semitism.net

Okay, I get it. Based on the responses and comments to my last post (so far, all 0 of them), I’ll admit anything approaching macro-political analysis (or maybe, more aptly, macro-response) is not my forte. Despite living in Washington and being an avid reader of/listener to endless analysis and commentary, I can’t quite talk the talk. I’ll leave that to Andrew, Steffi, and the other wiser and more savvy commentators out there in the blogosphere, on NPR, and the like.

So I’ll just mention two things quickly to get myself back on track.

First, I can report that Jerusalem is awake politically (this is, however, not my reason for optimism). Although not, as you might think, because of the developments in Gaza. No, those are still events primarily for the news; instead, the cause is the Gay Pride Parade scheduled to take place here on Thursday. Already been a couple of nights of protests in the Haredi neighborhoods (stories here and here) ,and now flyers have appeared in some neighborhoods asking for sanity and respect. And in a newer development I can report from the ground, while driving just this evening, I watched a group of Haredim place banners along the main road into Jerusalem from Tel Aviv that say “Zimah = Milchamah” and “Elokim Soneh Zimah.” (“Zimah” essentially means “lechery,” which, in the eyes of these Haredim anyway, equals homosexuality; to finish the translations, “milchamah” means “war” and “Elokim Soneh” means “God hates”). This, \for any number of reasons, was not something I cherished trying to explain to my son; I changed the subject pretty quickly. But thought I would mention that this is something that is really gripping the residents of the city. The march is Thursday, so I’ll do my best to report back.

Second, my reason for optimism. And it has nothing to do with developments in Gaza, the West Bank, or Washington. My reason rests in an unrelated development from Jerusalem: the High Court of Israel has finally moved, if ever so slightly, on the Yesh Gvul petition demanding an inquiry into the July 2002 bombing of Saleh Shehadeh’s home in Gaza. The article in Haaretz discussing it is brief, so I copy it below in its entirety:

The state must inform the High Court of Justice within 45 days on whether it is willing to establish an independent committee to investigate the assassination of leading Hamas militant Saleh Shehadeh in July 2002, including the question of whether a criminal probe is justified. The ruling was made yesterday by Justices Dorit Beinisch, Eliezer Rivlin and Ayala Procaccia.

Shehadeh was killed when the air force dropped a one-ton bomb on his apartment building in Gaza. The explosion destroyed the building and killed 14 other people, most of them women and children. After the attorney general refused to order a criminal investigation into the incident, the High Court was petitioned by Yesh Gvul, a group formed by reserve soldiers who opposed the first Lebanon war.

The ruling handed down at yesterday’s hearing rested on an earlier decision issued in December 2006 by a panel headed by then Supreme Court president Aharon Barak. That ruling upheld the government’s right to assassinate terrorists, but said that if an assassination resulted in the death of innocent civilians, the decision and its execution must then be “objectively” examined to determine what went wrong. While the court did not clarify what it meant by this, legal experts believe an inquiry committee set up by the Defense Ministry would suffice.

In this case, an inquiry would probably focus on whether the army could or should have known that the bombing was likely to kill innocent people. The army claimed at the time that it had no reason to foresee this result.

At yesterday’s hearing, government attorney Shai Nitzan declined to reveal the findings of an internal army probe into Shehadeh’s killing. However, under pressure from the justices, he then pledged that the army would consider agreeing to an independent probe whose findings would be given to both the petitioners and the court.

If the army refuses, the government may consider establishing such an inquiry committee without its consent.

Yesh Gvul originally filed its petition in September 2003. However, the court repeatedly postponed hearing it, and finally decided to do so only after issuing its ruling on the legality of assassinations in principle.

For those not familiar with the case, I have written about it previously on this site. In that post, I quote extensively from the infamous interview former Chief of Staff Dan Halutz gave after the bombing. If anyone needs to be reminded as to why it’s a good thing he is no longer IDF Chief of Staff, even absent his failures during the Lebanon campaign last summer, click over.

As the Haaretz article above mentions, the petition in this case was filed in September 2003 by Yesh Gvul, the venerable refuser and social advocacy organization begun during the First Lebanon War in 1982. And it has basically been kicked down the road by the court ever since.

Along the way, this tragedy and the ensuing efforts to hold someone – anyone – accountable really have become a touchstone for many Israeli activists, as the final straw that made them stand up. IAF pilot refuser and Combatants for Peace co-founder Yonatan Shapira is only one example.

