Classes in Coexistence

By Ezra Bowen

The time was 1:10 p.m. Class was supposed to have ended. But the 35 juniors at the Jerusalem high school in Israel kept firing questions at two Arab guests, Walid Mula and Amal Rabi, both of them Israelis. "I don't see how you can understand the Palestine Liberation Organization's use of terror," said one youngster. Replied Rabi: "I believe that the P.L.O. is the representative of the Palestinian people. O.K., I am part of the Palestinian people . . . (but) I see myself as a citizen of Israel entitled to equal rights."

"Why," asked another student, "should I accept someone like you, who gives legitimacy to . . . the P.L.O. that wants to kill me?" Remarkably, the debate contained no animus. When class ended, the students agreed that they had learned things they did not know before and that the session had helped Arab and Jew to know each other better.

Across Israel, such exchanges are becoming increasingly common in a new course in coexistence called "The Arab Citizens of Israel." The study program is designed to help defuse the hatred between the nation's 3.5 million Jews and 700,000 Arab citizens. When the course, built upon a text written by Alouph Hareven of the Van Leer Jerusalem Foundation, and two others, was initially tested on about 1,000 Jewish high schoolers in 1983-84, hostility could hardly have been more intense. Six wars in 37 years have generated over 37,000 Israeli casualties and many more among Arabs. No Arab citizen has ever been a member of the Cabinet. Jews and Arabs, for the most part, have maintained separate housing, separate towns and separate schools. In this atmosphere, Jews perceive Arabs as unreliable, dirty and murderous. The Arab bigot's image of Jews paints them as arrogant, moneygrubbing. Not surprisingly, the coexistence course was not immediately popular. One early session was interrupted with a pupil's shout of "Take the Arabs out and kill them!"

Gradually, however, attitudes began to change. The girls came around first, moved by written accounts of personal hardship experienced by Israeli Arabs. "Some girls . . . related they had actually been unable to sleep after reading the text," reported the teacher. Ultimately, both boys and girls conceded that the problem of Arab vs. Jew in Israel could no longer be ignored.

Of course, even the program's supporters did not expect that Arab-Jewish hatred could be easily remedied. A poll of students last fall revealed that 60% of Jewish youngsters believed Arab citizens did not deserve full civil rights. Many Arab Israelis brush off the course as tokenism. "How can you teach coexistence . . . in the midst of conflict?" asks one.

Nevertheless, the course has gained momentum: about 250 to 300 classrooms this past spring were alive with discussion among some 5,000 pupils. About 1,000 teachers and 700 student teachers have been trained in handling the course, with another 2,300 scheduled for training in the coming year. Additional materials are now in preparation for elementary and junior high schools. An Arab counterpart to the Jewish program has been prepared for introduction later this year. In October an Arab-Jewish television series modeled on a long-popular U.S. situation comedy, All in the Family, is tentatively scheduled to come out over the Israel Broadcasting Authority, using ethnic differences as material for humor.

Education Director-General Eliezer Shmueli believes so strongly in the coexistence course that it has been made part of the regular school curriculum. "We don't have all the answers," Shmueli says, "but let us discuss, scream, shout, and let us get to know each other." That has been precisely the effect of the civics program, as exemplified by a three-day trip last month by Arab students to the town of Sderot, where they stayed with Jewish families. "We feel comfortable enough with one another to speak openly," says Revital Levy, 17, about her new Arab friends. "I think that our changed attitude will filter down through the whole school." Hareven, for one, passionately hopes so. "The worst thing for us," he says, "is to raise a generation of ignoramuses."

With reporting by Marlin Levin/Jerusalem