ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

          This report was based on information gathered in Israel in November and December 2000 by Zama Coursen-Neff and Yodon Thonden, both counsel to the Children's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, and written by Zama Coursen-Neff.  Yodon Thonden wrote the chapter on curricula.  Raheek Rinawi, Beth Packman, Noam Lupu, and Juliette Abu-Iyun provided additional research assistance.

Lois Whitman, executive director of the Children's Rights Division; Clarissa Bencomo, researcher at Human Rights Watch; Michael McClintock, deputy program director of Human Rights Watch; and Wilder Tayler, legal and policy director, edited the report.  Hanny Megally, Isis Nusair, Joe Stork, and Saman Zia-Zarifi also reviewed and commented on the manuscript.  Dana Sommers, Fitzroy Hepkins, Veronica Matushaj, and Patrick Minges provided production assistance.

Human Rights Watch is indebted to numerous nongovernmental organizations and individuals who generously assisted us in the course of our field research.  We would especially like to thank:  the Adva Center, Adalah(the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel), the Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA), the Arab Children Friends Association, the Al-Tufula Pedagogical Center, the Center for Bedouin Studies and Development, the Follow-Up Committee for Arab Education, Daphna Golan, Ittijah, Yousef Taiseer Jabareen, Andre Elias Mazawi, Mossawa, Shatil, Maya Steinitz, and Tali Yariv-Mashal.  Human Rights Watch would also like to thank the Israeli officials who agreed to be interviewed for this report and who facilitated access to schools.

Most of all, we would like to acknowledge the many students, teachers, and school administrators, both Palestinian Arab and Jewish, who spoke with us and opened their schools to us.  Without them this report would not have been possible.