At the Siraj al-Quds School, children look happy.
Kids with visual impairments, kids with learning difficulties, kids with family challenges, and kids without too many problems (because we all have some problems, don’t we?) mix together with ease. The kids look engaged. 
They look cared for. They look happy.
I had the pleasure of visiting the school with dear friends Hassan Hassanein, Alia Nasseridin, and Moira Jilani. 
We had heard that some of the kids are coming to school hungry.
We wanted to learn how we could help.
Like all Palestinian students in Jerusalem, the kids of Siraj al-Quds face hardships.
But these children are lucky. They study at Siraj al-Quds school, in the able hands of Nurredin Amro. He is an educational administrator, a teacher and a community activist, but more than that, he is a visionary and a doer.
Nurredin, himself blind, envisions kids of all backgrounds and abilities learning together to build stronger communities.
I’ve known Nurredin for years and he always inspires me with his gentle persistence. He inspired my friends, too.
Are you inspired? Let me know if you’d like to help ensure that kids at Siraj al-Quds enjoy school on a full stomach.
You should stick with fiction! Your “Aljazeera” article is quite naive when it comes to history, and the way things seem to work there. You have been brain washed!
The truth is very different:
An Arab majority and a Jews minority lived in peace under the Ottomans.
As the Ottoman empire was falling, French and British forces pushed into the area.
By that time, many Jews already began coming to the land. They organized institutions, and by the beginning of the 20th century were buying land and creating refuge for those attacked in the pogroms in Europe. (This is about the time the West in the US was being transformed by immigrants from Europe).
During the 20s and 30s, Arab gangs were attacking, slaughtering, raping and robbing from Jewish families, most noticeably in 1921 and 1929. The Great Arab revolt 1933-1939 against the British occupiers included ongoing attacks on Jews.
In the 40s, the Arab leadership in British Palestine was collaborating with the Nazis.
Jewish attacks on the British forces were limited, and the main Jewish organizations were fighting the extremist groups, while focusing on diplomacy in the UN.
While Israel won multiple wars the Arab started, and held up while being attacked continuously by various forces since it was established, it has also sought peace and withdrew 100% from Egypt and Jordan in return for peace, as well as from Gaza and Lebanon.
It has agreements with the Palestinians, and continues cooperation with the Palestinian authority on ongoing basis.
As for Gaza, to reiterate, Israel withdrew 100% from Gaza, as verified by the UN.
The Palestinian militants destroyed the greenhouses and other assets Israel left behind to enable gradual rehabilitation of the labor market there, and prevented World Bank aid from reaching the people of Gaza. Then, Hamas took over Gaza by force, killing PLO activists.
As a response, Israel AND Egypt launched a blockade, in order to curb the Islamist organization and prevent it from realizing its extremist violent agenda which calls for a destruction of a nation state. Hamas began smuggling weapons into Gaza, and has been launching missiles on Israeli towns for over 7 years, hiding its own leadership under hospitals and keeping its missiles next to schools and offices of international organizations.
This is the same Hamas that blew up civilian buses and sent suicide bombers into coffee shops, with help from Iran in the 90s to sabotage the Oslo peace process, the same Hamas that believes women have no place in academia or business. It has failed in running Gaza, and as the economy got worse, and the organization realized it is not able to gain more power from within Gaza, it intensified its rocket launching, shooting hundreds of missiles on Israeli civilians over recent months, before Israel retaliated.
Witnessing more radical Islamist organizations and to crime families gain power, Hamas tried teaming up with the PLO. However, after the kidnapping and murder of 3 israeli teenagers (by some within Hamas who are against Palestinian unity), and a horrible murder of a Palestinian boy, both parties escalated the conflict.
In the meantime, Israel keeps providing electricity to Gaza, send tons of food and medicine these very days, and before bombing any specific target, it a) calls the residents of the house in which there are weapons of armed fighters and asks them to move out, b) drops a small bomb next to the house to clarify its intensions, and only then c) hits the target. I am sure that if terror was the key consideration they would not have gone through such trouble.
So let’s sustain a dialogue based on facts.
Your statement ” There are protests here in Palestine, in Boston, Chicago, New York, D.C., and in cities across the U.S. and the world. People want the US to stop unconditional support for jingoistic Israeli actions.” What about supporters of Israel?
