Education is the great liberator: the Bristol activists forging links with teachers in Palestine
“Arabic and Hebrew are sisters. It’s not very difficult for an Arabic speaker to learn Hebrew, or a Hebrew speaker to learn Arabic.”
I’m speaking to Yasmeen Eshtaya, a Palestinian teacher, writer and poet who lives in Salem, in the West Bank. She’s telling me about the role of language in breaking down cultural barriers, even in the midst of extreme violence.
“I advise that the Israelis learn Arabic, the Palestinians learn Hebrew,” she continues. “Maybe we find many things in common between us, so we might just reduce the rate of hatred toward each other.”
It’s a remarkable insight from someone whose life has been shaped by hardship amid the daily indignities of the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank.
Salem, a small town of 8,000 people, just to the east of the Palestinian city of Nablus, an area nominally under the control of the Palestinian National Authority. However, Salem’s proximity to two Israeli settlements means that it is frequently targeted by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), who typically evacuate or shoot residents, and destroy their homes.
“The area is always in danger”, says Eshtaya. “We have many, many martyrs.”
The violence of the occupation has had a profound impact on Eshtaya’s life. Two decades ago, her father was shot and killed.
“He was preparing to go to work as a taxi driver, and I was preparing to go to school. I didn’t even give him a kiss, or [say] goodbye,” she says with a heavy sigh. Later that day, as the family waited for him at lunch, somebody arrived at the house with the news that he had been shot while driving.
Despite this loss, Eshtaya is resolute in wanting to seek dialogue with Israelis, a stance inspired by her mother after she became a widow. “She [told us that] we don’t want to take revenge, because taking revenge will lead to more losses. So we are a family looking for peace.
Her search led her towards an organisation called Parents Circle Families Forum, Palestinians and Israelis who have lost family members to violence, and are committed to reconciliation. Among this group, she formed a transformative bond with an Israeli activist, Miriam Ben Raphael.
In her work as an online Arabic teacher, she has also made connections with people in the UK. One of her students was Amber Williams, an education worker, trade unionist and activist from Bristol.
Bonding over language and loss
“Yasmeen’s lush,” says Williams, who I speak to over Zoom. She began learning Arabic with Eshtaya after a friend introduced them in 2018.
Eshtaya explains how the two bonded over their mutual love of languages and their shared experience of parental loss. “She started to learn Arabic with me, but after the death of her mother, God be merciful on her soul, she couldn’t continue. But we keep in touch.”
Williams’ family has a longstanding connection with the Palestinian cause. Williams’ mother, Nina Franklin, was a teacher, and former head of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) whose career started in St George. “My mum’s thing has always been fighting against oppression and injustice”, says Williams.
Franklin became a passionate advocate for Palestine after visiting in 2014. Williams, who is the Bristol District President of the National Education Union, also runs the Nina Franklin fund, which was named in honour of her mother after she passed away from cancer in 2020. To date, the Nina Franklin Fund has raised over £40,000 to build schools and provide educational resources in Palestine.
Williams visited the West Bank in January 2023, a pivotal experience. She saw first hand the obstacles that Palestinian educators face, with the Israeli military frequently destroying schools. “There is this one school that we started to build back in 2020 and it was destroyed something like 17 times. And we just kept rebuilding it and rebuilding it.”
She recalls a moment when Palestinian school children took their exams in a tent, after their school near Bethlehem was demolished by the IDF in May 2023. It was an experience that left her enraged, but also hopeful. “It’s more of an empowering feeling. It’s a stronger stance than hope —more like resistance in education.”
Williams is unequivocal that Israeli demolitions of Palestinian schools represent a campaign of ‘scholasticide’ — a sustained and deliberate attack on the education system. “There is a reason why they’re going after universities and schools”, she says, mentioning the near total destruction of the education infrastructure in Gaza.
But in the face of these continued atrocities, Williams – like Eshtaya – believes education offers one of the only routes of genuine change in the region. As she puts it: “Education is the greatest liberator.”
Find out more about the Nina Franklin Fund.
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