Wafa SrourThe School for Peace |
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Conceptions of Peace and Israeli/Palestinian Power Dynamics:
“ All Jewish Israelis, even racists, claim that they want peace. But what they actually mean by peace is that they continue to keep the Palestinians under occupation and the Palestinians say, "OK." Our view of peace is different. For us, peace is based upon equality: not you in a position of superiority and me in a position of inferiority. Even during Oslo, the feeling of superiority on the part of Jews was something unbelievable. How can that be considered to be peace? Peace will only be achieved when the two sides are treated as equals. That means that Israel has to give up its feeling of superiority. Only when both sides are equal, can each think of making concessions to the other. That is genuine peace. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
“ There are things that accompany your very development as a human being. I was born and raised on these political issues. When I left Elaboun, I did so out of a desire to leave such a politicized environment. I did not want to get involved in politics or in political parties anymore, but rather to work for an insurance agency. Clearly politics is a part of me, however, because I have chosen to work in this field even though I could have made much more money in insurance. I suppose that it is something that comes from deep inside my personality, and my worldview. This is something that I cannot change. I cannot sit and do nothing while we are at war. In this way, work in this field is an outlet for me. If I did not have it, I would suffocate. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
“ Not long after I began working on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the School for Peace I began thinking more about women's issues again. I asked myself, "where am I in this? What is the role of women?" In addition, I observed the behavior of the women who attended our encounters or who came to the meetings at the universities. I noticed that women's voices were not heard so much during the meetings; women tended to let the men speak. […] I believe women should take more responsibility in life. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
“ You know all of the fantasies about solidarity among women in the face of their shared oppression at the hands of men and the structures of society? We wanted to investigate this fantasy and examine its grounding in reality. We found that Palestinian women for the most part do not feel a sense of sisterhood with Jewish women. In some of the interviews I conducted, when we talked about women's issues, Palestinian women would say that they felt unity with Jewish women. When we started to talk about nationalist issues, however, it was a different story. From the perspective of the Palestinian woman, that other woman takes on the role of a man. That is, when a woman faces a conflict as massive as this one, her concerns go beyond feminist issues alone. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
“ I do not think that democracy is something that can be taught. Democracy is not a set of rules to be discussed; it is a way of behaving and treating one another. The Ministry of Education cannot confine me and use undemocratic methods for deciding what to teach me, and at the same time claim to teach democracy. This is a contradiction. Democracy is not taught, it is realized in action. If you treat a child democratically, then the child will become democratic. If you oppress him and repress him, however, he will turn out differently. You can teach about democracy for six hundred years, but it will not do any good. Democracy must be a way of life. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
“ If I were asked about my work, I would say that we are an occupied nation. No nation in the world would accept being occupied, so why should we? In order to affect change, we must try to influence people's consciousness. Some might say that they are under Israel's rule, so there is little that they can do. Although it might seem like they have no means of expressing their dissent, I believe that there are many things that can be done. I wish that the occupation could end without a single drop of blood. Unfortunately, that is not how the world works. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
Occupation and Leadership/Empowerment:
“ It was only when I became aware of the fact that I was being oppressed that I was able to start resisting it. The same thing applies to the struggle of women; the moment that I realized that I was not born weak, but rather that society had forced me into a weak position, I could start fighting for my rights. […] Once we become aware that there are people living under occupation, we can work to end it. This is our work; it is centered on consciousness-raising. Change, however, will not be achieved easily or quickly. Ideas that are deeply ingrained - the ideas on which people have been raised -cannot be uprooted overnight. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
“ My sense of belonging has been strengthened [since moving to Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam]. Some people think that living among Israeli Jews would have an effect on my identity as a Palestinian. It is true that it has, but the effect has been to make my identity stronger. For example, sometimes people ask me what my daughters' names are, and they are surprised when they hear that their names are Rasha and Ahlam. They imagine that, because I live with Jews, my children's names would not be Arabic. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
Identity and Perceptions of the Other and Israeli/Palestinian Power Dynamics:
