Palestine
– the Reality
John
Sadeeh is a student at Ramallah Friends School. He was one of 19 participants
on our recent study tour and he gave us this insight into his life
in Palestine. Gunshots
echoed all around me. The sound of men and women yelling ‘Allah
Akbar’ (God is greatest) as they threw stones. Feet stomping
as men and women made a mad run to hide from flying bullets. One
man does not reach a spot to hide while the bullet does and surges
into the man’s body. All sounds are drowned out. Time slows
down and everyone watches the man fall slowly to the ground holding
his chest followed by the sound of a crash caused by the weight
of his unconscious body.
There
is a place where all anger and hatred roams. I knew I was there.
I was caught in the middle of a deadly trap. If I ran left I would
be shot and if I ran right I would be hit by stones. There seemed
to be no way out.
Suddenly
I saw a soldier aiming his gun at a person behind me and I saw the
person whirling his stone in the direction of the soldier. Glued
to my spot I could not get out of the way. Rapidly turning from
left to right, I viewed both objects moving towards their final
destination, my body.
Then
I suddenly woke up in a cold sweat. I realised it was all just a
dream. Yet, this dream was actually my reality.
The
fact is that the Palestinian and Israeli conflict has been going
on for many years. It took with it many lives from both sides and
brought about much pain and suffering. Despite all the loss and
negative impact, peace has not prevailed in this region.
Palestinians
have been living under occupation for the last 56 years, from the
year 1948. Since then so many tryouts have been devoted to bringing
peace to the region but they have proved to be failures. The reason
is because the two words PEACE and OCCUPATION cannot meet in one
sentence. If there is an effort to bring peace to this region, the
negotiations should be all about ENDING OCCUPATION.
You
may ask what is occupation? Since you have NOT been under occupation
in your whole life. Occupation is oppression, occupation is the
opposite of self-determination, occupation is humiliation, occupation
is losing your right to exist, occupation steels your identity,
occupation is killing, torture and suffering, occupation is depriving
you of independence and finally occupation is the abstract enemy
of humanity.
Things
that I am afraid of are not finding tomorrow, of loosing my dreams,
of not continuing my education. I am afraid of losing the people
I love, if those people I love are killed by Israeli soldiers. I
am afraid that my children would have to live the same life I am
living, missing all their basic rights; even those simple ones of
going to the beach, to a party, and going to the cinema. Our major
fear is about justice. We fear that the world would lose the feeling
and obligation of justice that so much prejudice mounts in the world
against us. We are afraid that the countries that are so called
democracies lose this feeling of justice. We are afraid that the
poor people are forsaken because there is no justice.
Living
in Palestine is pretty simple because of the conflict. I don’t
do much in my daily life. As most of you would do, I wake up in
the morning. The thing that is different is that before I even brush
my teeth or say good morning to any of my family, I would have to
look through the window, and search for an Israeli tank, in order
to know if there is a curfew or not. Curfew means that Israeli soldiers
force us to stay in our houses and prohibit us from going to our
schools, universities, work, even buying our food or going to hospital
in case of emergency. If there was curfew, I go back to sleep and
spend the day acting lazy and watching TV and simply not doing anything
when there is so much to do. If there was no curfew, I would dress
up, have some breakfast and head for school. Then I would go back
home, have my lunch, do my homework; on weekends I hang out with
my friends but before dark I must be home because of fear of being
humiliated by the Israeli soldiers. For instance they may stop us
and take our ID and let us sit on the sidewalk with our hands on
our head for as long as they feel like it or even take us to prison
for no reason. Sometimes they may stop us in our car and take our
car keys and leave. This is an important issue but the conflict
goes much deeper than that.
We
have to define first what the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is about.
And to me, it is about land and existence. It involves the occupation
of Palestine by Israel since the year 1948.
We
do not like armed struggles, and our struggle is all about living
in peace. But when no one cares for finding a just and fair solution
for both sides in a peaceful way, and no one is putting enough efforts
to end the suffering of the two peoples, what could be done? International
laws and norms stated that it is legal for a nation to resist the
country that is occupying their land. According to those laws and
norms, we have a legitimate right to resist occupation at any stage
and to get rid of this occupation that is increasing our miseries
each day.
This
is why the starting point of any solution or agreement between the
Palestinians and Israelis is to END THE ISRAELI OCCUPATION. After
occupation has ended, Palestinians and the Israelis will not be
enemies any more, then we would sit together and discuss all of
the other issues. We would be two states negotiating and organising
the relations between us.
My
message to the world is to look deeper into our cause, understand
our struggle and help us to gain our freedom from the Israeli occupation.
My
message for the world is to remember that there is still a Palestinian
child who is afraid, who wets his/her bed because of fear of the
Israeli soldiers, who cannot play, cannot go to school and is losing
hope.
My
message is to work hard for preventing us from losing hope in the
future.
I say
to the world that Palestinians are also human, made of blood and
flesh like all of you. Please remember that we also have rights
as all humans of the world.
