Maggie Grater was a dedicated teacher, principal and administrator who devoted her energies to bringing greater understanding of the Arab world.
In her will, Dr. Grater left a monetary gift to the Middle East Fellowship of Southern California and asked that it be used to educate teachers about the Middle East. After much consideration, the group decided to use the funds to send a group of teachers to tour the region. On Aug. 1, 2009—four years to the day after Dr. Grater’s passing—the six teachers selected returned from this extraordinary learning experience.
The teachers were accompanied on their two-week study tour of Jordan and Israel/Palestine by trip leader and coordinator Brice Harris, a retired Occidental College professor and specialist in Middle Eastern history. In keeping with the theme of Arab history, culture and circumstances, the group spent a week in Jordan touring the early proto-Arab site of Petra, the Roman-Byzantine ruins at Jarash, the old and modern souq in Amman, and religious locations on Mt. Nebo and baptismal sites in the Jordan valley. The group also met with representatives of the American Friends Service Committee and the Presbyterian Church in Amman.
In Israel/Palestine, the group continued its emphasis on background material which the teachers might find helpful in their classes or interactions with students and other faculty. The teachers met with various religious groups, toured East and West Jerusalem, and visited Palestinian refugee camps and Israel’s Yad Vashem museum, as well as many places of historical and cultural interest.
While the purpose of the trip was not to focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, inevitably the struggle for land and control was everywhere apparent. This was especially significant in light of President Barack Obama’s efforts to persuade Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to halt Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Following are impressions of this trip written by five of the six participating teachers. For further information, or if you are interested in creating a similar program in your school district, contact Vicki Tamoush at (714) 368-5100 or .
Alice Lee, who teaches U.S. and world history at Eagle Rock High School. This was her first trip to the Middle East.
In mid-July, I was given the opportunity to travel to the Middle East with a group of educators through the Dr. Maggie Grater Fund. Little did I know that this great honor was going to be a life-changing experience for me.
You see, I used to think of myself as a compassionate and well-informed global citizen of the modern world; adequately armed with an “above-average” awareness of the events that shape our world today. I follow the news. I listen to public radio. I surround myself with knowledgeable people who are eager to share their insights. I had no idea that, in reality, I knew very little about the situation in Palestine. While on this trip, I witnessed things that made a profound and lasting impression on me.
Being a social studies teacher, I’ve always been fascinated with other cultures and histories. I was so excited to visit all of the historic and religious sites that were scheduled on the itinerary. Eventually, my expectations and the experience itself evolved from a history tour for teachers into a human rights eye-opener for me.
As I began packing my bags for the trip, I was anticipating the feeling of awe any history-lover might get from walking through the narrow crevasses of Petra. Or the tear-jerking, heart-thumping thrill any pilgrim might get from visiting the site of Jesus’ birth. What ended up making the greatest lasting impression on me, however, was the genuine benevolence I experienced from the locals I met on the trip. Their generosity, hospitality, knowledge, kindness and self-control in a time of oppression left me in awe, as tears welled up in my eyes and my heart began pounding for the plight of the people of Palestine.
On this trip I heard Israeli jets flying over the city of Nablus, demonstrating their might and supremacy. I witnessed a grown man groveling before an armed teenage soldier to let him through a checkpoint. I heard testimonies from courageous activists who have been shot at by Israeli soldiers. I visited homes and entire villages that have been demolished by the Israeli government. I listened intently as individuals shared their stories of affliction with eloquence, relevance and poise. I saw the injustice. I observed the apartheid. I felt the tension. My eyes were opened to the savage treatment Palestinians experience daily under Israeli occupation.
I feel that this trip has ignited an energy in me that urges me to take action and to spread peace and understanding to others. I want to share what I know about the inequality and hostility I saw in Israel, the dignity and resilience of the Palestinian people and, finally, the truth about what is happening in the Holy Land. Ben Franklin once said, “Experience is not what happens to you. It’s what you do with what happens to you.” This means so much more to me now that I’ve experienced Palestine. I am so grateful to the late Dr. Grater and the people of Palestine for this truly moving experience.
Rosa Melendez, who was born in El Salvador. A teacher and fitness enthusiast who enjoys traveling and learning about other cultures, she also loves reading, running and food.
