NSWAS Week-by-Week

Notices:

Prize for Journalism

In this Issue

1. The a double holiday celebration of

2. A course for Israeli and Palestinian History and Civics Teachers

A double holiday celebration

On Thursday September 23, the children of the Primary School and Kindergarten celebrated a double holiday.  For the Jews it was Hag Succoth (?the Feast of Tabernacles?) and for the Christians it was the locally celebrated holiday of Id as-Salib (The Festival of the Cross).  The teachers related the stories behind these two holidays but also brought out their common elements.   Besides their other meanings, both holidays are also connected with the agricultural calendar.  Succoth is also the festival of the harvest, where the last of the season?s crops are gathered in.  Id as-Salib is an important date to Palestinian farmers (Moslems and Christians alike) since it signifies a reminder that it is time to plough the earth before the onset of the winter rains.  So the teachers also emphasized these common elements in the two holidays in order to provide a more universal and humanistic view of them.

In celebrating the holidays, the children built and decorated a succa ? an outdoor construction with a roof of reeds.  They also prepared and presented musical and dance performances, made cakes, ate pomegranates (another common symbol of the holidays) and did potato printing.

 Currently a public debate is being waged in Israel over the teaching of modern Israeli history in the schools.  According to the prevailing model, Israeli history is taught separately from world history.  The historical narrative traces the development of the state of Israel as it struggles to defend itself against opposition from a hostile neighborhood.  The Jewish people, returning to their homeland out of the ashes of the Holocaust, overcame incredible odds to establish a modern democratic nation.  The Palestinians who lived here were offered a fair division of the land.   Having rejected this offer and resorted to belligerency, they bear full responsibility for the tragedy that subsequently overcame their people.

 This view of history was eminently suitable for building a national ethos from a hodgepodge of survivors from Europe and refugees from Arab countries.   The question now on the agenda is whether it remains suitable today, when Israel, as a developed and prospering nation, is seeking rapprochement with its neighbors.  Should schools teach a broader view of the processes that shaped the Israeli ? Arab conflict?   Should they attempt a more objective presentation of the facts, which takes into account the historical narrative of the other people?   These are the bare bones of the current debate between proponents of a revisionist version of history (called by Ilan Pape the ?new history?) and more conservative historians and educationalists.

On the Palestinian side, the situation is quite dissimilar.   Their schools still teach the curricula of the Jordanian and Egyptian school systems, which were modified by the Israelis after 1967.  The Israelis revised the maps used in geography classes to show the State of Israel, rather than Mandatory Palestine. Now that Palestine is a nation in the making, new curricula and texts are being prepared.  According to the agreements, these must be approved by the Israelis before being implemented.

The School for Peace has conducted three courses for Israeli and Palestinian history and civics teachers.  The first course took place in 1997.  All three courses have been conducted with a Palestinian partner organization - the Palestinian Center for Peace and Democracy (PCPD).  The first two courses were financed by the European Community and the American Embassy.  The current one is funded by the Fund for Peace and Dialogue of the Canadian Government.

The current course began on September 16 ? 17, with 16 Israeli and 15 Palestinian participants.  It is facilitated by Eitan Bronstein and Sigalit Givon from the SFP, and Abbas Mellem and Hussein Sawalha from the PCPD.  The course will be conducted in NSWAS, Ramallah and East Jerusalem, and is composed of three encounters and one uninational session, each of one and a half days in length.

Eitan Bronstein and Abbas Mellem were interviewed for this article.  On the basis of the first session, they were enthusiastic about the course.  The participants had got down to business very quickly.  ?Getting down to business? in this case means that they circumvented some of the superficial pleasantry that usually characterizes the opening of an encounter, and quickly plunged into the cold water of the group process.

 The Israeli teachers are recruited from various schools approached directly by the SFP.  Unusually, six teachers of the current course are from the same school in a Tel Aviv suburb, meaning that the school has opted to make a considerable investment in the course.

 On the Palestinian side, the situation is more complicated.   Their authorities do not permit encounter initiatives arranged by schools, Recruitment is therefore on an individual basis.  Teachers are free (and are encouraged) to take part in such courses when approached directly.  Because the PCPD conducts a variety of uninational activities for teachers, it is able to take advantage of its wide network of contacts to recruit participants.

 The disparities between the sides go further.  Due to the tight control by the Israeli authorities over the teaching of history, it has been treated by the Palestinians as a minor subject that could be taught arbitrarily by religious teachers, art teachers, etc.  They were only required to go by the book.

