Community | February 10, 2009 | 45 comments

Jew, Arab & Christian School Peaceful in Israel

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WorldPeaceTV
None of these kids think any of the politicians running should run Israel. Maybe if these kids DID run Israel, and Palestine, we would have an everlasting peace. These kids have been put together in a school that goes against the current segregated way Israel schools its children. Seems counterproductive if you want to foster peace between two totally different cultures. Here's what these kids do and say about their situation. --------

In Israel, nearly all educational institutions are segregated - Arabs in one school, Jews in another.

But at the Max Rayne Hand in Hand school in Jerusalem, each group makes up exactly half of the student population.

The school has recently grown in size, and now has 460 pupils attending its largest campus in the neighbourhood of Patt in southern Jerusalem. The Jewish and Israeli Arab children study side by side in both Hebrew and Arabic.

The school's philosophy is clearly producing a genuine affection and understanding.

"Kids need to meet the other side more," says Jamie Bregman, a Jewish Israeli who, now aged 15 and in ninth grade, was one of the school's original class intake.

"If you ask a kid from a regular neighbourhood "What's an Arab?", he'd say a worker or a suicide bomber, and that's not right at all. They're like us, they're human beings. They just need to meet each other."

The general election on Tuesday 10 February is clearly weighing on the children's minds.

Jamie's friend, 14-year-old Aboud Ayyad is particularly worried about what the outcome will mean for him and his Arab friends and family.

"The elections won't do a lot for either side," he says.

"If Tzipi [Livni] or Bibi [Binyamin Netanyahu] get in, they'll just do exactly the same and it will be bad for Arabs."

Difficult choices

Aboud predicts that in the next 10 to 15 years many Arabs will leave Israel and the Palestinian territories because it will become harder to move and work, especially in the West Bank and Gaza.

"They'll just go to Canada or America and Israel will become more Jewish," he says.

Avery Burrows, aged 12, is already fed up with politicians.

She says she doesn't talk about politics much with her parents who immigrated to Israel from America.

But as she sits playing with the hair of her Arab friend Areen Nasheef she is adamant about the quality of the country's politicians.

"No-one's really good enough to run this country," she says defiantly.

On the subject of Avigdor Lieberman, the leader of the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, Jamie, Aboud, Avery and Areen are all agreed.

Avigdor Lieberman's hardline policies on security and the country's Israeli-Arab minority have grown in popularity amid a general swing to the right among an electorate strongly supportive of Israel's recent military operation in Gaza.
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45 comments // Jew, Arab & Christian School Peaceful in Israel

  • charmedkitten
  • Nader123
    • 0
      Nader123  
    • The extremists on both side of this conflict must be rejected and undermined...Our support and motivation for a peaceful resolution should be geared for these bright young souls...Shame on our leaders for siding with extremism..

    • 3 years ago
  • nkeg87
  • darkhorsejim
    • 0
      darkhorsejim  
    • Great news & a fine example of what can be accomplished by children before they're taught to hate.

      Now, if only the grown ups would play nice.

    • 3 years ago
  • J_Jammer
    • 0
      J_Jammer [removed]  
    • That land has been cursed for years. Peace won't ever lay rest there....ever no matter what human rules over that land be it adult or child.

      It's great that that school exists...it is how things should be.

    • 3 years ago
  • Ares
    • 0
      Ares  
    • Well, if a group of pre-teens and adolescents with absolutely no socioeconomic or personal stressors can peacefully coexist, I don't see why adults who work and live in real-life with serious stress and problems shouldn't!

    • 3 years ago
  • middle_east
  • werewere
    • 0
      werewere  
    • i think both all three sides have had their turns and messed it up enough. we need to give it to a third group. The Hindus!

    • 3 years ago
  • Hostile
  • CPr0ffitt
    • 0
      CPr0ffitt  
    • Nevertheless, this kind of interrelation between cultures is great. We have to start somewhere, at least this is a step in the right direction. Reality does suggest that, in fact, most Arab countries care not to educate their women. But look at who create political policy. If the men who do that have been brought up in a school in the company of another culture, then at least the chance of them being more tolerant will be better.

