The following is a heart-breaking letter from a Palestinian school boy from the village Birzeit(above Ramallah), who is at the Latin Patriarchate School in Birzeit, and who addresses Mr and Mrs Bush.

October 29, 2004

Dear Mr and Mrs Bush,

I am a Palestinian child and I am living in the same place where I was born and where I am suffering. Nevertheless, I have dreams, as the rest of the children all over the world. I dream to be a pilot so that I can travel to all countries and see how people live. Yet, when I told my parents about my dreams, they smiled and said: To achieve your dream, you should study and finish school.

Since that time, I love school. I look for the new school year every year. I get up early every morning, and I feel that I am making steps towards my dream while making my steps towards school.

However, accessing school now is not a right anymore. I am afraid to go there because the soldiers are everywhere. They stop me daily and let me wait for long hours under the sun or rain. They shout at me and they force me sometimes to go back. I do not do anything that harms them. They force me to open my red bag though there are only books in it, and two other small things.

The first is my dream that I wrote close to my name on the top of the history book, and the second is the sandwich that mom gives me in the morning. I keep the sandwich until the midst of the day when our teachers give us a break to rush to the yards to play and eat. However, the other day the soldiers passed by our school and they threw teargas at us. We were all eating, but the sandwiches tasted very badly, I felt that I was eating bitterness bread.

I cried a lot, but when my mother came, she gave me sweets that changed the last of the bitterness in my mouth and she brought me another sandwich. Yet I am still crying because I am scared that the soldiers might turn my dream into bitterness like they did to my bread. I wonder if you would please protect my dream, which is the only thing that I still have.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely

Saleem

The letter is the last AEI received in a letter writing campaign addressing Mr and Mrs Bush and Kerry during the US elections (supported by AFSC).