The Israeli side teachers usually come with more systematic academic training.  Furthermore, the teachers who attend the course are generally well aware of the work of the ?new historians? and of the public debate now taking place.  Most feel they already have a fairly objective view of the conflict.   Many even feel sympathy for the Palestinian side, and do not expect their opinions to be changed much by the encounter.

 Yet they are completely unprepared for what actually happens.   From the first session of the current course, the differing expectations of the two groups became clear.  The Israeli participants came with the idea of  showing the Palestinians that there are people on the  Israeli side who are tolerant and desire to change the relations of enmity between the two peoples.  From their point of the view, the Occupation was finished and we should welcome in a new era of peace.  They were unwilling to recognize that for the Palestinians, both the effects of the Occupation and their suffering were still as before.  The Palestinians, for their part, had more concrete expectations from the course.  They hoped the Israeli group would acknowledge their culpability, and help to make amends for it by joining them in their struggle.  Though the Israelis felt they needed time to become acquainted, the Palestinians saw time as running out on them.  Every day brings a further whittling away of their land, and their lives too are slipping away in the limbo of the ?peace process.?

 Differing expectations led inevitably to disappointments.  An Israeli participant made strong conciliatory statements to the Palestinians, even acknowledging the right of the refugees to return.  But when asked by a Palestinian if he would be willing to put his positions to the test by joining him in demonstrating against settlement activity, he refused.  As so often happens, there turns out to be a wide gap between declarations and their assimilation.

 The Israelis, for their part, were shocked by the assault upon them by the Palestinians.  For example, one participant described the history of Zionism as a continuing imperialistic process aimed at dispossessing the Palestinians of their land.  Whereas the Israeli teachers saw today?s settlement activity as being outside the national consensus, the Palestinians saw it as just a continuation of the familiar Zionist process of land appropriation.  In the same way, whereas the Israelis viewed violent acts towards the Palestinians as isolated or unintentional, the Palestinians saw these events as intentional and systematized.  They brought the example of a twelve-year-old boy who had been shot to death by soldiers.  The Palestinians said the soldiers had been ordered to shoot him.  This version of events was completely unacceptable to the Israelis.  They saw the actions of their side as fundamentally humane and proper, notwithstanding a few exceptions that deserved rebuke.  Yet, the Palestinians saw the exceptions as making the rule.

 Though they had been prepared to admit a different historical narrative, the Israeli side realized how ill prepared they were to hear this being expressed by the Palestinians.  Despite all attempts by the Israeli civil administration to suppress the Palestinian historical narrative, every participant had the same account of disaster, exile and humiliation.  One Israeli participant said that despite all of her reading of the conflict, she hadn?t realized ?how much the sore was still open [for the Palestinians], and how much it bleeds.?   The first seminar already proved to the participants that, no matter how much they thought they knew the other side, they were completely out of synch with its reality.

 If the above depiction of events sounds hopelessly negative, and Eitan and Abbas? enthusiasm for the course inexplicable, it should be remembered that this was just the first seminar of four.  If the facilitators were gratified that the pain had surfaced so quickly, it is because they knew it had to break through anyway.  Without it, there could be no real process or development.

Judged by its beginning, they think the course should be at least as successful as its predecessors.  Evaluation of success is based not only upon the personal development of the participants, but upon their ability to assimilate what they have learned in their work.  In previous courses this has been expressed in taking the other historical narrative into account while teaching, in the arrangement of special study days, in postgraduate study projects, and in recommendations submitted to their educational authorities.

 Finally, to return to the broader context of public debate over the teaching of history, it is important to mention again that the two peoples are at different stages in their historical development.  Israel, having just celebrated its fifty year anniversary, is beginning to attempt a more critical evaluation of its past.  The Palestinians, on the other hand, are just building their nation; a stage that, as Eitan pointed out, is not usually characterized by self-criticism.  Abbas was prepared to agree to this analogy, though with the qualification that the process now underway on the Palestinian side ?is not a copy? of that undergone by Israel.  The Palestinians, he claims, unlike the Israelis in 1948, do not need to forge a new national identity - this was already formed over centuries of living in this land under a series of foreign rulers.

Autumn colors
 in the Oasis

In the Succa

Decorated by the kindergarten.

Preparing holiday foods

Music for the Id