April 2008

What is strength?

16
Kalim, local councillor, shows me the positions in which he and other inmates of the prison were forced to stand for days on end.

This building was built by the British during the Mandate control of Palestine, and was later used by the Israeli military as a prison. In the late 90’s, the Israeli military pulled out, and most of the buildings have since been renovated. The building is now a community centre for local groups, arts and theatre.

Transference

Getting a bit behind on these posts so Ill write a bit about Firoush Beit Dejan and Al Aqaba, continue from where the rest of the delegation left and occasionally write about stuff I did in the first few days.

5th day of the visit

Now, we are in a place where the occupiers have really demonstrated the subtlety of their sense of humour. This place has a haze to it. It’s a nice day, but tense. Jeeps filled up with soldiers, taking an inordinate amount of interest in anything that moves, punctuate the day. An old man asks us, “so are you tourists here, or perhaps you are concerned about our situation?” He grins. We are sitting with our backs to a nearby water structure. It’s clearly a good one, because Palestinians are considered too dangerous to use it.

Smashed to pieces and literally bled dry

Running up to our time to head in to Palestine, I had a quick sniff round the mainstream Israeli media. Typing ‘Israeli news’ into Google rewards me with a paper called Haaretz, which has got a range of opinions ranging from stuff which criticizes the occupation to stuff that is so right wing that it reads like Noel Edmonds has taken over the country using an army of Teletubbies.

Jordan Valley 2008

11th April: Fairly tired after four days of listening to tales of life under a belligerent military occupation so this isn’t going to be my best writing but i promised we’d start our blogs today, so…

Resourcefulness and tenacity

Our first night was spent in Al Jiftlik, a village with the surreal scenario of being half area B and half area C, meaning half gets electricity and building rights while the other half lives in the 9th Century. (We ate in area B and slept in area C, at least Palestinians still have permission for this.) This is the village reported by previous delegations as having a tent school due to Israel’s refusal to allow the Palestinians to educate themselves.

“The breadbasket of Palestine”

Day One It takes a while to fully process what is going on. The past few weeks have been a blur of preparation, meetings, Arabic lessons, lies to parents (sorry mum, I’m afraid this isn’t Turkey), 30+ hour coach journeys, Lonely Planet guides, and border crossings. As such, it is only when we are actually in the taxi with Fathe that it finally hits me that we’re in the Jordan Valley, West Bank, Palestine. Fathe is a rich vein of information, and is truly passionate about the situation the Palestinians of this region have been forced into.

Lear

Nawaal, the headteacher, leads me out of the glaring sunlight and into the classroom. My eyes adjusting to the relative gloom, I find myself faced with a dozen boys barely younger than me, comfortable, curious, and amused. Minutes before, I and the Brighton Tubas delegation were being shown around the new school of Al Jiflik, a large village spread across one of the many beautiful valleys of the West Bank. It was our first day in occupied Palestine. Before thinking, I pressed my services on Nawaal, suggesting that my native tongue could be of great value in her English lesson.

Israeli Occupation Forces raid MA’AN Development Centre

Israeli Occupation Forces raided the Ramallah Chamber of Commerce Building in the early hours of morning today causing major damage to various offices. This attack was part of a larger assault on the city of Ramallah, targeting many public, private, and NGO institutions including the Municipality of El-Bireh.At the Chamber of Commerce Building, an Israeli military unit attacked among others the office of MA’AN Development Center, an independent non-partisan Palestinian development and training institution established in 1989.