A Book of Peace That Left Palestine Out

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When I was four, we temporarily lived in Belgium because Lebanon was unsafe. My kindergarten friend David often came over to play.

When the school year ended, my parents decided to leave Belgium. Before we left, David gave me My Shalom, My Peace, a book of children’s poems and drawings about peace. “Shalom” means peace in Hebrew.

David brought the book to our last playdate. He is part Jewish, and I am part Palestinian. As a gesture of kindness, his mother bought it for me and wrote a note inside.

The Israelis had forced my grandfather and his family to flee Palestine. I was four years old when I received the book, and my mother was four years old when she had to leave Palestine with her family.

I always appreciated the book. I could not bring everything with me when we immigrated from Lebanon, but I brought this book.

For a long time, it brought me healing. As a child, I appreciated its wishes for peace.

As an adult, the book has brought me a different kind of understanding. I see how many people are confused and disconnected from the reality of my life. I have come to understand how governments and powerful people spread ignorance and fear, turning ordinary people against one another to gain more money and power.

In this book about peace for Israel, no one says the words “Palestinian” or “Palestine.”

There are many drawings of the Israeli flag, but none of the Palestinian flag. The writers speak about peace with “Arabs” and show the flags of other Arab countries—Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon—but not Palestine.

The book poems by Palestinian children, but calls them “Arab.”

What happened to the Palestinians in this book?

Where is Palestine in their shalom, in their peace?

I know this book does not fully see people like me—Palestinians. Still, I am grateful David gave it to me. I have kept it for 46 years.

Photo caption if needed.

L.P. • Age 50 • Petaluma resident

L.P. is a husband and the father of two girls. He and his family moved to Petaluma about ten years ago, and he had worked in the area before then. He was born and raised primarily in Lebanon to a PalestinianLebanese mother and an Italian-Lebanese father.