Netanyahu: Hello first grade – and Abu Dhabi

Netanyahu took a few moments from his customary first-day-of-school visit to speak about the Israel-UAE deal.

By TOVAH LAZAROFF
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greets students at the start of a new school year, Mevo Horon, September 1, 2020 (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greets students at the start of a new school year, Mevo Horon, September 1, 2020
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
“How do you spell Shalom?” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked elementary school pupils in the West Bank settlement of Mevo Horon.
It was a spelling lesson he did twice, first with a class of first-grade girls and then again with a group of boys from third to sixth grade, who had come to the girls school especially to meet the prime minister.
In both classes, Netanyahu noted the double meaning of the word Shalom, which is used for “welcome” or “hello” and also for “peace.”
He asked the girls, “what do we write? We write ‘welcome first grade.”
One girl said, “I already wrote it.”
Netanyahu took a few moments from this customary first-day-of-school conversation, to speak about the topic of the day: the burgeoning Israeli peace deal with the United Arab Emirates.
“What is special with Shalom today? There is Shalom [peace],” Netanyahu said to three small girls as he sat at a small table designed for first-graders.
“Israel has made peace. Now the most difficult question: With whom have we made peace today, who knows?” Netanyahu asked, leaning back slightly and folding his arms.
“A state,” said one girl very softly through her pink mask.
“An Arab state called the United Arab Emirates. I won’t ask you to write it out. What do we do when we make peace? We stop fighting, and we look for ways to cooperate,” Netanyahu said.
“That is what I am asking you to do,” he said.
“OK,” one girl said.
Later when speaking to the group of boys, Netanyahu said, “we are at the dawn of a new era, in which Israel as a strong nation makes peace with its neighbors.”
He asked the boys if they knew that Israel was poised to sign an agreement with the UAE, to which the pupils said they did.
“Do you want to visit there?” he asked.
Picking up on a Yediot Aharonot story about a secret Netanyahu trip to the UAE in 2018, one of the boys said: “you visited there two years ago.”
Another boy said, “I wish I could [visit].”
But a peace deal was not the only thing that made Tuesday unusual. These girls and boys started the year with masks on their faces to protect against COVID-19.
In the first grade class, Netanyahu said, “Normally the teachers would hug you, but today, is it possible to give hugs?
“No,” one of the girls said, adding “because of Corona.”
Netanyahu told the girls, “we have to keep a distance and wear a mask” and attempted to explain how germs move from one person to another.
“Remember we have to follow the rules,” said Netanyahu.
Education Minister Yoav Galant, who sat one table away from Netanyahu, attempted to put the girls at ease by noting that this was his first day as well.
“I know that you are slightly worried and nervous. I am too,” Galant said.