On March 20th we started a monthly course, run with the Ramallah-based NGO Tawasul, for Palestinian and Israeli literature teachers. The goal of the project is to train teachers to humanise the ‘other’ through literature, in a creative and critical way.

We opened the course with a three-day intensive seminar designed to introduce the Palestinians and Israelis to each other and to each other’s narratives. The participants had an intensive dialogue on daily life under occupation. There was a good listening process and the participants also spent a long time talking with each other in the evenings. On the third day we heard that three young people from Jenin had been killed by the Israeli army on that Friday night. One of the group participants had known one of those killed personally. The group felt very sad; they also felt that it is important to continue to fight this cruel reality and that they have a role to work with their students.

Over the 10-month course, through the works of key writers and poets of both peoples, teachers will examine national and ethnic identity, and issues related to the conflict. They will be provided with an anthology published by the SFP (Two People Write from Right to Left) and will be trained to teach the literature of the ‘other’ in their classrooms.