So I take it as a sign of optimism that the court has decided to move in this way. We’ll see, of course, what comes of it. After all, there’s a long way between the court asking the government if it would even consider a commission of inquiry and ultimately holding someone accountable for the deaths of innocent civilians. And this is the same High Court that just last December blessed the government’s practice of targeted assassinations last year, so hard to hold out too much hope.

But I’m going to do my best here to not move to the half-empty side of the street quite yet. Although, as the article mentions, it was the High Court’s ruling in December 2006 that provided the legal basis for this possible inquiry into the civilian deaths, perhaps this is another sign of the impact of Lebanon on the Israeli establishment. Or the realization of all of the political and military failures over the years that have, in a real way, resulted in 40 years of Occupation and, now, Hamas taking over the Gaza Strip. And the commission of so many horrendous acts against innocent civilians along the way.

Or that, even for those who believe fully in Israel’s overall policies in the Palestinian Territories, that, like the very name of the group that has made this happen, sometimes there really is a limit. Or, as Yesh Gvul’s motto proclaims: There are things that decent people don’t do. And that’s something we all need to consider. Let’s hope the Israeli government and justices of the High Court wrestle with those ideas very actively.

Finally, I’ll end with another positive note and mention that there’s something each of us can do to help further this effort. But although it means doing something I don’t normally do in this space (i.e., ask people to donate money), this is different. Please support Yesh Gvul in these (and other) efforts. After going to the Yesh Gvul website to learn more about them, go here and choose “Yesh Gvul Projects” from the “RSN Projects” drop-down menu.

“God said to Abram, ‘Go away from your land, from your birthplace, and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you.’” Genesis 12:1.

I’ll get back to the opening passage of parshat Lech Lecha and hopefully get to my ultimate point in a bit, but feel like I have to give a bit of personal context and scene-setting (as a result, this may be slightly longer than even my usual long-winded posts. Hope some of you bear with it til the end). My in-laws have been visiting for the past 10 days. Their first trip to Israel, and their first week in and around Jerusalem went so nicely that we thought we would pile the kids, parents, and grandparents in the cars and head north to see a whole different side of the country.

First stop: Caesarea. I’m not as crazy as some for ruins, but Caesarea is pretty impressive and always a nice stop, especially as you head north on the coast. They’ve gone a bit overboard, in my opinion, in the development, but such is life in the 21st century. We still had an enjoyable visit and decided to extend the stay a bit with a picnic at the beach near the aqueduct ruins, just down the road from the main city.

Picnic was also lovely, making us even more excited to get north. But when we got back to the cars, we soon realized that all was not well. Thieves had come and — in broad daylight in a parking lot at a relatively crowded beach on a Friday afternoon — managed to take everything out of my in-laws’ rental car. (They tried with ours, as well, but although they broke 2 of 3 locks, they failed to take anything more, mercifully). In addition to stealing a suitcase literally in the shape of Thomas the Tank Engine, filled with my older son’s toys and books, they managed to get my father-in-law’s passport. Which meant doing a 180 and heading off to Tel Aviv as quickly as possible to see if we could manage a replacement for him before the weekend (as they had planned to depart this morning).

(Quick aside on my older son. All in all, he has handled the news of his things’ disappearance and the whole situation quite well. Has hardly asked for them since, and when he does, he always seems to immediately remember what happened and mentions “the bad people.” When we realized that his suitcase was gone – he loved the suitcase probably more than anything, at least last week – we tried to explain and calling the perpetrators “the bad people” was all I could come up with on the spot. Was not ready yet to start explaining the cruelties of the world to this amazing and still mostly innocent boy. My heart cracked more than it has in a long time when, after I explained that people had taken his bag and his toys, he looked up at me with huge, teary eyes and simply asked, “Papa, are they gonna give it back?” Never have I felt as powerless as at that moment when I could not make my son’s world better. But, I am sure you parents of older or grown-up children out there are saying, sadly, “just wait.” I know, I know, but wow, is this hard.)

So off to Tel Aviv we sped. Reached the Embassy right at closing, but had no luck on the passport. My wife (fluent Hebrew speaker) and father-in-law went off to try to deal with that, and then with an Embassy employee who kindly offered to take them to the Tel Aviv police station to file the police report there. (The local Caesarea/Hadera police had actually rolled by on patrol about 5 minutes after our discovery. Two officers got out of the car, surveyed the cars, shook their heads, and said “Ain ma la’asot.” “Nothing to do.” I didn’t tell my son about that.)

