I’ve been reading relevant chapters of Sara Roy’s Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict and I’m convinced it’s one of the best books out there on the conflict. Dr. Roy is a Jew herself whose parents are Holocaust survivors and she supports the existence of the Israeli state, while offering burning criticism of its illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip (and now imprisonment of the Gaza Strip). I have many good excerpts to share with you, but I’m starting w this one:
“Children are increasingly incapable of conceptualizing authority in traditional terms, since their parents and teachers, unable to protect them from constant mistreatment and danger, have ceased to exist as authority figures.†(Roy, 59) “One question asked of ten 9-year-old boys and girls was, ‘Do you know what a cinema is?’ Only one child, a boy, knew the answer, and described a cinema as ‘a big room with a big television in it.’ Thirty 15-year-old boys were asked, ‘What does authority mean?’ All answered that ‘authority means the enemy.’ When told, ‘But authority can mean your teacher as well,’ several of them replied, ‘You mean our teacher is a collaborator?’ ‘Do you have authority at home?’ was another question. ‘Yes,’ they replied, ‘the authorities have entered our home many times.’ (Roy, 71)
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