arab and Jewish parents sharing their anger and fears. The parent changed her mind. “There is no place else I would want my child to be,” she said. A student at the meeting asked if there would be school on Monday. “Yes,” Kinani responded, “and there will be homework.” And on Monday, the students responded with graffiti of their own. We are not enemies, said one sign. And another: We continue together without hatred and without fear.
    There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

    Comment


    • #62
      Originally posted by zraver View Post
      Not lost at all.

      I wonder though if you are so concerned about collective punishment, why you don't look at official Israeli policy.
      So you do believe in Israeli (the people) collective guilt, because of Israeli (the govt of Israel) 'policy'?
      In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

      Leibniz

      Comment


      • #63
        "Yasser Arafat"

        This nomenclature single handedly sends disgust up through my spine. Borne in Q8 not even related to Palestinians but able to ride the waves of the conflict and collect money. What a disgusting creature. At the end of 2000 US Camp Davide peace discussion he walked out of the table saying "where is my money". Pffff

        Comment


        • #64
          Originally posted by Parihaka View Post
          So you do believe in Israeli (the people) collective guilt, because of Israeli (the govt of Israel) 'policy'?
          I support BDS to use non-violence to pressure the Israeli government to live up to its treaty obligations and the requirements of international law.

          Comment


          • #65
            zraver: I support BDS to use non-violence to pressure the Israeli government to live up to its treaty obligations and the requirements of international law.

            What would have a far bigger impact than BDS is a willingness on the part of the U.S. to use its financial leverage with Israel to a greater effect. In defense of Obama, his administration has gone further than any previous when it comes to calling Israel out publicly. He has refused to sign on for Netanyahu's Iran adventure and his "too much loose talk of war" speech to AIPAC took some courage. It's not nearly enough but at least he's got things moving in the right direction.

            Racist, violent attacks on Jews, especially children will only play into the hands of Likud and their right wing allies. International sympathy for Chechens nearly evaporated after the Beslan school massacre; it is just not an honorable way to fight, period.

            Comment


            • #66
              I must apologize in advance to posting on a thread that is more than few months past.
              (Possibly because I am a newbie I can not start a thread...or maybe I'm missing something.)

              When the beast of conflict rears its head, many (myself inclusive) can lose site during a forum debate.
              I readily understand that there is activity daily that upsets viewpoints on both sides with negativity.

              There appears to be a relative lull in the PAL-ISR heavy 'world headline' fighting , albeit 'conflict' assuredly still continues and is carried out by both sides.
              Though the hatred is deep and my not being connected to that part of the world --- I was wondering if others could shed insight as to where the "process" (peace, territory, two state et al) was at this perceived 'relatively quiet' period.
              Is there any light ahead for two tribes to exist in that historical territory ?

              Again, I'm just here to read viewpoints whether biased, opinionated or judgmental. I too can sometimes separate the chafe from the wheat.
              Thanking you all in advance.
              Real eyes realize real lies.

              Comment


              • #67
                Originally posted by PeeCoffee View Post
                I must apologize in advance to posting on a thread that is more than few months past.
                (Possibly because I am a newbie I can not start a thread...or maybe I'm missing something.)

                When the beast of conflict rears its head, many (myself inclusive) can lose site during a forum debate.
                I readily understand that there is activity daily that upsets viewpoints on both sides with negativity.

                There appears to be a relative lull in the PAL-ISR heavy 'world headline' fighting , albeit 'conflict' assuredly still continues and is carried out by both sides.
                Though the hatred is deep and my not being connected to that part of the world --- I was wondering if others could shed insight as to where the "process" (peace, territory, two state et al) was at this perceived 'relatively quiet' period.
                Is there any light ahead for two tribes to exist in that historical territory ?

                Again, I'm just here to read viewpoints whether biased, opinionated or judgmental. I too can sometimes separate the chafe from the wheat.
                Thanking you all in advance.
                I am not sure if there can be peace between the two.

                Israelites as a people have never had a homeland since antiquity. They are from a region where many cultures clash and claim the land. They now claim a piece of land that has been fought over for more than 2000 years. Others are not happy about it.

                Israelis have had to use some heavy handed policies to keep the land safe, not only for them, but for everyone else living within their borders.

                Arabs (Palestinians) will use guerilla tactics because they can't fight a conventional war against a well organized and trained army, which lead to the heavy handed crack down.

                Israelis are totally willing to have a "2-state" solution. But more Arabs than not are not up to that idea. Hence we have the fighting.

                The fighting will end when you can convince a vast majority of Arabs to accept the 2-state solution.

                I don't see that happening before the next ice age. Even then, I'm not sure....
                "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

                Comment


                • #68
                  There can never be peace in the middle east whilst religion rules. Too many people have blind faith and never question. The religious leaders are to blame, especially on the Arab side. I saw a picture once on Facebook of a failed suicide bomber caught by the Israeli's. He had a metal plate protecting his nether region. When asked why he replied that he wanted his genitals intact when he detonated the bomb so he could have his 72 virgins. That's stupidity in the extreme and clearly demonstrates the rift. As an athiest, I dream of the day we have a religion free planet but that's never going to happen either.

                  Comment


                  • #69
                    Stalin dreamed of a day where religion was abolished too.

                    Also have you introduced yourself in the requisite thread?
                    "Draft beer, not people."

                    Comment


                    • #70
                      there is a lot to read, I'll get there soon

                      Comment


                      • #71
                        Originally posted by ecky thump View Post
                        there is a lot to read, I'll get there soon
                        Please do, we'd be happy to hear about you :-)
                        “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                        Comment


                        • #72
                          Originally posted by Parihaka View Post
                          Berkley students eh?

                          GOOD LORD !
                          Was this filmed near the vicinity of University of Cairo ?

                          Comment


                          • #73
                            Originally posted by Aryajet View Post
                            No Jason,

                            I'm not blaming Palestinians, I'm talking about lost opportunities. If Israelis didn't have any problem with Gazans building pretty modern and sophisticated Mall, recreational parks and Olympic size pools I'm certain they wouldn't have any objection to them building hotels and nightclubs to attract foreign tourists (that is if they shut down Qassam assembly joints of course) and boost Stripe's economy.
                            Lost opportunities of a lost generation

                            Comment


                            • #74
                              I decided long ago to join the radical 'Not My Problem' Party and ergo not have an opinion on the Middle East/Israel question. FYI the 'Not My Problem Party' is closely aligned with the the 'You Both Deserve Each Other' Party. They plan to demonstrate for their cause by not:

                              - blowing anything or anyone up;
                              - pointing to historical wrongs as a justification for their current political positions;
                              - playing the Western 'guilt card' with monotonous regularity; and/or
                              - claiming that God is on their side.
                              Last edited by Monash; 08 Feb 16,, 12:21.
                              If you are emotionally invested in 'believing' something is true you have lost the ability to tell if it is true.

                              Comment

                              Working...
                              X