This left me, my mother-in-law and son having to kill about 3 hours, but not really being able to go anywhere. Luckily the Embassy is next to the Tayelet and the beach, so we had somewhere to run around and play a bit.

Which brings me back to the main event of this post. While my son and I were running and jumping around on the Tayelet, who should roll up and head down to the beach but a group of 30 or so late teens/twentysomething Americans on a Birthright trip. (I know they were Birthright because I saw the nametags as they walked by; if you don’t know Birthright, there’ll be plenty more in a moment). Down they went to the beach, along with their twentysomething armed escort (he was Israeli), and proceeded to stand in a circle, put arms around shoulders, sing “Adon Olam” and another song or two, then conclude with “Hava Nagila” and dance the hora. Less than five minutes later, they were gone. Off to who-knows-where-else in their “tour” of Israel.

This performance may well have been enough for me to write. But what was more fascinating and provocative than the Birthrighters themselves was the reaction of the people walking by. Most just ignored them, but plenty of others took note. I heard at least 3 shout “Lech Habayitah,” or “Go home.” (Not proper Hebrew, I don’t think, but I’m quite sure this is what I heard each time). Others stood and gawked, some shook their heads. A number of families of foreign workers (mostly from southeast Asia) spent a fair amount of time watching; it seemed to me they were watching mostly to figure out what was going on.

Perhaps needless to say, no one joined the group on the beach. Nor did I even see anyone smile at them or clap or sing along.

And the people walking by were, themselves, a fascinating lot. The gay pride parade had been earlier in the day, so there were a fair amount of folks bearing rainbow banners strolling by. Tel Aviv youth decked out in their bathing suits and Friday night wear (which covers not much more of their bodies than bathing suits do.) Older folks also clearly out for the evening. Foreign workers, foreign travelers, and the occasional homeless person.

In the end, if you think about it, not that much different from the lot of folks you’d see walking by in any major city with a beach in most countries in the world.

Except, of course, for the Birthrighters doing the hora on the beach.

Three primary things struck me about what I witnessed at the beach. The first was the “Lech Habayitah/Go home” shouts I heard. So much packed in those 2 words.

– Those shouting knew, or at least assumed, that those dancing were not from Tel Aviv, and probably not from Israel; they did not mean head home to Netanya. They meant head home to America.
– Isn’t the whole point of Birthright that Israel is supposed to be the Jewish “home?” One thing that was most definitely obvious about the Birthrighters was that they were Jewish. So what does it mean when Israeli Jews (and not just academics or writers at a conference) tell them to go “home,” i.e., out of Israel?
– I mentioned the Hebrew issue before. Happy to be corrected here, but when yelling a command to a group of people, I believe they should have said “Lech-u habayitah.” Instead they chose the singular “lech.” Maybe they were just abbreviating, but another way to look at it is that the shouters looked at the group of 30 as all being one person. Each indistinguishable from the next, and that when one moved to do something, all would follow. So they just needed to shout “Lech” in the singular.

The second thing that struck me about what I saw was how oblivious the Birthrighters were, or at least seemed to be, to what was happening and who was around them. They did not seem to notice that they were being scoffed at and told to go home. They were dancing in their own vision of Israel there on Shabbat eve on the beach; why should the real one walking by them matter?

Finally, as they sang “Adon Olam,” I distinctly remembering wondering if this was a peculiarly Diaspora Jew/Israel phenomenon. That is, when Native American kids who have grown up in cities or elsewhere return to native homelands, do they break into similar traditional dances and songs? Do they even go back? And what do the kids who grow up on reservations think while they watch? What about African-Americans who can trace their ancestry back to a specific village? Or Arab-Americans? When kids of Lebanese origin who have grown up in the U.S. all their lives head back as a group to Beirut, do they break into the debka on the beach? I have no idea, but would love to know.

Anyway, I have thought a lot about this since last Friday and will share just a few more of my thoughts. The next thing I want to do, though, is explain that Birthright is a program that provides all-expenses-paid for young Diaspora (primarily American, but from Europe and elsewhere, too) Jews to go to Israel for around 10 days or so. Thousands take them up on the offer each year. The trips are then organized by specific groups or leaders, so they’re not all the same. But perhaps needless to say, they don’t spend a lot of time or pay a lot of attention to some of the issues we discuss on this blog, let alone the dozens of other social issues in Israel.

