The Palestinian Authority recently scored a significant public relations triumph when one its public school teachers, Chanan al-Hrub, won the prestigious Global Teacher Prize.
She earned her prize, which comes with a million dollars, for her success in overcoming the inclination to violence among her students in class and in the school at large. The competition is under the auspices of former U.S. president Bill Clinton, Pope Francis, and the American actor Kevin Spacey.
“I propose,” the teacher declared, “that this year be recognized as the year of the Palestinian teacher, and that it fulfill the expectations of the teachers who plant hope in the hearts of their students. Daily we see the suffering that the occupation brings to our children and our teachers – suffering that takes form in our classes through violence. Here begins the role, to liberate the children from violence.”
Many in Israel (and no doubt abroad) were stunned by the news. We need not question the teacher’s success in creating an atmosphere of reduced violence in her classroom and school, and for that she deserves our accolades. (Although after she received the award the news emerged that three decades ago her husband had participated in a terrorist attack that killed several Israelis.)
But it is clear, from observing the behavior of the young generation in the Palestinian areas, that her wonderful example has not spread beyond the narrow confines of her school.
We see on a virtually everyday basis the readiness of young Palestinians to resort to knives, stones, hatchets, and other homemade weapons as a means of inflicting death and severe injury on Jews in Israel.
So the honor bestowed on her is reminiscent of the Nobel prizes awarded Yasir Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin, and Shimon Peres for the Oslo Accords and, years later, President Obama just months after he took office. Those prizes were based not on actual accomplishments but rather on optimistic dreams – which eventually failed to materialize.
Hopefully, the teacher’s goal of lowering the level of violence on the part of young Palestinians will materialize in the not too distant future. Meanwhile, we can only regret that once again the Israeli government allowed the Palestinian Authority to achieve a public relations coup even as Israeli leaders had the means at their disposal to move light-years ahead in winning the hearts and minds of intelligent and thoughtful people in the West.
Israeli media outlets had for some time focused on the company SodaStream and its potential as a bridge to peace. SodaStream garnered international attention for bringing together a roster of employees that included Bedouins and Palestinians and Druze and Circassians and Jews – and treating them fairly and equally.
The company achieved this while facing relentless pressure from the BDS movement – pressure that eventually led to the company’s relocation from outside the green line into Israel proper, a move that cost some 500 Palestinian employees their jobs.
And then several weeks ago, in a move that can only be described as inexcusably shortsighted, the Israeli government refused to extend the work permits of the remaining 74 Palestinian SodaStream workers.
At a time when all over Europe and the United States there are demonstrations against “Israeli apartheid,” those 74 Palestinian workers were living, breathing refutations of that monumental lie.
The government’s lack of public relations savvy becomes especially significant in light of the Palestinian teacher winning her prestigious prize. Shouldn’t we in Israel be demonstrating our own goodwill, our desire to build bridges? Precisely because other avenues – diplomatic, political, strategic – seem presently closed to both government and opposition leaders, shouldn’t we have encouraged and publicized the success of SodaStream in integrating a multicultural, multiethnic workforce?
Since no government agency has thus far taken the requisite steps to address the SodaStream situation, the public here in Israel, along with concerned Jews chutz l’Aretz, needs to push the Israeli government to reinstate the work permits of the 74 Palestinian SodaStream workers. The claim that Israel needs jobs for its own citizens is totally refuted by the fact that we allow entry to nearly one hundred thousand Palestinian workers each day, mainly in the building industry, and by the government’s request for 20,000 Chinese workers to join the Israeli labor force in the near future.
Perhaps our common sense will win out before it’s too late. It’s such a tiny issue, yet it’s packed with so much moral and public relations significance. And while the BDS movement caused SodaStream more than its share of headaches and heartaches early on, BDS cannot be blamed for the current debacle. The inexplicable decision to erase an island of co-existence at SodaStream by refusing permits of passage to 74 Palestinian workers is solely on the shoulders of the government of Israel.