“ When people ask me why I bring students to meet each other, I tell them that in my own experience participating in such encounters has strengthened my sense of identity. Palestinian students grow up hearing that Israeli students are stronger, better, and smarter than they are. When they meet Israeli students, however, they discover that they are not as they are portrayed in books and so on. When I came face-to-face with real Israelis, it caused me to reflect upon myself. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
Obstacles and Challenges and Identity and Religion and Education:
“ The question of how to design a bi-national, bilingual school requires more thought, and it is something that we can continue to work on. We need first to attend to the issue of a bi-national school, and then perhaps to the issue of an interfaith school. Here in the Waha, we asked for a bi-national school that does not deal at all with religion. We wanted to put the religious issue aside. The Jewish residents objected, however, because for them religion is part of their national identity. In the end, what we have here seems to be a typical Jewish school, with some Arabs added in. If we want a genuinely Arab-Jewish school, on the other hand, we must create it from scratch. It must be Arab-Jewish from its very foundations and basic principles. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
Identity and Education and Language:
“ I cannot put my daughter in the school here [at Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam], where her Jewish teacher does not even know Arabic. It is not enough to have a Jewish teacher reading from an Arabic book. This confuses the children. There should be a Jewish teacher and an Arab teacher, or at least a Jewish teacher who speaks Arabic. Otherwise, attending this school would be at the expense of our language and our nationality, something which is totally unacceptable for me. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
Israeli/Palestinian Power Dynamics:
“ The point is not to bring youth together so that they can get to know each other and have fun. Our aim is to raise awareness. They can have fun later. Imagine that a Palestinian student comes out of a meeting and says, "Yeah I had a good time in there, but out here nothing has changed." I would feel as if I had fooled him. This is something that I, as part of a nation that is suffering under the rule of another nation, cannot accept. As such, we have changed the methods that we use. We say that there is a state called Israel that forced out and oppressed the Palestinian people. As the Palestinian minority in Israel we also face oppression and the denial of our rights. The point is to get everything out on the table and to deal with it. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
Vision and Leadership/Empowerment and Israeli/Palestinian Power Dynamics:
“ If I am weak, then I will not achieve a thing. I must become more powerful in order to make change. This is not a lesson, as much as it is a given. I cannot expect a tyrant and an occupier to act humanely all of a sudden: to apologize and ask to make amends. I wish it were that easy, but it's not. So the lesson we learn is that we must increase our own strength. It is similar to marriage; men will never understand women's concerns unless women reveal them. This can be difficult and even excruciating, but this is the way things are. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
“ My father lived through 1948; I need to know what happened in order to be able to understand him and deal with him. I need to know what happened in order to know myself. Why do they keep that information from us? I need to know the truth in order to build my own identity. When we talk to Israeli Jews about this they say, “Why do you always focus on the past? Let’s start from now and look forward.” But if they don’t think the past is important, then why do they keep teaching their children about the Holocaust? Why can they teach the history of the Holocaust, when Arabs cannot teach their children about 1948? I studied about the Holocaust in school, but I was not taught about the things that my own father went through. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
“ I am from Eilaboun, a small village in the north between Tiberias and Nazareth. A massacre took place in this village in 1948; sixteen people were killed and the others fled for their lives. Both my maternal uncle and my paternal uncle were among those killed. My father could have been among them, as well, yet he somehow survived. I was born in the same village and in the same house. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
“ It is strange how the entire world becomes blind when it turns its eyes towards the Palestinians. It is ironic how the world claims to reject occupation, yet silently watches as we are shattered and oppressed. I want these people to remove their masks and show their true faces. These countries care only about power and control, be it internal or external. Unfortunately, America, the “mother of peace” is not doing a thing. Neither are the Europeans, although I expected more from them. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
“ Today countries around the world donate money to fund our peace organizations. There are times when I want to tell them to stop, and instead to use their money to build factories that will provide Palestinians with jobs. How can I expect a man to be good to his wife when he does not have a job and cannot feed his children? How is he supposed to be able to live? A starving nation will not be capable of achieving anything. We need to build schools and educate our people. First and foremost, however, our people need food to eat, because it is only then that they will be able to think about other things. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
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