And for anti-Occupation activists, Birthright is one of the most difficult programs to remain calm or neutral about because, each year, thousands of young people who could be brought here to help make peace, to understand all of the sides and issues, are instead brought to Israel to be subjected to one level of propaganda after another, all designed to be their “first date” with Israel and to leave them with little to no understanding of the other side of just about any issue. Like my constant gripe about the Israel on Campus Coalition, Birthright adds to the chorus of those who seem to want our students and young people not to discover and learn for themselves, not to challenge what they have been taught, not to strive to better what is around them. We want them to listen, to memorize and regurgitate talking points, to mimic, to accept. To be a group of people who act as a single person, with a single mindset, so that those observing them do not really have to wonder if there are differences among them. And that is shameful.

When we got back to Jerusalem, I went to the Birthright website and found this in the “About us” section:

Taglit-birthright Israel’s founders created this program to send thousands of young Jewish adults from all over the world to Israel as a gift in order to diminish the growing division between Israel and Jewish communities around the world; to strengthen the sense of solidarity among world Jewry; and to strengthen participants’ personal Jewish identity and connection to the Jewish people.

As I read this over, I thought back to what I saw on the beach. As far as these goals are concerned, those young people might as well have been dancing the hora in Long Island as Tel Aviv, as at least 2 of the 3 main prongs of the Birthright mission fell flat. Perhaps the Birthrighters felt less divided from Israel while dancing, but Israel didn’t seem to be less divided from them. If anything, Israel was dividing further away from them during their dance, rather than coming closer. Perhaps that’s more of a commentary on Tel Aviv in 2007 than the Birthrighters, but it doesn’t make it any less true.

Again, perhaps their internal solidarity was stronger, but not with the Jews (let alone non-Jews) around them. Although their personal Jewish identities may have been strengthened, also not clear about their connection to the Jewish people, at least as embodied by those around them in Tel Aviv.

Normally I’d stop here and leave off with another (admittedly, essentially critical) word or 2 about Birthright as a means for understanding anything about Israel. But having had some more time to think, let me add just a few more thoughts that at least make the issue a bit more complex. And, as always, would love to hear those of others.

In the end, I have really been asking myself — aren’t the Birthright kids the ones I should have been drawn to? In the end, shouldn’t there be more people dancing the hora on Shabbat in Tel Aviv? Even if I am unsure about the nature of official Jewish-ness of the State of Israel, this strikes me as something I should be heartened to see, rather than something to inspire mocking, or worse. So, American accents notwithstanding, why did these American Jews seem even more foreign than usual here?

Ultimately, I think it’s this. When God told a 75 year-old Abraham to leave his home of Ur with his family and head to a new land, it took Abraham a long time to understand the Land to which he had come, and all of the people in it. In Genesis, God presents the Land to him as a Birthright, of sorts, if you consider his first journey a birth. God promises to make Abraham and his offspring into a great nation, and bless them in this land.

And, sure, he goes, but Abraham takes his time. He does not enter the land with his divine orders and rights, and simply stay and begin to declare everyone else unwelcome. He does not blind himself to what is around him. Through his nature, his wisdom, his integrity – and, I believe, as a result rather than as a cause, his divine connection – Abraham begins the process of creation of the connection of the Jewish people to the Land that would ultimately become Israel.

(I had intended to also talk about Birthright some in light of the controversial interview in Haaretz with former MK and Jewish Agency head Avraham Burg, who makes some thought-provoking, difficult, and incendiary comments about Israel and Zionism and Judaism. Worth a read in the meantime, and they plug in quite well to this discussion, and although I plan to comment on it soon, but for now I will leave with the following).

The time that Abraham takes, the curiosity about and respect for what is already here, these are what is lacking in the attempt to create a new Birthright, a new connection. Birthright and so much of the American Jewish community look for images, for moments, for ideals, for well-worn talking points and brochures, and expect that creating a package of them, whatever their relation to reality, then ignoring the rest, will equal the connection. But it can’t.

When you do that, those that are here already simply tell you to go home.

So, lech le-chem. Open your eyes and take your time, Birthrighters. Get out and see the country and everyone in it while you are here. Understand the people a bit more, listen to their stories. Follow in Abraham’s way and do not build walls like those you see around you (do you see them?). Keep your tent, your bus, open on all sides; let everyone come in. Foster peace in your hearts and your connection with the land and all of the people in it, not division, not domination. As Abraham did, and as Avraham Burg now suggests again, look to the Judaism of morality rather than the Judaism of sovereignty.

