Visiting an Elementary School in Hebron: The impact of the enduring conflict that exists between Palestinians and Israelis over their contested land in the Levant is put into sharp focus when one visits school in the West Bank and spends time with the children. Today four of us from the Excellence Center visited a Palestinian elementary school in Hebron that is located within the boundaries of one of the four Jewish settlements in the old city section of town. While life appeared normal at the school and for the children present, we learned that their educational experience was not that of average children, and that all of the several hundred children present lived with a high level of fear and intimidation in their lives.
Our reasons for visiting the school were two-fold. One was to assist the teacher of an English class for twelve and thirteen year-olds, simply by participating as native English speakers. One of our group devised a simple game in which the class was divided into three groups, and then given a few minutes to think of as many English words as possible for a given subject, such as words associated with the school or home. This may sound like a basic exercise, but consider for a moment how many Arabic words you could conjure up associated with your home.
It seems somehow mildly surprising every time we are reminded that children are very much the same the world over. This group of 20 or so young Palestinian boys exhibited the same innocence, enthusiasm, charisma and joie de vivre as do youngsters all over the world. They greeted our group with a boisterous liveliness and worked hard to acquire a modicum of increased skill in English. In fact I had been in an adult English class the day before and saw the same sincere striving to develop some capacity to speak English, which might offer a key to a better life.
Afterwards the class teacher told us how much it meant to everyone there to have foreigners come to the school and show international support for their situation—which is, like in all of the ‘Occupied Territories’ (the West Bank) and Gaza, that they are an oppressed people who live in constant fear of a powerful society that controls their every movement: the Israelis.
The school itself is invaded by large numbers of soldiers every week. They enter classrooms with their sub-machine guns, search even the students, and demonstrate their power over the Palestinians. It is not unusual to have some small thing go wrong; like someone from outside the school lobbing a stone into the schoolyard while the soldiers are there. This initiates a round of firing tear gas and rubber bullets; just last week a young student was overcome by tear gas and taken by ambulance to the hospital. But—there is no vehicle access to the school for Palestinians, because it is in ‘settler’ territory. So the child was carried out a quarter mile on a stretcher on roads driven only by settlers. 
The students all come from poor families because all of Palestine is poor. The Israelis control all of the access points to Palestine and they make sure that there is no potential for economic development. In addition the students are frightened by regular acts of intimidation and violence at the school perpetuated by the always-near Israeli soldiers. For these reasons it is hard to keep many students in school. After completing school there is almost no work to be had in Palestine. The teacher tells the students, if you want to overcome the occupiers, don’t throw rocks, stay in school and develop your mind.
