Response of Ami Zehbi
Four years after the 150th Anniversary of Schneller Schools, we
received a response from Ami Zehbi to the alumni memoirs.
Lebanon is in a state of war with Israel, and replying to Ami is against
the law as it classifies as communications with the enemy. For the sake
of objectivity, we publish Ami Zehbi’s response with the following
remarks:
The Schneller Orphanage and Schneller Schools have always been
committed to peace and have always worked to alleviate the suffering of
people irrespective of race, color, or religion.
The successive generations of the Schneller
family have always been committed Christians helping orphans and
providing them with care and education in obedience to our loving Lord,
Jesus Christ.
Wars and conflicts bring death and suffering to innocent
people on all sides, and all must work for establishing peace and
harmony among all nations.
The Palestinian Israeli conflict brought, and continues to bring,
enormous suffering to millions of innocent people: Arab, Israeli, and
from among the international community at large. It destabilized the
whole world for so long!
Extremism pulled back humanity to the dark ages. Brutality continues to
escalate, bringing so-called human beings to an unseen level of
savageness. Humanity must unite in a collective effort to bring peace to
this region and the whole world.
The establishment of the State of Israel did not occur in a land with no
local inhabitants. The Palestinian people were forcefully and brutally
evicted out of their homeland, and they continue to endure enormous
brutality and suffering to this very day.
The Palestinians also
responded with forceful brutality, and millions of innocent people
suffered, and continue to suffer, on both sides.
The only way out of the terrible atrocities that are committed by both
sides is peace. The two-state solution should allow both Israelis and
Palestinians to live peacefully, side-by-side, ending war and conflict
once, and for all.
The response of Ami Zehbi:
Dear Schneller alumni,
I write this, having read your letter Response to False Information
about the Schneller Orphanage in Wikipedia Encyclopedia
This is what an Israeli Jew can say:
The relevant details written in Wikipedia are based on a
non-nationalist, famous researcher of Jerusalem, David Kroyanker.
The good relations between Schneller students and teachers and the Jews
in Jerusalem are well known and documented. I've read even, that your
print press produced Hebrew Zionist newspapers and the big dictionary of
Ben Yehuda.
Also I take it for granted that the British (1917 – 1948) also were in
good contacts with you (at least to 1940) as you both are Protestant.
Therefore, I guess their decision to expel the staff and close the place
and put the army inside, was well based on facts that they knew. And
please remember that the British did it, not the Israelis.
As you mention, the relation of the Israelis towards the old staff after
1948 might be the outcome of the war for the Israeli independence. But
please note that your attitude to the Zionist activity to buy lands also
is written in the light of that war.
When you write
The Arab students and members of staff, at the time, were probably
filled with hatred against the Zionist immigrants who were terrorizing
them and taking over their land, as much as the Zionists were determined
to eradicate them from Palestine by terror and genocide.
This is a lie! On the contrary, Arab terror killed 135 Jews in August
1929, and they also did in the Arab rebellion 1936-1939. You are
welcomed to look at newspapers of the time.
So maybe the Arabs in Israel didn’t like the idea that the Jew are
settling and buying land, but terror? Eradication? Genocide? These are
terms of post 1948 speaking, not in 1929 nor 1936. This simply was not
the case.
Before 1948, in the British time, Jews couldn’t do whatever they liked.
All lands were bought in full money from Arabs who wanted to sell them.
"State land" was land of the British regime and not the
Jewish, and so Arab people were not expelled from their villages before
the 1948 war.
When you write, you (and anyone) must have an objective look, from both
sides.
Thanks
Ami