A Fascinating Place

Back home from a Middle Eastern trip that included three days of leadership development work with leaders from 12 private schools in Gaza.  As on every previous trip to the region, I am amazed that school in any form actually happens amid such difficult and trying conditions.  To be sure, many of the leadership challenges are quite familiar: demanding parents, difficulties finding and retaining good teachers, and limited time and money.  But WHAT parents demand, WHY teacher recruitment is so difficult, and HOW spare the resources are against the need, not to mention the continuous backdrop of conflict between Hamas and Fatah, Israel and Palestine, and the still-happening Arab Spring, is what sets these schools apart from any others on our client list.

When Peter Davidson and I were last in Gaza, the uprising in Egypt was new and Mubarak still in power.  Now the Egyptian protesters are back in Tahrir Square, this time to express their disillusionment at the failure of the military regime to effect quick or substantial change.  Yet, what I kept hearing from Gazans in sidebar conversations was that at least the situation seems dynamic if unstable in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, whereas in Gaza things are pretty much the same only more so.  True, the opening of the Rafah crossing into Egypt allows some Gazans access to the outside world, but access is still severely limited for males under 50 and anyone without an onward visa.  Stores across Gaza and stalls in the souk are stocked with goods, much of which enters illegally via the tunnels, but the fees extracted by smugglers and middlemen raise prices 50 to 100% on nearly everything putting most conveniences beyond the reach of average Gazans.

Neither Israel nor Palestine are in sustainable positions.  Their futures are inextricably linked--Israel needs Palestinian labor, the Palestinians need jobs and both need security and peace in order to flourish, but neither seems ready to acknowledge this in a meaningful way.  Ordinarily, over time this would be enough to leverage change; someone would blink, compromise or at least put aside unresolvable grievances in favor of a better future.  However, I keep reminding myself that both the Israelis and the Palestinians have repeatedly shown a propensity for self-defeating behavior and an uncanny capacity for making bad situations worse.

Sometimes all of this seems too much to surmount; like too many obstacles mitigate against real and lasting positive change.  But, nowhere else is as interesting in terms of history, politics, religion and conflict.  Nowhere else offers a landscape on which principles of group dynamics and leadership play out with stakes as high.  And nowhere else does school seem so important given the centrality of this region in geopolitics.

I can hardly wait for the next visit.