Thank
you, I am very happy to be here and I'm very happy you have invited
me to speak. I was invited on a personal level, but since I was
presented on a professional level, I will speak a little bit about
language and education.
I
am very pleased to be here because I believe in women and I believe
in mothers. I think that motherhood is the only common denominator
that overcomes nationality and race and religion and I think mothers
are the only ones who can stand up to politicians and generals.
In the research about language acquisition we know that mothers
are the best teachers in the world, there isn't one mother who
failed to teach her child whatever she wanted to, no matter what
culture and no matter how serious the handicap of the child is.
We also know that learning disabilities are the invention or the
reality, which in Hebrew is the same word, of formal education,
because formal education is the process of teaching children the
classification of the society. If we say that language is a system
of classification, classification with which we give meaning to
the world, then education is a process of teaching children this
particular classification. It classifies people and things and
ideas and tries to inculcate and indoctrinate children into what
is presented as truth. And we know that today's school children
are tomorrows politicians, and today's politicians are yesterdays
school children
If
language is a system of classification and if education is the
teaching of classification then ruling is forcing your classifications
on others and denying their own . Conversation is a different
matter. Conversation it is always about differences. People who
do not accept differences and are not ready to make room in themselves
for differences, cannot speak to each other. Very much like Alice
and the caterpillar, they can argue and fight and humiliate each
other, but they cannot speak. People who cannot, or who would
not accept difference and the fact that conversation is an ongoing
negotiation about different classifications have a monolithic
approach to conversation, namely, they want to win and conquer
and dominate. Their speech is totalitarian, intolerant and offensive
and this is the kind of approach we have been witnessing in most
of the peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. Having
a dialogic approach to conversation means being willing to forget
or retain your knowledge or your truth or your narrative, and
make room in yourself for the others knowledge and truth and narrative.
Dialogic people do not believe in fixed personalities and eternal
realities. As I told you, the word in Hebrew for finding, reality
and invention is the same word. And that means that reality is
what we invent, reality is the means that we find to give meaning
to what is going on around us, and that can be changed.
Some
people are willing to modify their system of classifications,
unfortunately in Israel this is not the case. Israel is a nation
state and its discourse is monologic to the extreme. It is a multicultural
and multilingual society that behaves like a monlingual and monocultural
society. It's system of classification is racist and immutable.
People are either Jews or non-Jews, and it doesn't matter what
they are if they are non-us. They are worth less, not to say worth
less. Their blood is cheaper.
We
hear a lot of talk these days about blood, blood on the hands
of Israeli soldiers. I would like, with your permission, to say
something about blood. Our country is soaked in blood, we are
all up to our necks with the blood of children who have been sacrificed
for the last 30 years on the alter of greed and racism and megalomania
and myth. Israeli and Palestinian children are in the price of
a war that is sustained and encouraged in every way by the Israeli
governments, left of right, for the last 30 years.
My
little girl was murdered because she was an Israeli by a young
man who was humiliated, oppressed and desperate to the point of
suicide and murder and inhumanity, just because he was a Palestinian.
And now their bloods are mixed forever on the stones of Jerusalem,
that have long grown indifferent to blood. The blood of children
has become the cheapest merchandise in the murderous game. And
the so called leaders trade in it freely, easily, because for
politicians and generals, children are abstract entities, and
blood is a chip in the bargain. You kill one of mine, and I'll
kill one hundred of yours. People like our so called leaders,
and of course our present prime minister, are people for whom
killing has always been the easiest and fastest solution to political
problems, and the only way to prove their manhood and honour.
But I, who have lost my only one, I know that there is nothing
honourable in losing a child. I know that terms like honour and
manhood kill. Terms like manhood and honour breed death.
Therefore
I would like to exclude myself from the system of classification
that rules the area. To me, people are not divided into Palestinians
and Jews. For me people are divided into peace lovers and war
criminals.
When
my little girl died, a reporter asked me how can I accept condolences
from theother side. I said to her very spontaneously, that I do
not accept condolences from the other side. And when the mayor
of Jerusalem came to offer his condolences, I went to my room
because I didn't want to speak to him or shake his hand. For me
the other side are the occupation people. The system of education
in Israel, or the system of classification in the Israeli system,
is monolingual and monocultural. The main slogan in politics and
education in Israel is: one nation, one heart, one thought. People
are judged by a term that I don't think exists in any other society,
and that term is consolidation. We have to be consolidated, our
thoughts have to be consolidated. Children are judged by their
consolidated opinions and their consolidated relationship . This
is the result of a monologic discourse. When the world is divided
into us and non-us, and when time receives a different meaning
than in any other place, namely the only time that exists in the
Isreali discourse, I can call it mythological times. In text books
of Israeli children, that Jerusalem has always been ours, and
in parenthesis, except for the 2000 years that we haven't been
here. And when children say we, they mean King David, or our ancestor
Abraham and themselves, and that kills them. Our children die
because the only thing that is alive in Israel is mythology. Our
children die because they are brought up to believe that ancient
stones are more important than human life. Our children die because
the Jewish mother has disappeared, and her place has been taken
by mothers who send their children voluntarily to kill and to
be killed. Or take them to live on stolen lands that can bring
nothing but death and destruction. Our children die because they
are brought up to believe that serving as killers in a murderous
army means to serve the good of the nation. They die because they
are brought up on these concepts, of discrimination between blood
and blood. On the belief that some people are deserving more than
others. These days we hear that nations in the world and organisations
in the world are finally changing the terminology about our area
and that Israeli heroes are called war criminals. I hope they
go through with it. I hope they judge and condemn these people.
I hope some child caring organisation will condemn mothers who
deliberately endanger their children and turn them into killers.
Today when there is no oppotiion to the murderous Israeli government,
where there is a frightening consensus in Israel and in the Israeli
public about the atrocities are being committed, when the Israeli
left is practically dead, and the Israeli leftist declare that
Palestinians have "disappointed them" because they do not adhere
any more to their classification of good, bad or loyal. I wish
the world will find a way to stop these people from committing
genocide and to stop them from committing suicide, for they will
be killing us all before they stop their bloody game of chess,
of their own free will. I wish the world finds a way to force
the Israeli government to release the tortured and the oppressed,
and to give back the stolen land from its rightful owners, to
stop their blood bargaining and let our children live.
For
me, to end the war means to understand that all bloods are equal
and that killing in a guerilla fighting is not more cruel than
killing by tanks and airplanes, that sophisticated rockets and
home-made bombs kill just the same, and that it takes so little
to kill a child and so much to keep her alive. Ending the war
means to adopt a diologic approach to negotiation and not a smart
dealer approach, to understand that people talk not in order to
win but in order to come to terms. Ending the war means that I
don't care what flag is put on what mountain, it means that I
don't care who looks where when they pray, it means that nothing
is more important than to secure a young girl's way to her dance
class. If we as women and mothers, and all who care for peace
don't stand up to the politicians and force them to abandon their
murderous ways, very soon there will be nothing left to say in
our country, nothing left to write or read or listen to except
for the cries of death.
