My oldest was in kindergarten in 2020. At the dining room table. Alone on a screen.
When this cohort arrived to me in 2nd grade, as a teacher, I noticed social differences right away from “pre covid groups”. Difficulty with the routines and procedures of just “being in school” that *usually is solidified by 2nd grade. Things like lining up, partner games/work, recess play were all constantly being retaught and remodeled to this group.
My son’s teacher in 2nd grade and I would lament about how parents are concerned about the academic gap from Covid, but at this age, we were noticing stark differences in social maturity by 2nd grade than in pre covid 2nd graders.
They missed Kindergarten! A foundational year of how to be a student! How to be a member of a classroom community. It’s a big deal!
A few minutes ago, Rosellen and I finished watching a conversation sponsored by the New Israel Fund about the deeply troubling situation in the country’s West Bank. While the world’s attention has been focused on the war in Gaza and its tragic consequences, Israel’s current right-wing government has taken the opportunity to advance its ultimate goals of annexation of the Palestinian territories that have been under Israel’s control for 57 years, since its victory in the 1967 war.
Before I elaborate on that opening paragraph, let me set some context to what I’m about to say. First, The New Israel Fund which we have supported for more than 35 years, is committed to promoting a shared Jewish/ Palestinian society. Throughout its existence, NIF has funded domestic organizations that advance the rights of immigrants, women, Palestinians, the LGBT+ community, and the ability of Jews to worship in varied ways. NIF is one of a number of NGOs, including the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI, Israel’s equivalent to the ACLU), Breaking the Silence, B’tselem, Standing Together, and dozens of others that are similarly aligned socially and politically.
It’s important to underscore the existence of these groups at a time when the opponents of Israel’s conduct of the war tend to portray the country as a monolith, a criminal enterprise, if you will. The reality is more complicated. The progressive forces in the country are definitely an embattled minority, particularly since the October 7th massacre, but these groups are steadfast in their opposition to the policies of Netanyahu’s right-wing government and possess a deeper knowledge of the country’s violations of international law than most opponents abroad.
Now some personal context. I was 9 years old when Israel came into existence. It has been a touchstone of my Jewish identity ever since. After my freshman year of college, I spent a year in Israel, studying in Jerusalem, working on a kibbutz and teaching school in a newly created settlement for immigrants from North Africa. I’ve had a fascination with the Hebrew language ever since but it took many years for me to become educated in the complexity of the situation of the country’s Palestinian population, which is part of the country’s DNA, from the country’s founding in 1948, and even earlier.
Nonetheless, I believe in Israel’s right to exist and even if I didn’t, I recognize that neither the Jews nor the Arabs currently living in the country are going anywhere, which means that the choice is between permanent war and finding a peaceful solution that includes respecting the sovereignty of both peoples. I’ll return to this last point shortly because the current situation on the West Bank poses a serious threat to the possibility of such an outcome, whether it’s a two-state solution or something that goes by another name. I want to be careful not to draw too facile a parallel between US history and Israel’s, but they do share the fact that whatever crimes against the indigenous population were committed as part of its founding and consolidation, the so-called facts on the ground are not going to change, so the work is to find just solutions to the situation as it exists. I respect deeply the opponents of Israel’s conduct of the war, but I object to the troubling leap to calling for the destruction of Israel.
That was a long detour from the webinar/conversation we just participated in. My apologies to readers who have been following the situation in the West Bank and the internal protests to the current regime. After a period of stalemate, during which there were multiple elections, there was a brief period when Prime Minister Netanyahu was out of power. In the last of those elections, Bibi, as he is referred to by most Israelis, managed to return to power by forming a coalition with ultra-orthodox parties and, most important to our current discussion, two extreme right wing parties represented by their heads, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir.
In the devil’s pact Bibi has entered into with these two Jewish supremacists at the heart of his fascistic coalition, he has essentially ceded to them control of every aspect of life in the West Bank territories and its Palestinian population. This is the same duo that bears major responsibility for the continuation of the war in Gaza because they have threatened to bring down Bibi’s government if he agrees to a cease fire, and he’s made it clear that he is willing to mortgage Israel’s future in return for staying in power – and staying out of jail. Sound familiar?
There’s been some but not sufficient attention to the increase in unchecked settler violence in the West Bank, resulting unprecedented numbers of Palestinian deaths and the forced abandonment of many Palestinian villages. That is deeply distressing in its own right, but the participants in today’s discussion pointed out that the actions by Gvir and Smotrich to introduce bureaucratic changes to the way the region is governed will result in de facto annexation, which in turn will render the already dwindling chances for any form of Palestinian sovereignty. The actions taken by the current coalition have enabled the wholesale legitimization of 70 new settlements and the illegal government takeover of large areas of Palestinian land. Not only are these actions invisible to most Americans, they are also not known or are ignored by most Israelis, too deep in the grief and trauma surrounding the war. Even Israelis who were involved in the protests against the judicial “reforms” that brought hundreds of thousands into the streets before the war were not aware that those so-called reforms were intended to clear the way for creating a true “river to the sea” result, the opposite of the one chanted by pro-Palestinian protesters. Put simply, the ultimate goal here is to ethnically cleanse the region of Palestinians by making it unlivable for them.
One of the participants in today’s session, the brilliant Israeli expert in international law Michael Sfard described the ways in which the path that the government is on is in violation of international laws covering occupied territories. These transgressions have drawn the attention of the International Court of Justice and the International Court of Law, which are already producing consequential sanctions from Israel’s own allies.
I’m doing my small part here to shed light on the injustices on the West Bank which are going unnoticed and unreported both in Israel and abroad. It is the responsibility of those of us who continue to believe in Israel’s right to exist to do whatever we can to steer a country gone badly astray back onto a more just path. One way I will do that is to support the work of the New Israel Fund and its partners, who continue to fight this uphill battle.
