By ANNE GELHAUS
Even though they were back in Sunnyvale by the time Benjamin Netanyahu was elected prime minister of Israel, the six students from the South Peninsula Hebrew Day School who visited that country last month got a strong sense of the issues dividing the population.
The eighth-graders traveled to Israel in May for their middle-school graduation trip, which they financed in large part by selling hot dogs for lunch every Wednesday during the school year.
"Israel is the homeland for Jews around the world," said Barbara Spielman, the day school's executive assistant. "This trip gives kids a chance to get a sense of their history, as well as what's going on today."
This year, the eighth-graders found themselves in the middle of a debate between supporters of incumbent Shimon Peres, who was named prime minister after Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated Nov. 4, 1995, and Netanyahu, who won the May 29 election by a narrow margin.
Student Avinoam Lewis said he talked to people from both Peres's Labor Party and Netanyahu's Likud Party during his time in Israel.
"Most people felt very strongly about the election," Lewis added. "It was about whether they should keep the Golan Heights or not: Peres wanted to give it away; Netanyahu didn't."
Netanyahu won the election largely by opposing the Labor Party's peace agreements with the Palestinians and its negotiating policy with Syria. Under the peace accords, Israel ended its 27-year occupation of six West Bank cities and promised to continue negotiations for additional withdrawals from the West Bank. Netanyahu has said he would send Israeli troops back into Palestinian-ruled areas to fight terrorism if necessary.
Nissa Robbins said these thinly veiled threats kept her Israeli host family from voting for Netanyahu.
The other students who made the trip are Rachael Osofsky, Amanda Glincher, Pesach Serrano and Eugene Marchuk. All six eighth-graders graduated from the day school on June 17.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, June 26, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.