Invited to speak at Shorewoord high school last Tuesday, after memorial day, was a pretty exciting prospect for me. David Shayne and I were sent to this via StandWithUs, Seattle (although I wasn’t aware that I was representing them at the time).

First time in a non Israeli high school. So it was interesting to see the front office, which seemed very service oriented, with waiting chairs, and trophies in the background.

The rest of the school unfolded as you walked behind it. It reminded me of an army base where classes are actually just collections of buildings joined together after being placed on an asphalt tarmac.

The big shocker of course that the school had multiple entrances, no security guard or guards and no one even looking and who comes or goes. I suppose there is a camera system and teachers keep a look out, but how different!

Back home schools are fenced off, with an armed guard at the entrance and a single point of entry. Their normal sense of security for me feels like an anomaly.

We gave our talk in the library, with two classes joining together each time. They seem to have a weekly Middle East conference where each student is given a country from the region to represent (they included also the non Arab Middle East, not sure if Afghanistan made it in). The topics they seem to be debating in terms of our silly conflict were:

- One state versus two state solution

- Refugees

- Settlements

And a few other things (don’t remember them all), thus basically adopting an Arab (extremist) narrative (there are more moderate ones, not calling for a one state solution or the return of refugees), I didn’t see any Israeli concerns on their whiteboard, which was disappointing.

Sadly I couldn’t record the Q&A session, which was interesting. Will do better next time.

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As requested, here is the power point: Peace-in-Israel-and-Palestine