There are many more that would love to see Islam disappear. Almost every conflict in the world is caused by Muslims, and the world is starting to realize that Islam is not the religion of peace. Most of the world is intolerant of intolerance today.
Americans are tired of the people coming to the US with 0 intent to contribute or become Americans. We do not need them; they need us. They should respect our laws and learn English. If they prefer Sharia Law, they should go to those places where that is the state law! They should be refused special privileges;we should not try to change our laws to fit their desires, no matter how loud they yell “discrimination”. American customs and traditions are not compatible with the lack of culture or primitive ways of most minorities. National interest should come first!
You should stick with fiction! Your “Aljazeera” is quite naive when it comes to history, and the way things seem to work there. You have been brain washed!
The truth is very different:
An Arab majority and a Jews minority lived in peace under the Ottomans.
As the Ottoman empire was falling, French and British forces pushed into the area.
By that time, many Jews already began coming to the land. They organized institutions, and by the beginning of the 20th century were buying land and creating refuge for those attacked in the pogroms in Europe. (This is about the time the West in the US was being transformed by immigrants from Europe).
During the 20s and 30s, Arab gangs were attacking, slaughtering, raping and robbing from Jewish families, most noticeably in 1921 and 1929. The Great Arab revolt 1933-1939 against the British occupiers included ongoing attacks on Jews.
In the 40s, the Arab leadership in British Palestine was collaborating with the Nazis.
Jewish attacks on the British forces were limited, and the main Jewish organizations were fighting the extremist groups, while focusing on diplomacy in the UN.
While Israel won multiple wars the Arab started, and held up while being attacked continuously by various forces since it was established, it has also sought peace and withdrew 100% from Egypt and Jordan in return for peace, as well as from Gaza and Lebanon.
It has agreements with the Palestinians, and continues cooperation with the Palestinian authority on ongoing basis.
As for Gaza, to reiterate, Israel withdrew 100% from Gaza, as verified by the UN.
The Palestinian militants destroyed the greenhouses and other assets Israel left behind to enable gradual rehabilitation of the labor market there, and prevented World Bank aid from reaching the people of Gaza. Then, Hamas took over Gaza by force, killing PLO activists.
As a response, Israel AND Egypt launched a blockade, in order to curb the Islamist organization and prevent it from realizing its extremist violent agenda which calls for a destruction of a nation state. Hamas began smuggling weapons into Gaza, and has been launching missiles on Israeli towns for over 7 years, hiding its own leadership under hospitals and keeping its missiles next to schools and offices of international organizations.
This is the same Hamas that blew up civilian buses and sent suicide bombers into coffee shops, with help from Iran in the 90s to sabotage the Oslo peace process, the same Hamas that believes women have no place in academia or business. It has failed in running Gaza, and as the economy got worse, and the organization realized it is not able to gain more power from within Gaza, it intensified its rocket launching, shooting hundreds of missiles on Israeli civilians over recent months, before Israel retaliated.
Witnessing more radical Islamist organizations and to crime families gain power, Hamas tried teaming up with the PLO. However, after the kidnapping and murder of 3 israeli teenagers (by some within Hamas who are against Palestinian unity), and a horrible murder of a Palestinian boy, both parties escalated the conflict.
In the meantime, Israel keeps providing electricity to Gaza, send tons of food and medicine these very days, and before bombing any specific target, it a) calls the residents of the house in which there are weapons of armed fighters and asks them to move out, b) drops a small bomb next to the house to clarify its intensions, and only then c) hits the target. I am sure that if terror was the key consideration they would not have gone through such trouble.
So let’s sustain a dialogue based on facts.
Dear Nora,
I am an Indian national and a former UN employee. I want to visit Palestine. I also want to connect with you for I trust that you can help me with important advice. My email ID is here (A1nurag@gmail.com) and I will be grateful if you can reply from your email. Thank you very much. Sincerely. Anurag. New Delhi
Whenever I get lost wondering how Israelis could allow such oppression of Palestinians, I remind myself that I’m neither informed nor involved in oppression in a myriad of places around the world, even places where I, as an American taxpayer, am “involved.” I do feel judgmental often, but I try not to be, as it doesn’t seem to help. In the same that we have a high capacity to harm, we also seem to have a high capacity to convince ourselves that we’re right. I guess. I mean, I don’t know. I do think about this a lot and would love to understand so that I could better influence. Any wisdom on this out there?