You are:

Wednesday in Palestine

19 June 2009

Mark Serwotka, general secretary, is currently visiting Palestine as part of a delegation hosted by the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions. Each day Mark will post his reflections on the visit.

The Askar refugee camp just outside Nablus on the West Bank has existed since the 1940s when the Palestinian people were expelled from their land by the Israeli government.

The camp began as a tented encampment, but over the years families have built themselves houses and now it is an urban area of 12,000 people.

On Wednesday we met members of Askar’s elected Popular Committee who organise what services are possible in these crowded, poor conditions.

There had been a recent drop in UN aid which meant that the clinic had reduced its opening hours.

The defiant humour of the people here put a smile on my face; we were told that it wasn’t so bad, you just couldn’t be ill after 2pm.

Educating the young

I was impressed by the Committee’s heroic efforts to run a school, albeit with few resources. The teachers were working long, hard hours.

The Committee were very proud of the playground they had built. I told them that as well as offering solidarity with them and publicising their cause, we would go back to the UK and see what could be done to assist them materially in some small way.

Cheese factory

Close to the camp was a factory making cheese and yoghurt and we were taken there to meet the workers.

The factory was being run on a non-profit basis and employed about 80 people from the camp. We saw how local farmers’ milk was turned into dairy products to be sold in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

The factory was struggling because Israeli products had captured a large part of the market in the West Bank. The restrictions on Palestinian movements meant that journey to market took much longer. Given the nature of the produce, made without preservatives, it was not possible to transport it as widely as previously.

The checkpoints had also been a problem as milk deliveries had gone off after being held up for long periods.

Nablus

From the factory we drove into town to meet the governor of Nablus, who is appointed by the Palestinian president. He was clearly living and working under considerable tension judging by the presence of the armed guards who escorted us.

He made two points which echoed those made by other representatives of the Palestinian Authority.

First, that he was shocked that the international community could stand by while Israel illegally occupied land in the West Bank and was building settlements.

But, secondly, that the election of Barack Obama had introduced a new political dimension which he believed would be positive for the Palestinian people.

Holocaust memorial

After meeting the governor we drove into Jerusalem to visit Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial museum.

The museum is a large and beautifully designed monument to the 6 million who died in the Holocaust.

The detailed exhibits lay bare the history of anti-semitism and the shocking details of the concentration camps, ghettos and persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany.

Yad Vashem had a profound effect upon me.

The Holocaust’s influence on the politics of today, and the need to ensure that nothing like it ever happens again, was brought home. It seemed my feelings were shared by many of the other visitors, especially the children.

Ramallah

Ramallah

From the museum we made our way to Ramallah, a busy modern city and the home to the Palestinian Authority.

Again we passed through the inevitable checkpoints. At one checkpoint our driver was stopped because he did not have the necessary permit.

So we walked through to meet another taxi on the other side. As we did so, a bus carrying a group of women and children arrived.

They then began the difficult job of taking small children and babies through the high, narrow turnstiles that control entry for Palestinians at the checkpoints.

There was a great deal of shouting and crying as they slowly progressed through while the Israeli soldiers impatiently hurried them and then sent them on their way with a bitter, sarcastic round of clapping.

Children in prison

That evening we had a meal with Gerard, a lawyer working for an organisation called Defence for Children International, who had worked on a report about Palestinian child prisoners which documented "systematic ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian children by Israeli authorities."

He told us of the appalling abuse experienced by the children and the injustice built into the legal system.

Groups of children would be randomly rounded up by the army after a stone throwing incident in a village and placed in detention.

They were then faced with the choice of pleading not guilty and becoming incarcerated for two or more years or pleading guilty and getting away with three months in a harsh Israeli jail. Confessions were obtained by means that can only be described as torture.

Fathi Naser had told us that when he was in prison he had ended up as a sort of headteacher for the children as the adults strove to give them an education and an awareness of the situation of the Palestinian people.

I can only hope that there are more brave people like Fathi in those prisons today.
 

Social Bookmarking

How to use social bookmarking

 

Tab Comment

  1. View comments
  2. Add a new comment

Tab Comment content

  1. Comments are yet to be posted for this article.
  2. Add new comment

    All comments will be moderated before publication. PCS does not guarantee that all comments will be published. Please see our comments policy for more information.