Pictures paint a thousand words of hatred

By Akiva Eldar

w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m

13 January 2005

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/526529.html

In the winter of 2003, when between suicide attacks in Jerusalem people were updating their gas masks and equipping themselves with plastic sheeting in preparation for the war in Iraq, Assi Sharabi was making a tour of schools in the country. "Imagine for a few minutes that you are Palestinian children," the young student asked sixth-graders, "and write what you think about the Israelis and about the conflict and what, in your opinion, the solution should be."

The children were asked to draw pictures to go with the essays that would depict the image of Palestinian children and their thoughts. Recently Sharabi completed the analysis of the essays and drawings for his Ph.D. thesis in social psychology for the London School of Economics.

Some 123 students from three schools - in a large city, in a veteran Jewish settlement in the territories and in a secular kibbutz - presented him with a unique picture of the Arab as seen by a Jewish schoolchild.

"Children, like a great many adults, find it difficult to look at the reality from the other's point of view," says Sharabi. The essays and the drawings served as a means for the children to express their feelings and their opinions about the other. A few weeks ago Sharabi read in these pages an article about Israeli textbooks that dealt, among other things, with the stereotypes of the Arabs and the meager attention paid to the Palestinian narrative and Palestinians' problems. This week, during a short home visit, he said his study proves that the textbooks, no doubt with the help of parents, teachers, the media and other environmental factors, do a good job of reinforcing these images.

The traces of the stereotypes are very evident in the essays, and scream from the drawings. The words and the images reveal a deep abyss of hostility, hatred, alienation and despair. Of similar findings that might emerge from a study of Palestinian children it would be said that there was no better evidence that the schools in the territories were engaged in inciting the youth against Israel. However, we can take some comfort in the assumption that had the survey been done before October, 2000 and before the series of suicide attacks, the essays and the drawings would have been more optimistic.

`See you in the grave'

The study reveals that in the eyes of the Israeli child, the Palestinian child is mostly Mohammed (or Mahmoud), a child who has grown up in a home of limited means, sometimes in primitive conditions, and he holds a rifle in his hands or is wearing an explosive belt. The most outstanding phenomenon that was found in the essays of the children from all three groups was the delegitimization of the Palestinians.

The compositions by the city children and the children from the Jewish settlements are full of descriptions of cruel people who think about only one thing - slaughtering Israelis. The Palestinian is depicted as a bloodthirsty terrorist. In the eyes of the city and settlement children, Palestinian violence is seen as a basic and immutable characteristic; they are cruel, irrational and violent people, impelled by a blind hatred of Israel.

"My name is Mohammed Kabir. When I am big I want to blow up Jews," wrote a city boy of 12. "My hero is Hitler. The Jews are a dirty race. In homeroom I learned how to neutralize bombs. In art class I drew a hanged Jew. In sport we learned how to run between landmines. This conflict is good for us, because we don't care if an Arab dies, because if he dies then five more Jews will go to the grave - I have bin Laden's autograph with a dedication `To my son, congratulations' - I expect to reach the age of 10. I have been educated at home to murder Jews - Next year in rebuilt Gaza - No Jews, no one is killed! See you in the grave!"

A boy from the Jewish settlement in the territories chose to describe a Palestinian boy's dream: "In my dream I enter Israel and kill Jews ... This is good because we don't have anyone killed except for the suicide terrorists, whom I admire, and they have a lot of dead and wounded."

Sharabi says the most important finding of the research is that Israeli children are trapped in a series of emotional tangles and cognitive conflicts: There is a sense of guilt with respect to Israel's actions in the territories, hence the justification of the actions by the argument that there is no alternative; there is a huge desire for peace and serenity, mixed with a lack of belief in the possibility of realizing this hope; there is delegitimization of the violent Palestinians, and legitimization of that same violence by their description as victims of the Israeli side or of the situation.

Sharabi has identified three circumstances that serve the children's understanding of and justification for the terror: the territorial conflict, the poverty and distress, and the harm to their rights. "I am so afraid all the time that the Israeli army will come into our house or demolish it," wrote a city boy in the name of a Palestinian child. "There is always a curfew here and my mother cries because my brothers are driving her crazy and my father is depressed."

Another common motif concerning the human face of the Palestinians, and which most likely has its source in the media, is the story of a Palestinian child whose family has pushed him into the role of suicide terrorist. "My parents have sent me to carry out a suicide terror attack in Israel," wrote one city child. "They gave me an explosive belt. I don't understand how they expect me to come home if the belt explodes on me. I don't know how this will help my parents if their son dies. I thought that my life was more important to my parents than anything else in the world."

Though the kibbutz children displayed less of a tendency to deny the legitimacy of their neighbors, and did this indirectly and with a certain delicacy, they too, like everyone else, assumed the Palestinians are not interested in a change. "My family and I are in favor of peace," wrote a kibbutz girl from the perspective of a Palestinian girl, "but we are not succeeding in convincing all the Palestinians. Sometimes friends come over and argue and I get angry and I want to shout and tell my parents' friends - No!! It's not the solution to say bad things about the Israelis, and they don't even say a word about solving the conflict."

The Bible serves many of the children from the three groups as a powerful source of myth and symbols. A kibbutz boy wrote in the name of a Palestinian child: "We think that Israelis took our land and they think that the land is theirs because in the time of the Bible the land was given to Abraham by God." A classmate of his wrote: "I think Jerusalem belongs to us, the Arabs, because our ancestors were born there and we will do everything possible to get Jerusalem back."

And a boy from the Jewish settlement enlisted the Bible to deal with the Koran: "I think that the Jews are wrong. They came to the state of Israel when we were there and they wanted to expel us. In the holy Koran it says the land is ours and they came with their Bible and said that according to this book the land is theirs." Overall, the essays indicate a fatalistic perception of a reality that is not given to change. "I think this conflict will go on forever," wrote a city child, and a kibbutz child wrote: "I want peace, but I am sorry to say that I don't think this will happen."

These children do not blame sides but rather express despair, hopelessness and impotence. Other children lay the blame for the shattering of the dream of peace at the doorstep of the Palestinians. "They don't understand that we will never give up. We have one aim: a Palestinian state in the State of Israel," wrote a city child. A girl from the kibbutz school bared her heart, ignoring the rules of the game: "I think that surrounding the land of Israel there are many other Arab countries and that the Arabs could go to one of the surrounding countries and in that way we would spare the war, the fights, the conflict and everything," she wrote, entirely in her own name, and added: "It is necessary to reach a peace agreement and I don't understand why both we and they don't agree to sacrifice a few things and that way we could live together. It is necessary to look at the glass as half full and if not then to pour the glass that is half empty into a smaller glass and then it will be completely full."

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