Who Are We?

The Brighton Tubas Region Friendship and Solidarity Group is a network aiming at fostering links between community organisations in Tubas, occupied Palestine, and Brighton.

The Tubas Region, which includes the Northern Jordan Valley, is an area Israel wants to ethnically cleanse and annex. Israel is doing this by making life impossible for the people of the valley .

A group of Palestine Solidarity activists made contact with the valley while campaigning against Carmel-Agrexco, a company which exports fruit and vegetables grown on stolen land to the UK. 7 activists, the Uxbridge 7, were taken to court in 2005 for blockading Agrexco’s depot in Middlesex. They argued that Agrexco were complicit in crimes commited by Israel and called witnesses from Tubas region in their defence.

In March 2006 two activists travelled to Tubas region with the aim of seeing how they could give solidarity to the region.

In April we launched the Brighton-Tubas Friendship and Solidarity Group and started working with a variety of groups in Brighton and Hove trying to establish links with Tubas Region. Since then we have worked with Amnesty International, the Quakers, Sussex Action for Peace, Brighton and Hove Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Women’s Group, Unison, Sussex University Students Union and Palestine Society, Students at Brighton University and Brighton Arabic School. We are hoping to make productive links with many other organisations in Brighton.

In October 2007 two activists made further contacts in the region and laid the groundwork for a future delegation.

In April activists from Brighton visited Tubas and the Jordan Valley. Links were set up between Al Quds Open University in Tubas and Sussex University, fostered with the Red Crescent, Agricultural Coops, the Womens Group and Prisoner Society, they attended demonstrations against the Apartheid Wall and made links with communities facing house demolitions in the Jordan Valley.