Karen Hughes

Today we had a celebrity visitor at the school in Amari camp. At the behest of UNRWA, Karen Hughes, some kind of flunkie (but important one - undersecretary?) for Condoleeza Rice came to do a photo-op and review the 'Knowledge Camp' which has been taking place at the school. The Palestinians are seeking renewed funding for the programme: the Americans saw a good opportunity for some PR. I'd stayed back in class to teach a few of the keener students and stumbled out onto the shady school entrance in the middle of it all. Karen Hughes was in full flow about the generosity of the Americans; minutes later an attractive child was perched on her knee; the usual platitudes rolled forth about chasing your dreams. So it goes. One of the students had the temerity to suggest that frequent nightly incursions by the IDF make studying tricky, but no-one mentioned the flaccid American response to the the continued metastasis of Israeli settlements in the future Palestinian state, or intimated that there might be a contradiction somewhere along the way between silvery invitations to dream and the reality of US policy in the region. Still, the kids had a good day, although my lot were a little bemused by the security goons with earpieces and dark glasses, a malevolent perimeter to all the colour and gaiety. And no-one was fooled by all the fine talk, least of all the Americans. Money is money, and propaganda is propaganda, as one of the Palestinian notables dubbed the event (the word "disgusting" also slipped out), a rare moment of frankness on a morning characterised by its abscence .