Maybe then someone will dance the hora with you. Who knows, maybe even me.

“Papa, can we go back to that playground I already went to? The one with those lot of kids?”

That’s my son’s answer to the question of Palestinian textbooks. The playground he means is one in East Jerusalem, off of Nablus Rd. This is probably one of 6 we have been to so far in Israel. But it’s the only one in a predominantly Palestinian neighborhood. And it’s the only one he wants to go back to. Because, other than at his nursery school class at the Jerusalem Y, it’s the only place so far he’s seen real affection from other kids.

Why? Because it’s the only one where the other kids have reached out to him, been welcoming of him, taken care of him. It’s the only playground where other kids have asked him his name, shared their snacks with him, included him in their fun. Heck, it’s the only playground where he’s ever gone down a big tunnel slide. Ever. He won’t even do that with me or his mother at a playground at home, when his best friends have just gone down. But here, in East Jerusalem, a girl of about 10 named Tamara simply took him by the hand, climbed up the ladders with him (in some cases, she had to lift him to the top of the next landing), put him at the top of the slide, sat next to him and down they went.

Was he crying when he came down? Not at all – he just scanned the crowd to find us to tell us what he had just done. With one of the biggest grins he’s had since we landed halfway across the world from his home and his friends and everything else he knows.

Before I get into my thoughts on the meaning of all of this– what of the other playgrounds he’s been to? The ones in the German Colony, at the Monkey Park, in Sanhedria Park? They’re fine. These locales range from secular communities where the kids and parents look like those he’s used to at home (German Colony) to orthodox, Haredi communities (Sanhedria) where I am the only father around and neither the kids nor the moms look all that much like they do at home (that is, at least in terms of clothing). The playgrounds themselves range from mediocre to excellent in terms of equipment and cleanliness.

They’re fine. No bad stories (other than the bad fall he took in the German Colony – my fault), no run-ins, no over-arching metaphors to be wrung out of the experiences. Just average times at a playground, where no one pays much attention to the fact that he’s there or asks if he wants to join in a game or go down the slide together. Frankly, they’re just like playgrounds at home.

So the only one he has asked to go back to is the one in East Jerusalem. It’s the only playground that his mother and I spent any time talking about afterwards. Because it was idyllic, had the best equipment? Not totally – most of the kids seemed to be there without supervision, the place could have been a bit cleaner. But we knew from the moment we told Eli we had to go home that this was his favorite playground so far.

So what does this have to with the never-ending debate about Palestinian textbooks? We all know the basic contention, and how readily American Jews and American legislators are to cite it as an over-arching concern. (The most recent advocate being Hillary Clinton, probably still trying to run away from her appearance with Suha Arafat,the equivalent of 500 years ago). You can find “articles” and “resources” on the issue at any number of websites:
ADL, the Israel Project, Israel on Campus Coalition, and a group devoted to this issue entirely, Teach Kids Peace. (Although naming an overtly biased group “Teach Kids Peace” is probably worth a post on its own, my favorite of these is, as usual, the Israel on Campus Coalition. Its resource guide for students on the conflict suggests that textbooks are one of a small list of “Proven Pro Israel Sound Bites.” As usual with the ICC, Jewish college students are not asked to do research or learn anything for themselves – they’re only asked to regurgitate prescribed soundbites.)

Before I became a father, I had two traditional answers to the issue. First, does it really matter? That is, even if Bibi Netanyahu or Abe Foxman wrote the textbooks for kids in Gaza or Nablus, the fact is that when those kids would finish learning about the glory of Zionism or Israel in school, they would then still have to walk out into occupation. And see the worst of Zionism and Israel – settlers, soldiers, oppression.

That is, of course, if they can get to school at all. With the Separation Wall or checkpoints or closures or the economic plight of their parents, school may not be open or be an option. So when the real world around you says black, does it matter if your textbook says white?

Second, let’s assume Palestinian textbooks do teach some level of hatred. Are Israeli texts really that much better? Aren’t these kids subjected to a range of materials that teaches them only about Judaism, shows them borders of Israel that also do not respect the other side of the Green Line, about the majesty of military power and serving in the army, that often depicts Palestinians and Arabs in a derogatory manner.

