As the school year begins in New Hampshire, the headline news seems to be the inability to find enough school bus drivers, especially to transport our grade school children to school.
Districts having difficulty are offering signing bonuses to driver applicants, modifying start and dismissal school schedules, and delaying openings by a few days. Beyond efforts to provide transportation to all children, there is also the ongoing goal of fulfilling the value of equal access to quality education once children arrive at the school building.
This goal is far from fulfilled in New Hampshire and across our country. However, we cling to the value and persist in the search for solutions.
In contrast, on Aug. 22 Ma’an News wrote Israeli military forces reportedly seized eight mobile classrooms from the village of Jubbet al-Dib, near Bethlehem and a neighbor of the illegal Noqedim Israeli settlement. The classrooms were donated by an Italian NGO for 64 students from the first to the fourth grade.
Although disputed by village leaders, a spokesperson for the Israeli civil administration contested that the structures had not received the necessary permits, and that the construction was “illegal.” The Norwegian Council Policy Manager Itay Epshtain said, “It was heartbreaking to see children and their teachers turning up for their first day of school under the blazing sun, with no classrooms or anywhere to seek shelter in, while in the immediate vicinity the work to expand illegal settlements goes on uninterrupted.”
Another school, a kindergarten, was demolished in the Bedouin community of Jabal al-Baba on Aug. 21. According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, some 55 schools in the occupied West Bank are threatened with demolition and stop-work orders by Israeli authorities, many of them built with funding from the European Union states and other donors.
“In the first three months of this year there were 24 cases of direct attacks against schools, including incidents where tear gas canisters and sound bombs were fired at students on their way to or from school. Last year, four communities’ educational facilities were demolished or confiscated and 256 education-related violations were documented in the West Bank, affecting over 29,000 students,” NRC’s statement said.
It seems that while we in New Hampshire seek ways to keep our children in school, our Israeli military ally is initiating ways to keep Palestinian children away from school. These actions by the Israeli military fly in the face of one of our cherished values: access to quality education for every child.
The Israeli military attack on Palestinian children’s access to schools in order to make room for Israeli settlements and their infrastructure motivates people around the globe to boycott Israeli illegal settlement goods. It is an illegal Israeli settlement, Noqedim, that encroaches on Palestinian land where those mobile classrooms were situated. Sen. Maggie Hassan’s opposition to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement needs to take into consideration Israel’s anti-education activity toward Palestinian children as well as the United States’ complicity with its military financial aid to the Israeli military that enforces this injustice.
Sen. Hassan believes the roots of the BDS movement spring from an intention to harm Israel. However, she misses the understanding that nonviolent boycotts are an acceptable action for change acknowledge by our Supreme Court.
In addition, she does not take into consideration that any movement includes a spectrum of advocates. In this case the vast majority of supporters of BDS recognize Israel’s right to exist as they call for the humanitarian administration of the occupied territories and a return to negotiations between Israel and Palestine. And even though it is becoming less and less realistic, many still support the goal of a two-state solution.
Also, Sen. Hassan perceives BDS as an impediment to a return to negotiations and a two-state solution. However, BDS can just as easily be considered a nonviolent lever to start negotiations. In contrast, Israel, with its military, political and economic dominance, uses harsh treatment of Palestinians and their children, as well as expansions of settlements, as pressure to force the Palestinians to the table.
And most of all, it is important that the United States be true to its value of education for every child, not only in our country but around the world. Our country cannot credibly advocate for that value while at the same time being complicit with the Israeli military, which violates that value in its treatment of Palestinian schools and children. U.S. complicity is evidenced by its more than $3.1 billion annual aid to the Israeli military.
There are three ways that Sen. Hassan and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen can influence the United States to be a justice-seeking nation as well as to stand for the humanitarian value of dignity and respect for children and their education.
1. Vote “no” on S.720, the Israel Anti-Boycott Act and pledge to reject all amendments, and Sen. Hassan to withdraw her co-sponsorship of S.720.
2. Seek legislation to withhold military financial aid assistance to Israel due to its military practices of injustice in the occupied Palestinian territories, including impediments to education as well as arrests and detention of Palestinian children.
3. Vote for the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children, which has been ratified by 194 countries, including Israel.
The second and third actions were affirmed by a 79 percent majority of the delegates to the General Synod of the United Church of Christ at its meeting in July 2017.
Children in Palestine have been under duress for more than 50 years. They witness daily barriers to their education and constant anxiety concerning their vulnerability to institutionalized violations of their legal rights. Therefore, calling our ally and friend, Israel, to account for its use of power is the right thing to do. It’s how friends support each other.
(John Buttrick lives in Concord.)