Saliman, Amos or Sara

Haaretz, September 16, 2008

Awad Abu Freih

In 2005, the High Court of Justice ruled that the state, which operates schools in Bedouin villages in the Negev, is obligated to build safe access roads to them. Specifically, the court ordered construction of a paved road to the school in al-Fur'a. But the relevant ministries were unmoved by the ruling; access to this school is still via an unpaved road. Over 1,000 students continue to use it daily.

The threat posed by the lack of safe, comfortable roads has been proved: In 2006, Saliman al-Atrash, 9, was killed while riding the bus to school. Two schoolbuses traveling in opposite directions on the narrow, unimproved road passed each other at close range. Atrash, who had stuck his head out the window, was killed.

The High Court petition that the Forum for Arab Education in the Negev submitted against the Education Ministry following this incident included photos demonstrating the extent of the danger: The roads are studded with potholes and deep ruts. In the winter, they are often flooded, while in summer, the dust obscures other vehicles as well as the roads themselves.

The High Court found in part for the petitioners, ordering that the road leading to the school where Atrash had studied be paved with layers of compressed earth, without a top layer of asphalt. But the earth was soon washed away in the flash floods typical of the Negev and eroded by use. Since Atrash's death, three more children have been killed on the "death roads": Ayman Abu Assa, Ahmad Qasasi and Abed al-Sayed. Government officials are still unmoved.

Why have the deaths of these children not led to big, red headlines along the lines of "Who's to blame?" Would the situation be different had the victims' names been Amos, Sara, Tzachi and Yael? Would the situation be different had these children not been members of a peripheral community engaged in a daily battle for survival? Would the Education Ministry be able to ignore the anger of an entire community for years were that community located in north Tel Aviv? Would the regional council have the luxury of turning its back on demands to pave the roads were it not for the fact that the council is an appointed one headed by officials who themselves live far away? And why have the media remained silent?

Hillary Clinton wrote a book called "It Takes a Village," in which she argued that a single, supportive family was not sufficient to raise a child properly, that it took the entire "global village" to fund, aid, support, monitor and supervise. Indeed, the Bedouin child cannot stand alone without a strong community, a government that sees to his welfare and an Israeli public that cares.

The Bedouin child cannot conquer the death roads on his own, just as he cannot stand alone against the unsafe schoolbuses, the flooding and the prefab classrooms that are freezing in winter and sweltering in summer. He cannot stand alone against a system that sends him to a classroom with a teacher who lacks both training and resources. He will not reach the gates of higher education on his own, as long as Israeli society continues to turn its back on him.

The author is coordinator of the Forum for Arab Education in the Negev.