Seattle Husker
10,000+ Posts
I'd like to share a personal story about a very smart girl that was raised in Bellevue, Washington then moved at age 13 to Palestine. Bellevue is a wealthy suburb of Seattle which is home to Microsoft, Expedia, Paccar and Eddie Bauer. My wife teaches Social Studies in a middle school that is ranked in the top 5 of Washington State that feeds a HS that is top 30 in the country per US News and World Report. Though the area is very liberal socially, it's a fiscally conservative district thus Representative Riechert represents the district as a Republican in Washington, D.C.
My wife taught this girl as both a 6th and 8th grader. She was a 1st generation American, the child of an immigrant Palestinian father. As a 6th grader this girl was like any other smart American girl. She had lots of mixed race friends, curious in school and a very good student. This girl was an avid soccer player and played violin in the school orchestra and never showed signs of any political orientation.
By 8th grade that had changed. The girl began wearing a Hijab to school. That in and of itself is not a surprise as the Muslim girls often start covering their hair as they reach puberty. My wife first noticed a marked change in this girls demeanor when they did a project on WWII. The assignment amounted to creating a poster of a WWII leader with a bunch of facts and data about them. This girl chose Adolph Hitler and seemed to celebrate him with facts about concentration camps. My wife relayed the story of how taken back she was by the girls gleeful face when questioned on her poster. Late in the year the girl announced to my wife that she was moving to "Palestine". Her dad evidently felt his duty to return to his heritage to help in the struggle against Israel. This formerly Americanized girl was clearly turning anti-Semetic even though she was scared to leave Bellevue.
Fast forward a year later and a few teachers received a letter from this girl, now living in West Bank. First, the letter openly says that they were asked by their school to write letters to people outside of the West Bank to elucidate their plight. She goes on to describe that school as without electricity most of the time, learning things she had learned years earlier and squalor that you'd expect based on the news we've all seen. What was more shocking was the Anti-Semetic tenor of the letter and stories of throwing rocks at the Israeli soldiers.
Why am I telling this story? As I told my wife, clearly that girl is being brainwashed at home, now at school and in her community. Based only on the metamorphosis my wife viewed, I wouldn't be surprised as all to see this wonderful young Americanized lady turn into a suicide bomber. How does a father that has made it to America, living in a nice area with their children in some of the best schools in country feel so guilty about their situation that they put their family in harms way like that? I can't fathom what must have gone through the head of a father to do that. Clearly this father never adopted the American ideal that we want our children to have a better life than our own.
My wife taught this girl as both a 6th and 8th grader. She was a 1st generation American, the child of an immigrant Palestinian father. As a 6th grader this girl was like any other smart American girl. She had lots of mixed race friends, curious in school and a very good student. This girl was an avid soccer player and played violin in the school orchestra and never showed signs of any political orientation.
By 8th grade that had changed. The girl began wearing a Hijab to school. That in and of itself is not a surprise as the Muslim girls often start covering their hair as they reach puberty. My wife first noticed a marked change in this girls demeanor when they did a project on WWII. The assignment amounted to creating a poster of a WWII leader with a bunch of facts and data about them. This girl chose Adolph Hitler and seemed to celebrate him with facts about concentration camps. My wife relayed the story of how taken back she was by the girls gleeful face when questioned on her poster. Late in the year the girl announced to my wife that she was moving to "Palestine". Her dad evidently felt his duty to return to his heritage to help in the struggle against Israel. This formerly Americanized girl was clearly turning anti-Semetic even though she was scared to leave Bellevue.
Fast forward a year later and a few teachers received a letter from this girl, now living in West Bank. First, the letter openly says that they were asked by their school to write letters to people outside of the West Bank to elucidate their plight. She goes on to describe that school as without electricity most of the time, learning things she had learned years earlier and squalor that you'd expect based on the news we've all seen. What was more shocking was the Anti-Semetic tenor of the letter and stories of throwing rocks at the Israeli soldiers.
Why am I telling this story? As I told my wife, clearly that girl is being brainwashed at home, now at school and in her community. Based only on the metamorphosis my wife viewed, I wouldn't be surprised as all to see this wonderful young Americanized lady turn into a suicide bomber. How does a father that has made it to America, living in a nice area with their children in some of the best schools in country feel so guilty about their situation that they put their family in harms way like that? I can't fathom what must have gone through the head of a father to do that. Clearly this father never adopted the American ideal that we want our children to have a better life than our own.
