Colonizing Childhood and Zionist Pedagogy: Interview With Prof. Nurit Peled-Elhanan
Singhe Atygalle-1 Apr, 2013
Nurit Peled-Elhanan is a professor of language and education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, peace educator and activist and co-laureate along with late Prof. Izzat Gazzawi of the 2001 Sakharov Prize for Human Rights and the Freedom of Speech awarded by the European parliament. Peled-Elhanan has translated Albert Memmi‘s Le racisme (1982) and Marguerite Duras‘ Écrire (1993) into Hebrew. In 1997, her daughter Smadar, aged 13, was killed during a suicide bomb attack in Jerusalem. “Terrorist attacks like this are the direct consequence of the oppression, slavery, humiliation and state of siege imposed on the Palestinians”, she told reporters in the aftermath of Smadar’s death. She and her family work with the Palestinian and Israeli Bereaved Families for Peace. Professor Peledhas critically dissected the ideological content of Israeli school books for the past five years. She considers children as victims of Israel’s militaristic, settler-colonial culture. Her radical views have exacted a professional cost. “University professors have stopped inviting me to conferences. And when I do speak, the most common reaction is, ‘you are anti-Zionist’”! “Change”, she said, “will only come when the Americans stop providing us with 1 million US dollars a day to maintain this regime of occupation, racism and supremacy”.
At a mass rally of Women in Black in September 1997, she addressed the gathering:
The RToP was launched in Brussels on March 4th 2009 chaired by Stéphane Hessel, ambassador of France and among the initiators were Ken Coates, Chairman, Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, Leila Shahid, General Delegate of Palestine to the European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg and Professor Peled. Speaking at the press conference in Brussels, Professor Peled remarked:
Continue reading »
Nurit Peled-Elhanan is a professor of language and education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, peace educator and activist and co-laureate along with late Prof. Izzat Gazzawi of the 2001 Sakharov Prize for Human Rights and the Freedom of Speech awarded by the European parliament. Peled-Elhanan has translated Albert Memmi‘s Le racisme (1982) and Marguerite Duras‘ Écrire (1993) into Hebrew. In 1997, her daughter Smadar, aged 13, was killed during a suicide bomb attack in Jerusalem. “Terrorist attacks like this are the direct consequence of the oppression, slavery, humiliation and state of siege imposed on the Palestinians”, she told reporters in the aftermath of Smadar’s death. She and her family work with the Palestinian and Israeli Bereaved Families for Peace. Professor Peledhas critically dissected the ideological content of Israeli school books for the past five years. She considers children as victims of Israel’s militaristic, settler-colonial culture. Her radical views have exacted a professional cost. “University professors have stopped inviting me to conferences. And when I do speak, the most common reaction is, ‘you are anti-Zionist’”! “Change”, she said, “will only come when the Americans stop providing us with 1 million US dollars a day to maintain this regime of occupation, racism and supremacy”.
At a mass rally of Women in Black in September 1997, she addressed the gathering:
The RToP was launched in Brussels on March 4th 2009 chaired by Stéphane Hessel, ambassador of France and among the initiators were Ken Coates, Chairman, Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, Leila Shahid, General Delegate of Palestine to the European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg and Professor Peled. Speaking at the press conference in Brussels, Professor Peled remarked:
