Palestine Trip 6: Green Spaces

Up here. [EDIT: DEAD LINK, REPRODUCED BELOW]
I’m really not sure I did Qalqilya justice with that last email. Its hard to communicate how many-layered the problems are, how they all fold back on and compound each other. I could write and say much, much more.
I won’t. I will say, if you’re interested, there are plenty of resources a google away. The tunnel, in particular, is something to watch – when we visited Qalqilya, very few people knew of it. Word is spreading fast.


PREVIOUSLY: PALESTINE TRIP 5

Tuesday April 13, 2004

It’s Tuesday. We get out of the cage.

It takes about an hour to get from Qalqilya to the heart of Tel Aviv. We’re here to talk to Windows (http://www.win-peace.org/), an organisation that promotes understanding between Jews and Palestinians across the Green Line. It uses art and education, and a beautiful magazine that is
co-created by children on both sides of the border and produced with Arab and Hebrew text side by side.

We meet the young Windows person and head out to eat breakfast in a park with some of her friends. There are trees everywhere and happy children playing. It suddenly feels a bit like normal life again: sitting in a park talking politics with informed and passionate people. But that is an illusion. Tel Aviv isn’t distant from the politics – it is caught right up in it. The attacks happen here. Israeli society is full of worry. On the inflight magazine coming over, there were six or seven full page advertisements that referred to bombings of civilians. This is absolutely a part of their world.

I talk about New Zealand a lot. They are interested in the Maori situation, how New Zealand has managed and mismanaged its reparations, how politicians make hay out of resentment and fear. There is also respect for the New Zealand history curriculum, which had me at 15 studying Northern Ireland and Palestine side by side.

Back at the little downstairs office, we get the spiel about Windows and its mission. It is an incredibly valuable group doing important work. The hope is refreshing.

Our next stop is Ein Karem, a lush suburb in the hills near Jerusalem. There we meet Peretz Kidron, and talk about the refuseniks (http://www.yesh-gvul.org/, which seems to be down right now). These are
Israeli soldiers who have refused to follow orders. Peretz comes across as fiercely committed to his ideal of a conscious soldier who is informed and able to make moral decisions. This is the best place for human rights to be defended – history has shown that we can’t expect those in power to give account to human rights, so it falls to those who enact the orders to be the moral guardians as well. Its a compelling argument, and while I don’t agree with every aspect of what he says, it is all insightful and worthwhile. One interesting thing we talked through: he advocates a fair conscription into military (not civil) service, because a professional army will never question the orders received from their political masters. He’s an
interesting figure and we take up most of his afternoon.

In the hills near Jerusalem we talk with Peretz Kidron of Yesh Gvul, a refusenik organisation.

Then we head back to Beit Sahour. Samer and the ATG crew have organised for us to spend the night with a local family. Cal and I are staying with Johnny and Manar, a young couple, and their little daughter Nicole. They are good people, welcoming us in, plying us with food, chatting about all sorts of things. Johnny in particular is a born storyteller, full of tales. He’s pleased to see some more Kiwis, having worked with some New Zealanders some years back in a casino in Jericho. He regrets never getting a chance to play the promised rugby game with them. Eventually we sit watching television, Saudi and Lebanese stations by satellite. Johnny apologises that he can’t take us out anywhere – there isn’t anywhere to go.
No movies, no nightclubs. All of their stories end up talking about the situation. It underlies every aspect of their lives.

Their house is beautiful. They’re both lovely and smart, full of life. They are absolutely like any random family here in the UK, or in New Zealand, or, well, anywhere. They’re just good people.

Under their roof that night, we sleep well.

Before we leave Qalqilya, we give Mahmoud’s children the kiwi that’s travelled with me since I left New Zealand in 2002. I make sure they know what it is before we go.

NEXT: PALESTINE TRIP 7

One thought on “Palestine Trip 6: Green Spaces”

  1. There is also respect for the New
    Zealand history curriculum, which had me at 15 studying Northern Ireland and
    Palestine side by side.
    Hey, I remember that. Though the bit that had the greatest influence on me wasn’t “Conflict” or “Revolutions”, but the section on “NZ’s search for security after 1945″…

Comments are closed.