(For what it’s worth, the best actual analysis of the issue I have seen is from Nathan Brown, now at Carnegie, although this was published some years ago.)

But those answers don’t usually carry the day; rather they usually get sent into the same round-and-round of most other controversial and difficult topics in this conflict. Frankly, I’ll admit that whoever decided to make Palestinian textbooks an issue hit upon a stroke of brilliance, so to speak. It has all the ingredients of great propaganda – a sensitive topic (kids), an easily-believed concept (that Palestinians/Muslims would teach hatred of Israel and Jews), and a subject about which 99.99% of the intended audience will have no way – or even interest — to refute the facts. After all, how many American Jews, or even non-Arab, non-Muslim Americans read Arabic or will ever visit a Palestinian school and pick up an actual Palestinian textbook? Even the people who don’t necessarily believe it will have trouble answering the claims – without going to a school in Tulkarem, how can anyone, even me, really refute the charges?

But here’s where my son comes in. Maybe his real-life answer, his feelings will mean more than any academic ones. Maybe if there are more answers like his, things might really change, because people could really start to see the truth – or at least what the truth could be.

Nearly all of the kids on that playground were school age, some as old as pre-teens. And true, they are being educated in Jerusalem, not in Gaza. But the argument should be the same – their society and culture exposes them to the hatred and anti-Israel sentiment that their cousins in Gaza or Hebron learn in school. And so their instinct upon seeing us should be hate, or at least fear.

And maybe they are a bit more used to seeing Jews (I’ll admit that our family is not that hard to pick out of a crowd), to seeing Americans than kids in Rafah. But if you were to believe the textbook hawks, then that shouldn’t matter. If they learn hate in school or at home, then the conclusion they leave you with is that that hatred should translate into real life. That the inclination of those kids should have been to push Eli down sooner than hold his hand. Or, at a minimum, they should have ignored him like the kids at Israeli playgrounds do.

If the mainstream community were 100% right about the impact of Palestinian textbooks, these kids should have shouted nasty things at me and my wife sooner than they ran over to us to ask our names and practice whatever else they knew in English. If they were right, I should have been worried when they asked where we lived, for fear of something bad happening to our place, rather than enamored of the fact that they were curious.

But as I have said, the reality was that the kids showed us, most importantly Eli, love and affection and interest. They wanted to see us again, wanted to know more (and okay, one wanted us to give her money).

So what does this mean? Thankfully, I have learned a thing or two so far from my kids. The main one is that if you want your children — or anyone else’s, for that matter — to act in a certain way, to think a certain way, you have to show that way to them first. Your every move has to exemplify what you want them to be. If you don’t want your child to be a bully on the playground, then you have to make sure to not show them what bullying is. Anywhere, anytime. If you want them to be kind to others, to understand the importance of respecting others, then not only do you have to teach that to them but also actually be kind to them and respect them. If you want them to be peaceful, you have to embody peace. (As much as humanly possible, anyway.)

That is what my son saw, that is what he understood – and I think, I hope, that is what he taught them. Those kids saw us coming to play with them, coming to share in their fun and joy. Not to condemn them, not to find out how much they hated us, not to demand they change. Not to take their fun or their childhood away.

So maybe that’s the answer – if you want to be sure the Palestinian textbooks don’t cause Palestinian kids to hate Israel, Jews, and the West, then go talk to these kids yourself. Play with them, smile with them. Show them humanity, for once, show them what Israel, Jews, and the West are supposed to be. Let them be kids. Teach them a reality that no textbook, positive or negative, could teach them.

My hunch is, no matter what those kids learned in school the day we were at the playground, what they told their parents, siblings, and other friends at night was that we were at the playground, that they took care of my son for a few minutes. And that he loved it.

Sound naïve? Probably. I have no doubt there is plenty of hate-filled teaching going on in the Palestinian Territories. No doubt adults are exploiting children for the purpose of inculcating them with hate-filled ideology. So maybe showing up and playing with them can’t counteract everything. Maybe it is naïve to think that real contact with real kids who really care about them could change their minds.

But it’s no more naïve than thinking they will change if someone writes yet another report condemning them, raises some more money to combat them, puts up another website with them dressed in jihadist garb. Haven’t we learned how naive it is to expect peace from conflict?

So I believe if you want them to change, do what my son did. Hold their hands and go down a slide. You never know what you’ll find at the bottom.