[lg policy] The latest hot language among Palestinians in Gaza? Hebrew

Mon Mar 18 16:21:38 UTC 2013

 The latest hot language among Palestinians in Gaza? Hebrew

Students are flocking to a fledgling Hebrew program sponsored by Gaza's
Hamas-run government, encouraged by their parents who learned Hebrew
through years of working in Israel.

By Christa Case Bryant<http://www.csmonitor.com/About/Staff/Christa-Case-Bryant>
, Staff writer / March 18, 2013

   - <http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/content/2013/0318-world-ohebrew/15296457-1-eng-US/0318-world-ohebrew_full_600.jpg>

  Maysam El-Khateeb teaches Hebrew to ninth grade girls at the tidy Hassan
Salma co-ed school in Gaza City, one of 20 schools participating in a pilot
program launched this school year.

Christa Case Bryant / The Christian Science Monitor

   - In Pictures: Israelis and Palestinians: A tense
coexistence<http://www.csmonitor.com/Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Israelis-and-Palestinians-A-tense-coexistence>

  Gaza City, Gaza

For the first time in nearly 20 years, government-run schools in
Gaza<http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Gaza+Strip>are teaching
Hebrew, and demand is outstripping the supply of qualified
teachers. The driving force behind this pilot program?
Hamas<http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Hamas>
.

   -  <http://www.csmonitor.com/Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Israelis-and-Palestinians-A-tense-coexistence?nav=642941-csm_article-leftColRelated>

   In Pictures: Israelis and Palestinians: A tense
coexistence<http://www.csmonitor.com/Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Israelis-and-Palestinians-A-tense-coexistence?nav=642941-csm_article-leftColRelated>

  Related stories

   -
   <http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2013/0214/How-much-do-you-know-about-Israel-Take-the-quiz/border?nav=642941-csm_article-leftColRelated>

<http://www.google.com/url?ct=abg&q=https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/request.py%3Fcontact%3Dabg_afc%26url%3Dhttp://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2013/0318/The-latest-hot-language-among-Palestinians-in-Gaza-Hebrew%253Fnav%253D87-frontpage-entryInsideMonitor%26gl%3DUS%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dca-pub-6743622525202572%26ai0%3DCzYO3Pj1HUZfcNoPe0AGD7IC4B4Tz3YAFjOzqlG_1l4LqARABII3w5QVQg-rbuAdgyfboirSk5A-IAQGgAczBxNkDyAEBqAMBqgTyAU_QYxjck-d9CCCcdX9w_issmHTTzo3VP6mkWSBD5xS6GYfbQXPmnhCk98VlJmIeT51B7jCuf_F6KbX4MmE_Bkz3atjg3SBou4Fdl4RWjWl9v57yMVd8w3iKKJMWob939NKzuhC2YEvBqBhrZRNyT_VoXc7xsoE6Padt0_iQiXs_emYZIHxRkWOHc6vSVP2b3Ax0_ihtGcPdY9jL1yskbHomKJVVFoPBMFnZlOgRaKV5Kk-HGk6tuIFjNNdECbbKNYvPTlDAv0z7EFb3wQ5t-h2CWYABSwEv7gZIn8EgH9wQm5-J7j0dvsNASLe46TxOvQwqiAYBgAecvrsm&usg=AFQjCNHh-LRu7vnmJZO4KdUAziKDi_btSg>

“[Israel <http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Israel> is]* *more developed
than us, so we can get benefits out of it – in terms of science, in terms
of culture,”* *says Mohamed Suleiman Abu Shqair, the deputy minister of
education in the Hamas government. “This is also to prove to the rest of
the world … that we are open-minded, even to teach our enemy’s language in
our schools.”

Many middle-aged Gazans know Hebrew well, since they spent years working in
Israel before the border was tightened in 2003. They say it’s only natural
that their children should know Hebrew as well and even hold out hope that
they could use it to do business with Israel in the future, hinting at a
possible thawing of relations between Israel and Gaza. They also laud the
insight of Israeli news analysts, and say that watching Israeli TV news –
readily available in Gaza, along with cultural and educational programs
– can help them better understand not only their neighbor, but also their
own society and political climate.

RECOMMENDED: How much do you know about Israel? Take the
quiz<http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2013/0214/How-much-do-you-know-about-Israel-Take-the-quiz/border?nav=642941-csm_article-promoLink>

The Hebrew language pilot program, launched in September 2012, is still
small in scope. Today it reaches only 20 of 400 government schools in Gaza,
with each school offering a single class of 30 to 40 students, although Mr.
Abu Shqair says that demand is much higher and enrollment is only limited
by a shortage of Hebrew teachers.

