Independence or Catastrophe?
Teaching Palestine through multiple narratives By Samia Shoman This article first appeared in Rethinking Schools magazine, summer 2014. Introduction Long before I was born in 1975, the course of my life had been drastically altered by history. When David Ben-Gurion declared the creation and independence of the state of Israel on May 14, 1948, my identity as a Palestinian was shaped, along with the history of this region. Throughout my life, I have borne witness to and experienced the ways this day in history changed not only my life, but also the lives of millions of Palestinians and Jews all over the world. My most recent trip to the region was in…