“A Little Piece of Ground,” by Elizabeth Laird, is a propagandist book available to all children in many libraries across the country. It concerns 12-year-old Karim who lives in Ramallah, historically an Arab Christian town, now a Palestinian city in central West Bank (Judea and Samaria), 10 km north of Jerusalem, Israel. He hears of nothing but violence and aspires to be the Liberator of Palestine.
Karim resides with his parents and three siblings on the fifth floor of an apartment building. He hates living under the occupation, yet no one has told him that the Israelis ceased its occupation three years before he was born. He knows that a Palestinian gunman shot two people in an Israeli café two weeks ago and, as a consequence, the next building was demolished. His building is on lockdown, guarded by an Israeli tank to ensure that no one may enter or leave until further notice. The residents may not go to work or shop for food, and his school was levelled, the computers confiscated.
More recently, a Palestinian gunman opened fire in Jerusalem, gravely injuring five adults and three children. Three days later, new curfew hours were announced for his area, allowing two hours for shopping and errands. That evolved into free daytime hours, but confinement continues from evening through dawn. Now his father may tend his store and inventory, his mother may take the baby to the doctor, and Karim and Joni meet a new friend, Hopper, with whom to play soccer – until dusk.