Hello everyone,
I feel the necessity to follow up on the letters I sent to this list from my class yesterday and make the following request.
Israel is going through a period of deep soul-searching. This will go on for a long time. We feel, across the whole political spectrum, that we did not do enough to fight against the type of verbal incitement to violence which led to the fatal act of last Saturday.
We now have to attempt to ensure that our society, as a democracy, can meet these challenges in the future, while still maintaining the democratic nature of the society we believe in, a society which must respect the rights of the individual and the freedom of speech.
This is a difficult issue. How to crack down and prevent the cancer in our society which holds up signs such as "Rabin is a murderer - Rabin is a traitor", yet still not create a judicial system in which methods of restraint will be used against legitimate argument.
The discussion of this issue is already in the Israeli media. Our students have to understand these points and come to terms with the complexities in their own minds. I would like our students to begin an international discussion of these issues with students in other countries. We are especially interested in discussing this with American students, as the issue of the freedom of speech and democracy has come up many times in landmark cases in American history. We still remember the situation where Nazis wanted to march through a Jewish neighborhood, and their right to do so was backed by an American Human Rights organization as they felt that to block this right would be to deny certain democratic principles in the American constitution.
The Internet offers much for our students. I think this type of communication with other students around the world, where our students deliberate the issues together with others, will be beneficial to all involved. If you have a class/students who are interested in communicating with our students on these issues, please contact us at the following address
Thank you,
David Lloyd
The High School For Environmental Studies
Sde-Boker, Israel