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A Jewish youngster in the Gaza settlement of Khatif marks
Independence Day.
Fear And Weakness
HILARY SAPERSTEIN
Special to the Jewish News
T
MILAN
FUR & LEATHER
26
FRIDAY, JUNE 10, 1988
271 W. Maple
Birmingham
he apartment looks so
much like a typical
home it could be
anywhere in the world.
While a young mother
makes lunch in the kitchen,
children draw with crayons at
the dining room table. Area
teenagers play basketbal at
the park across the street.
The peaceful sight is
disturbed only by a toy rifle
which lays on a patio table,
hot from the sun.
A toy gun is a common
sight in many homes where
children play, but this one
takes on an odd air of irony.
The apartment is on a quiet
street in Jerusalem, just 20
miles from the West Bank.
The toy gun seems to say that
the children must remember
that their land, their lives
and their people are not safe.
The six-month-old Palesti-
nian uprising has captured
world attention and
permeated the consciousness
of the children of Israel.
But they are used to wars.
Though they were not there,
the children remember the
stories of the War of In-
dependence in 1948, the Six-
Day War in 1967 and the
three other wars Israel has
fought since the United Na-
tions in 1947 declared a state.
The current uprising has
some children — both Arab
and Jew — worried for
themselves, their friends and
their future.
Yoni Secemski, 13, attends
a religious Jewish school in
Jerusalem. He used to go to
the Arab section in the Old
City of Jerusalem, but not
alone.
"I feel safe, usually," he
said. "But you need to be
afraid if you're in the Arab
territory?'
Saying that fear translates
to weakness, Yoni explained,
"If I show that I'm afraid,
they'll try to frighten me.
They'll catch me and try to
kill me."
Yoni's brother, Ruby, 14,
said, "You mustn't show that
you're afraid. We can defend
ourselves now."
Ruby attends a religious
school north of Ramallah, a
town involved in much of the
fighting. Ruby has seen the
violence first-hand.
Arab protestors recently
hurled stones at a bus on
which Ruby was riding. No
one was hurt, but Israeli
soldiers had to shoot rubber
bullets at the rock-throwers
so they would disperse.
One Palestinian, 14-year-
old Tarek Algubeh, says, he is
afraid to walk in the streets
of Jerusalem because "the
police cars are all around."
He says he knows that the
police and soldiers are in the
streets because of the Arabs
who throw rocks, but doesn't
understand the Israeli
soldiers who fight back with
bullets.
"You can't say a stone
equals a gun," he says.
Tarek, an eighth-grader at
an Arab school near
Ramallah, says he is "happy
for the rock-throwers. It
makes me feel good because
they are doing more for the
(Arab) people than (King)
Hussein (of Jordan)."
Asim Goulani, also Palesti-
nian, agrees with Tarek say-
ing, "It's good that the Arabs
are throwing rocks because
they're defending their coun-
try?'
Tarek, 14, has three or four
Jewish friends, but he still
wants the Jews to leave
Israel. He sees the Arab-
Israeli conflict at a stalemate.
"The Jews think the way