CPTnet
December 29, 2001
HEBRON:Let’s Play “Dodge Stones”
By JoAnne Lingle
When I was a school child we played dodge ball
at recess. Palestinian
teachers and students of Qurtuba Girls School,
located across from the
Israeli settlement of Beit Hadassah, have to
dodge stones every morning as
they are entering their school.
In November, Qurtuba’s headmistress, Fariel
Abu Heikel, called one morning and asked if
CPTers could come quickly to accompany
teachers who were
being stoned by settler children. Teammate
Mary Lawrence and I responded,
but by the time we arrived, the teachers were
safely in the school and the
settler children had left. Most mornings since
then, CPTers have
accompanied teachers and school girls to
Qurtuba School.
There was a time when CPTers could
discourage settler stone throwing by
CPT’s presence; however, lately it seems that
CPTers are targets as
well. Practically every day CPTers have stones
thrown at them by settler
children and settler youth while Israeli soldiers
stand nearby
watching. Occasionally when a CPTer asks a
soldier to stop the settler
children from throwing stones, the soldiers yell
at the children to
stop. Oftentimes they do nothing. One morning
a soldier said to us, “You
are teasing the children by standing there. Don’t
you know they hate
you? Why don’t you leave and they won’t throw
stones at you.”
If the soldier’s solution to stop settler children
from throwing stones at
CPTers is for CPT to leave, is the solution to
stop the settler children
from throwing stones at the Qurtuba teachers
and students for the Qurtuba
School to close?
I keep wondering why Palestinian school
children can’t play “dodge ball”
instead of “dodge stones”?
