Milestones

My younger daughter graduated from high school last week. InshaAllah we will have 3 in university next fall, since my oldest changed his major and isn't quite finished. I liked her school's graduation ceremony better than those of her older brother and sister, because they somehow made the old guys from the board of education make shorter speeches. Yay for brevity! I had better get used to graduations. I only cried a little at this one. Next year, inshaAllah #1 son should get his degree, then the year after #2 son finishes high school and my older daughter should get her degree, if she doesn't let getting married sidetrack her plans. INSHAALLAH. She is a pretty determined girl, so I guess if anyone can do it, she can. #3 son has another 6 grades left, so it will be a while yet for him, alhamdulillah. When I was their age, I was in such a hurry to grow up, but these days I keep wanting to scream "STOP!" Does anyone remember that commercial, "If they could only stay little 'till their Carter's wear out"? I am jealous because my friends are still looking at sweet little dresses with ruffles and bows for their daughters, and I have to start looking at wedding dresses. Well, I guess those might have ruffles and bows too...

MY younger daughter had another sort of milestone today. I downloaded Barack Obama's speech to AIPAC this morning, and we listened to it together. She was a real Obama fan, and although she knew that anyone who had any chance to become president in the US would have to be pro Israel, his speech shocked her none the less. She looked hurt when he said "Israeli children have to take a deep breath and summon uncommon courage every time they board a bus or walk to school." There was no mention of the fears Palestinian kids face. She has had to pass through checkpoints all 13 years she has been in school here. She went to school with the same friends from kindergarten to 10th grade, when it got too hard for to go back and forth every day. She ended up staying at my mother-in-law's house for the last quarter of 10th grade, so she didn't have to cross the Jerusalem checkpoint twice a day. Then for 11th grade she switched to another school in Ramallah, much farther from home, because of that horrible wall. For the last 2 years she has had to pass through downtown Ramallah on her way home, like her older sister, and hope they miss running into things like this:



That day they both just got home before the trouble started.

When Obama got to the part about how Jerusalem must remain Israel's undivided capital, that was it. I think her heart broke. It's hard to know the person you want to put your trust and hope in has no concern for you. No concern for international law or UN resolutions either, apparently. Not the ones that call on Israel to give back the territory occupied in 1967.

None of that was a surprise to me, but it was kind of odd to hear him laud President Reagan's strong diplomacy. A democrat praising Reagan? Global climate change must have made you-know-where freeze over.