    • 3 years ago
  • DouginLA
    • 0
      DouginLA  
    • CPr0ffitt:

      Don't get me wrong I am very happy to see this kind of solidarity, but I am just a skeptical person by nature. I will be shocked to ever see a Arabic country do this.

    • 3 years ago
  • DouginLA
    • 0
      DouginLA  
    • Of course if this school was in an Arabic country it would only be boys, since they consider women unworthy of educating.

    • 3 years ago
  • CPr0ffitt
    • 0
      CPr0ffitt  
    • This is a perfect example of how unpolluted the Israeli-Palestinian can be if either side's leaders take a page from the youth of their cultures. Clearly these young pupils see past the ugliness of racism and bias to take part in a monumental step towards a more understanding and peaceful resolution.

      God willing we, in the American culture, will become more active in advocating an end of the violence in Israel. The problem is two sided and this is a wonderful article with an excellent solution.

    • 3 years ago
  • BFAM_RVS
    • 0
      BFAM_RVS  
    • we all want peace, regardless of age or culture, and children are the truth, free from the world's polutants, so if they want peace, peace is the truth....

    • 3 years ago
  • damnneargenius
    • 0
      damnneargenius  
    • And if they didn't all suffer from ancient religious indoctrination in the first place, they wouldn't have such crazy things to fight about in the first place.

      Then again, they would problem just end up fighting about even dumber shit instead.

      If I were God, I would be extremely disappointed in the human condition in general.

    • 3 years ago
  • eden49
  • superfinet
    • 0
      superfinet  
    • Our world needs MANY more EDUCATIONAL institutions operating like this one. Without fostering peace at an early age, people become ingrained in their elders' teachings and lose sight of the humanity between us all. Children usher in a new generation of thought each decade, but if steered in a hateful direction will operate that way without realizing they hate themselves and others, not understanding the perpetual destructive force of their thoughts & actions. This school is beautiful and must be the flagship for further developments of peace in this region, and all others where hate divides populations!

    • 3 years ago
  • mqz4
    • 0
      mqz4  
    • i understand exactly what the kids feel. i grew up in such a school. it never ceases to baffle me that people wage wars over religion. there is a lot of truth when someone mentioned that the kids should vote. such schools should be promoted. understanding other religions makes a well rounded individual and in the end don't they all talk of peace! i wish people could stop being so fanatic about their religion, rights and wrongs of their ancestors, we have one life to live, lets not waste it on hate and violence. nice post worldpeacetv!!

    • 3 years ago
  • WorldPeaceTV
    • 0
      WorldPeaceTV  
    • We need more of this type of learning. I know of a project almost ready to come out that puts several Israeli and Palestinian families together in a biosphere for a certain amount of time, a year or so. This has been done already in South America to a great degree of success.

      If we learn about each other, we get to appreciate the different person on the 'other' side. We even learn more about ourselves.

    • 3 years ago
  • petarro
    • 0
      petarro  
    • WorldPeaceTV:

      This is obvious. But this has been going for thousands of years and a school or a wall or a cease fire won't cool down anything!

      Remember the story from the hamas leader, he was a jew friend until a crazy guy killed his brother and then he went nuts.

      The other issue is the Religion, if the religion tolerates your revenge or the beheading of the jews... we are not going anywhere! You like all this or not, THIS IS -IT-!!

    • 3 years ago
  • Vierotchka
    • 0
      Vierotchka  
    • WorldPeaceTV:

      This has NOT been going on for thousands of years. Jews and Muslims lived in peace, then the Christians sent over their bloody Crusades - at one point, according to several different and unrelated contemporary sources, the blood reached the horses' knees in Jerusalem. After that, Jews, Christians and Muslims lived in peace together until 1948 when Israel was created.

