A Glimpse of Hope Behind School Doors
JERUSALEM — Tami Dumai opened the doors Wednesday of the Arab-Jewish elementary school she runs in northern Israel, unsure that either students or teachers would show up.
It was the first day of classes since riots that began last week in the West Bank and Gaza Strip spread to Arab towns and villages inside Israel. Ten Israeli Arabs had been among the approximately 60 people killed in the riots. Protesters had blocked dozens of roads, vandalized cars and buildings, hurled stones and fired shots at police and civilians.
Across Israel, Jews and Arabs were wondering whether their always difficult relations can survive the violence. Dumai feared that the Arabs and Jews at the 3-year-old school--where Jewish and Arab educators team-teach Jewish and Arab children in Hebrew and Arabic--might abandon their experiment in coexistence.
But 84 students and all six teachers came Wednesday. At a staff meeting, Jewish and Arab teachers wept and "told each other how angry and disappointed and scared they were," Dumai said in a telephone interview. Then they went to their classrooms and together helped their students cope with the recent events.
It was a rare sign of hope that Arabs and Jews may be able to rebuild relations shattered by the protests and the harsh response to them.
Many Israelis, badly shaken by the violence that struck even mixed Jewish-Arab cities such as Haifa and Jaffa, say they fear that coexistence may be impossible.
"The incidents of the last few days are the most severe ever to have taken place between Arab citizens of Israel and the state of Israel since it was founded," said Matan Vilnai, Israel's minister of culture, science and sports. Prime Minister Ehud Barak appointed Vilnai on Tuesday to head an emergency committee on Arab affairs.
'Punishment' for Riots Demanded
Ordinary Israelis have flooded the switchboards of radio talk shows, demanding that Arabs be "punished" for the riots. Local Jewish governments in the Galilee, where Jews are a minority and live in small settlements near Arab towns and villages, have called on the government to send more troops and launch a new drive to settle Jews in the area.
"I am living here for 36 years, and we never experienced anything like this," said Leviah Fisher, spokeswoman for the central Galilee town of Carmiel. "We didn't expect our neighbors to behave like this."