From the moment I crossed the Allenby Bridge, I felt that I had entered a very dark place, despite the scorching sun shining in the clear skies of the Middle East. Ironic is another adjective that comes to mind. Coming from Jordan, a country ruled by a monarch, I entered the self-proclaimed “only democracy in the Middle East” just to find an abundance of slender teenage soldiers with big guns and matching attitudes roaming everywhere. It’s interesting to note that in an area that the Western media claim is teeming with Palestinian terrorists, the only weapons I saw were in the hands of Israelis. There were armed soldiers, armed police officers, and, most puzzling of all, armed settlers everywhere.
Entering Israel, I witnessed the humiliating manner in which Palestinians are welcomed into their homeland. Without going into detail about the discomfort and inconvenience of the long waits, searches, and interrogations to enter the country, it was the calculated contempt and hatred I saw in the customs officers’ faces that angered me the most.
It reminded me of the dread I felt before I became an American citizen every time I had to cross the border and show my green card. INS officers were coldly professional and unfriendly, but the Israeli agents were mean-spirited and rude. INS agents had nothing on their Israeli counterparts, but I hear that Los Angeles and other metropolitan areas are eager to learn from Israel how to properly secure airports and borders.
The line of Palestinians going through customs moved at a snail’s pace. They stood patiently and somber, while the youthful Israeli agents and soldiers chatted amiably in small groups. Eventually, a female agent put on her best “go ahead, make my day” face, and began calling each person to her window. At the window, she would refuse to look at people as they stood there and very resignedly handed their passports. At this point, she would glare at them with something that my gut feeling said was disgust and hatred to verify that the passport picture matched the person standing before her. The look was not one of a human being recognizing another one. Finally, she would slam the passport back to its owner in a manner that fairly screamed, “I want you to disappear.”
Having lived in El Salvador in the 1980s and having lost my father in the civil war that raged there for years, I easily saw many parallels of oppression and injustice. I believe that my past experience allows me to use these two adjectives without fear of sounding melodramatic. The tight knot of anxiety and apprehension in my stomach also confirmed my assessment of the situation. I was surrounded by a violent military presence that made itself seen and felt everywhere. The checkpoints and the wall added to the sense of imprisonment and desolation. Palestinians went about their business with a tired but determined gait. I saw a sea of people crowded in the Old City of Jerusalem eerily part to let a black-clad, sullen-faced Orthodox Jew stroll down the alleyways as if he owned the place. No one challenged him or even looked at him, while at the end of the alley two soldiers toyed with their guns.
The contradictions were everywhere. There were modern highways that only Israelis could travel on. Statements have been made that the walls, which trap the Palestinian population within virtual jails, were built to protect Israelis, but whole sections of the wall have been left unfinished. City streets came to an abrupt end where they ran into the omnipresent apartheid wall. Israelis claim that they are merely returning to a land that was theirs a couple of millennia ago, but Palestinians lose their lands after two years of absence that in many cases are the result of forced evictions.
In Hebron, a civilian population in the tens of thousands has been victimized, robbed, and violently subdued for the benefit of a few hundred armed-to-the-teeth settlers. Children need foreign observers to be able to walk to school safely. In an area with extremely limited water resources, settlers feel entitled to have lush lawns and swimming pools, while the Palestinians make do with one-third of the water allotted to Israelis. Poverty, unemployment, unsanitary conditions, hopelessness, resentment, fear, anger, discontent, etc.—are all there temporarily contained within the walls with the might of the armed forces.
What is surprising is that so many of the people I met spoke of peaceful resolutions and hope for the future, not of bloodshed. They learn English and other foreign languages. They go to school and universities. They do odd jobs. They make do with what they have. They resist by refusing to give up and leave. The most common request I heard was, “Please, tell your family, friends, co-workers, and fellow Americans that we are not terrorists. We want to live in peace and with dignity.”
A fair compromise needs to be reached. A failure to do this will bring dire consequences. As the docent at Yad Vashem informed me that Jews had been placed in ghettoes, forced to carry identification cards, and their freedom of movements restricted, she failed to catch the irony of her own words. Tragically, she did not stop there, and went on to say that the WWII Jewish underground resistance fighters risked their lives so selflessly because when conditions are so oppressive, brutal, and unbearable, one’s life is not worth living.
Weeks after my trip, I cannot get the images I saw out of my mind. I feel the same knot in my stomach when I think about it. My memory of Palestine and Israel is one of apartheid walls, checkpoints, water tanks, soldiers, armed settlers, long queues, identification cards, cameras, Israeli flags in Palestinian neighborhoods—and determined Palestinians who refuse to give in to desolation and defeat.