    • 3 years ago
  • banditalamode
  • mario_a
    • 0
      mario_a  
    • @WorldPeaceTV -- congrats on making the featured spot on the homepage. I had to shorten your headline because it was getting cut off. Here's your original headline:

      "Jew, Arab and Christian Children's school in Israel say they can live together in peace"

      I hope this works for you!

    • 3 years ago
  • podman12
    • 0
      podman12  
    • WPTV, congratulations, this is the first post from you that I fully support! I really enjoyed this actually. No biases and overall just a good tale of how people can coexist after thousands of years of people being raised to hate the "others."

    • 3 years ago
  • petarro
  • Vierotchka
  • FallenMorgan
    • 0
      FallenMorgan  
    • I agree that both sides are a bunch of ignorant morons. Hopefully these kids will grow up to bring about a new era of peace in the region.

    • 3 years ago
  • simplecj
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  
    • This is beautiful. Let us hope they remain this way without being poisoned by the hatred of those around them. This is how you achieve peace. You break the cycle of hate.

    • 3 years ago
  • ClareW
    • 0
      ClareW  
    • That's great, finally something positive. Old prejudices need to be erased by the next generation otherwise peace will never be acheived...

    • 3 years ago
  • Dillusion
    • 0
      Dillusion  
    • This goes to show how old ways die with generations and the future isn't as bleak as we think. When more progressive and modern generations such as the current young adults get into power; things will change no matter what.

    • 3 years ago
  • csmonut
    • 0
      csmonut  
    • Great post WPTV!

      Kids have to be taught to hate, they have to be taught vengence.
      If they were given a voice in world affairs, since they are obviously color/race/religion blind, the world would be a much better place.

    • 3 years ago
  • Bren589
  • Bren589
    • 0
      Bren589  
    • will the hate ever end . will peace ever prevail? will these two countries ever come to some kind of agreement and live in peace ? I wish to God that one day there will be peace on both side.!!!. Hope your feeling Better wptv. . Peace & love

    • 3 years ago
  • maasanova
    • 0
      maasanova  
    • I wonder who made the schools segregated; the Jews or the Arabs? Of course they can get along. Children are colorblind until they become indoctrinated with religious voodoo mumbo jumbo nonsense. Great post.

    • 3 years ago
  • WorldPeaceTV
    • 0
      WorldPeaceTV  
    • "I think both sides are stupid. Every time Hamas sends rockets to Sderot the Jews hate more Arabs, and every time the Jews bomb Gaza, the Arabs hate more Jews," he says with resignation.

    • 3 years ago
  • DouginLA
  • trut
  • WorldPeaceTV
    • 0
      WorldPeaceTV  
    • "I don't blame my Jewish friends for what happened in 1948, but I do feel that this was mine before," Areen says.

      "I was born here and grew up here and I am a citizen. But every time I feel like I'm enjoying the country the other side of me feels as though I shouldn't because they took my grandparents' land and they killed people."

    • 3 years ago
  • petarro
  • Bren589
    • 0
      Bren589  
    • WorldPeaceTV:

      @petarro when will you stop being so blind . even the children don't want hate and war. they want peace . so get over it . I don't know why I even waste my time with responding to anything you say. cause its just a waste of time. I suggest everyone not respond to you. all you want is attention. so from now on you shall not get mine . Peace be with you

    • 3 years ago
  • DouginLA
  • petarro
    • 0
      petarro  
    • WorldPeaceTV:

      Bren589, you can do and talk all you want, but you will never shut me up. Your totalitarian way of speaking reminds me there is still people trying to silence other people. If you don't like it, turn off the monitor or keep reading somewhere else. You clearly don't even understand because of how biased you are.

    • 3 years ago
  • kewal91
    • 0
      kewal91  
    • WorldPeaceTV:

      way back when... it could be true that one side may have been there before.. but today they live side-by-side and therefore should learn to live peacefully.. look at america. the natives were here first.. they killed them by the thousands and the few remaining left still live in peace with the white-immigrants and the new immigrants

    • 3 years ago
  • Vierotchka
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