The Hebrew language pilot program, launched in September 2012, is still
small in scope. Today it reaches only 20 of 400 government schools in Gaza,
with each school offering a single class of 30 to 40 9th-grade students.
Mr. Abu Shqair says next year Hamas would like to expand to 10th grade as
well, but faces a shortage of qualified Hebrew teachers.

Even the program’s strongest proponents don’t claim that it will improve
ties between Israel and Hamas, which is designated by Israel and the West
as a terrorist organization. In fact, some suggest that the intent is more
to understand the enemy.

“We are not looking for developing things with the Israelis, we are
learning Hebrew to protect ourselves and to defend our country from the
Israeli occupation,” says Maysam El-Khateeb, a Hebrew teacher at the Hassan
Salma co-ed school in Gaza City<http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Gaza+City>.
Citing a popular proverb, she adds, “As we say, if you know the language of
the other nations, you will protect yourself from their hatred and evil
work.”

One of her students, 14-year-old Nadine, goes even further. When asked why
it is important to know the language of one’s enemy, she responds
confidently, “To attack them, because we must know how they think, how they
talk about us.”
More opportunities over the border

Daniel Fares, a father of 15 who spent most of his life working in Israel,
much of it at a Coca-Cola
<http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Coca-Cola>factory, is familiar
with the proverb. But he also suggests Hebrew can help
improve understanding between Jews and Arabs.

Sitting in his humble home in Gaza’s
Jabaliya<http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Jabalia>refugee camp, he
recalls one time when he saw a Jewish mother and daughter
walking down the street in Israel, and the daughter dropped her chocolate
on the ground. Because he speaks Hebrew, he understood what the mother said
when the girl leaned over to pick it up: “Don’t be like the Arabs.”

So he took the opportunity to tell the mother she shouldn’t teach her
children that way.

His children haven’t learned Hebrew, but he hopes the pilot program will
expand to their schools.

“In the future they could be translators, analysts, businessmen,” he says,
speaking fondly of his Israeli boss at Coca-Cola.
The world as a classroom

Back at Hassan Salma school, Mrs. Khateeb opens her afternoon class by
saying “*Erev tov*!” (Good evening!)

*"Erev tov*," the students respond.

“Who are you? What are you? What are you studying?” she asks, beginning a
sing-song pattern of call and repeat that they are clearly familiar with.
One by one, girls in white hijabs stand up to answer the queries.

“Where is the notebook? Where is the chair?” she quizzes them, and they
answer in unison.

This is not the way their parents’ generation learned Hebrew.

Saba, a taxi driver sitting on the sidewalk with his boss, says he picked
up the language during the 12 years he worked in Israel, starting with only
a three-month course and then learning from everyday conversations after
that.

“To learn it with communication is better even than to learn it at
schools,” agrees his boss, Mohammed Johar, who regrets not having learned
more Hebrew himself.

“It’s good for us to know what Israel thinks, what they are saying in
Hebrew,” says Mr. Johar. “The Israeli analysts are really good and they
know and are aware of their politics and our politics. So if we listen to
their analysts and our analysts, we will get a better idea of what’s going
on.”
A first step

Hebrew was taught in Gaza schools from 1967, when Israel captured the small
coastal territory in the Six-Day War with its Arab neighbors, until 1994,
when the Palestinian
Authority<http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Palestinian+National+Authority>was
created under the auspices of the
Oslo <http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Oslo> Accords. The PA became
responsible for the curriculum in government-run schools and did not
include Hebrew, although United
Nations<http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/United+Nations>schools in
Gaza are run separately and did.

The Gaza Strip and the West
Bank<http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/West+Bank>are administered
largely independent of each other. Hamas runs Gaza while
the PA, dominated by Hamas’s secular rival
Fatah<http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Fatah+Organization>,
runs the West Bank. While the PA is backed by the West and has ties with
Israel, Hamas has refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist and the two
entities do not speak directly.

RECOMMENDED: How much do you know about Israel? Take the
quiz<http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2013/0214/How-much-do-you-know-about-Israel-Take-the-quiz/border?nav=642941-csm_article-promoLink>

Abu Shqair at Gaza’s Ministry of Education insists that the Hebrew pilot
program is purely educational and cultural in scope. “We don’t have
strategic plans or political plans out of it,” he says. “We don’t have any
other ideology in our mind.”

But he is eager to expand the program if the government can find enough
qualified teachers and hopes that Gaza may one day engage again with Israel.

“I don’t want to guess or imagine,” he says, “but if the two people do
recognize each other, this will be a normal thing.”
from the Christian Science Monitor

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