Elvia Alvarado, who is a psychiatric social worker with Los Angeles Unified School.
I was in the Chicano Moratorium in the 1970s, when what appeared like hundreds of LAPD officers came down on us at an L.A. park where we were protesting the Vietnam War, and especially all the Mexican Americans who were dying unnecessarily. I am old now, and I hope that our kids will remember that we fought and protested against injustice.
So here we find another horrific injustice many miles away from us, but still the atrocities to the Palestinians are unbearable, and Mexicans can understand the injustice, and we can relate really well. There are some parallels between the two people. And now the Palestinians are fighting, too. The Palestinians are also a proud people, with a fighting spirit, who refuse to accept injustice. While the Palestinians are being kicked out of their land, the Latinos are incarcerated, put into detention centers for being “undocumented,” deported, told they are illegal—all in a land where they have deep historical roots. Years ago, my father was deported to Mexico in the period of the repatriations, even though he was born in Arizona.
This was my first trip to the Middle East, and it was wonderful. I liked the cucumbers and yogurt, and the men were cute, too. Many Arabs are multi-lingual and speak English. In the U.S., most of us are encouraged to speak only one language: English.
I saw the historical greatness, the rich traditions, the awesome landscapes, the ruins at Petra, the land where Jesus once walked, the great historical roots of these Palestinians, Arab people, these Arabs, these amazing people, who refuse to give up and are angry that the Israelis want and are grabbing their land with impunity. Anyway, as we visited these schools we were told about the tension, bombings, and the effects of the war on the kids and the families. My host family (where we stayed for two days) told me that I looked like them. I am dark-skinned like some Arabs.
I feel sorry for those young Israeli soldiers, because they are buying all that propaganda that the Israeli government is giving them, indoctrinating them into hating Arabs, or Palestinians. It’s a mess, and it’s been going on for too long. It’s time it stopped.
I am one of those who saw the many, many movies about Arabs where they are portrayed as terrorists. The media gives us very few, if any, positive portraits of Arabs. This trip helped me appreciate the diversity and complexity of the Arab world. I had only two friends or people I knew personally who were Arab. One I used to pray with in a Christian church I went to; my friend would sob when we prayed together, she a Christian and me a not-so-good Catholic. Later she told me that she was from Ramallah, where she grew up with bombings as a regular way of life. I thought that maybe she had been sobbing from her devastating experiences in Ramallah, her home city. Was there a connection? I regret that I never asked her.
My friends asked me why go to the Middle East? It’s hot, it’s dangerous. And it was hot, but it was a trip of a lifetime. The anger, the unthinkable gall of people to take over the land, and the fact that the United States continues to fund the army, the society of Israel, how could they, the gall.
Maria Isabel Elgueta, who is a licensed clinical social worker practicing in the East Los Angeles area schools. Born and raised in Chile, she attended graduate school at UCLA. She loves traveling and learning about other cultures.
The trip to Israel and occupied Palestine in July verified what I had read in preparation for this visit, my very first to the Middle East.
The checkpoint system was a total turn-off; I saw Palestinians, young and old, standing in long lines to access their own land. They waited for hours under the sun, while the Israeli staff, under air conditioning, were killing time and acting grandiose. Their clear intention was to show who is in charge. At a checkpoint in one of the villages we were asked, “Christians or Muslims?”
The biggest outrage, though, is the continuing extension of illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian lands, usually on hilltops. The Israeli government, their settlers and their supporters, have no regard for property laws and have destroyed Palestinian homes and orchards, causing tremendous damage and suffering to countless families, including children and the elderly.
The miles and miles of walls isolating Palestinian communities are terribly offensive to the eye and the soul; it is a system of apartheid. Did they forget about the ghettos of Europe?
It was hurtful to see children in a village near Hebron going with containers in hand to pick up soup to feed their families, because the settlers and the politics of terror destroyed their local economy.
I grew tired of the noise from Israeli jet bombers cruising the Palestinian skies, and in my mind I said, “Una vez mas, aqui van los matones” [“Once again, here come the murderers”].
I feel pained by what Palestinians are enduring; as a Chilean, I know well what happens when human rights don’t count and there is abuse of power; we witnessed it all over.
The religious rhetoric and the politics of greed mixes in a very ugly way in the Middle East. Contributing millions and millions of dollars to the Israeli coffers every year makes us partners in crime.
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