John
Sadeeh
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Optimism
from one of the participants of the Study Tour
Most
of my life I have lived in Norway. Talking about and discussing the
European Union and Brussels has not been the most obvious thing. Norway
has twice said no to a membership of the EU in referenda, and there
are no plans for another. Last year I moved to Sweden, but European
identity is not particularly strong among Swedes even though they
are a part of the European Union. My own view of the EU has for many
years been quite critical as that of most Norwegians, but the last
couple of years I have realised that a lot of decisions are made in
Brussels that are important for us to know about. But not only know
about, also to understand the political processes that are behind
the decisions. I also started more and more to look upon myself as
a European for many reasons. I am married to a Swedish woman, have
recently discovered that my unknown grandfather was German, have become
a Quaker, and so on (my experience of being a Quaker in Scandinavia
is that I am getting more international ... maybe because there are
so few of us). With this as a starting-point I came to Brussels this
Easter on the QCEA Study Tour. Another
reason why Quakers of any nationality, in my opinion, are (or should
be) international or European-minded, can be explained by what William
Penn wrote in his 17th century “An Essay towards the Present
and Future Peace of Europe by the Establishment of a European Diet,
Parliament, or Estates” . His points are relatively simple
and well argued. Here I will only mention a few:
•
Peace in Europe may be maintained by forming a sovereign parliament
of the European states to collectively decide disputes and unite
as one strength in enforcing the decisions.
•
All of the European states including Russia and Turkey should be
included….
•
Travel between states would be free and easy, and personal friendships
could develop between the peoples of different countries.
He
is in many ways describing what Europe actually is today, and there
is no doubt that Europe is having a time of peace and prosperity
that is unique.
To
get a little bit behind the tourist-scene of Brussels is an exciting
experience. What about sitting in the European Parliament when the
Committee of Foreign Affairs is having a discussion about the Israel-Palestine
conflict? Or listen to a diplomat working for NATO telling about
the issues they will work on in the future? Or to hear the director
of the European Investment Bank introduce us to the billons of Euro
they are placing in different projects in Europe and all over the
world? And we have had guests coming to Quaker House from a lot
of different institutions and non-governmental organisations in
Brussels. They have all given us a very interesting picture of what
is going on there. A view we don’t get so easily from the
newspapers and other kind of media. We have been introduced to issues
like Human Rights, migration and asylum, environmental problems,
peace work, European and international politics, etc. Interesting
as such, but also the context it was put in made it even more interesting.
To
listen to the staff at QCEA when they were taking about what they
have been involved with lately and what will go on in the near future
made it all sound like a fascinating novel where you don't want
to miss the next chapter (Well, I guess the reason is that you put
the essence of half a year of hard work into half an hour résumé).
QCEA’s work in Brussels is a drop in the ocean, compared to
thousands of bureaucrats and politicians that are working here,
but I am still very optimistic and cheered up after this Study Tour.
Why? Because Quakers are giving a voice to the vision of a Europe
that is not a “Fortress Europe”, not a rich and exclusive
club, not a smaller copy of the U.S.A. The future Europe with ten
new Member States and a constitution on the way is opening up a
lot of new perspectives where the institutions, organisations and
individuals are important contributors to a "Europe in harmony",
as one of the slogans puts it. And a lot of the people we met this
week are good representatives for a Europe of peace and security.
Vidar
Salvigsen
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Study
Tour – Sharing the Experience
I was
very interested and excited to participate in the Study Tour 2004
organized by QCEA and to discover more about the European Union and
its Institutions and I am happy to say that it met my expectations
completely. I had a great time full of excitement, great events and
precious memories. I was very impressed and pleased to be present
at the worship session, which was based on silence, and I could feel
the powerful and profound spirit of God’s love. I enjoyed my
time in the company of very special and warm people whom I am going
to miss. It
was very interesting to get to learn about the work Quakers do in
the sphere of human rights, peace building and justice and also
to know that they were one of the first to initiate the idea of
a united Europe.
Upon
return to Armenia I am thinking of organizing a meeting within my
organization and its members to share my experience of the Study
Tour and to give them as much information about the European Institutions
as possible. In my opinion it is very important to raise public
awareness on these issues as European integration is among the high
priorities of Armenia’s foreign policy and the relations with
the European Union and European Institutions are at the top of our
political agenda. It is essential to develop and deepen relations
and cooperation with the EU that will help Armenia to find its deserved
place within the family of the European nations.
I will
also cooperate with QCEA in the sphere of conscientious objection
and try to make steps to promote the rights of conscientious objectors
in Armenia. I think it is now up to us to take up this challenge
and opportunity in the spirit of constant engagement and cooperation.
I had
an excellent opportunity and experience of meeting people from different
backgrounds and countries and different age groups and also to see
and discover Brussels and Luxembourg. I want to thank the people
who selected me and gave me an opportunity to have such a great
period of my life worth remembering.
Gayane
Vahanyan, Armenia
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Martyn
Bond remembers Madeleine Jéquier
I
heard only very recently that Madeleine Jequier had died in late February
2004, but have fond memories of her and have good reason to be grateful
to her in the early days of QCEA. She
was one of the very few Swiss Friends who responded positively to
the initial idea of QCEA in the very early days. She was an old
lady then, but gamely travelled alone to the annual meetings of
international supporters of QCEA in Brussels, bringing banknotes
hidden for safety about her body, the welcome contribution of Swiss
Friends. Madeleine's gentle preaching to Swiss YM succeeded in winning
round a number of Swiss Friends to appreciate the growing importance
of Brussels, which was no mean feat, given Swiss YM's traditional
strong support of QUNO Geneva. As a result of her persistence, both
QUNO and QCEA came to be seen as mutually supportive arms of Quaker
work, despite the differing organisational arrangements for them
within the Society.
Dinah
Bond recalls that she was "always cheerful and encouraging"
and several families in the small Brussels meeting of those days
- as well as the "wing and a prayer" initiative of QCEA
- certainly needed and appreciated that. She and Marianne Boelsma
were firm friends, sharing a Swiss background, and I think it is
true to say that without these examples of commitment and support
from Switzerland and the Netherlands, QCEA might never have won
over several of the hesitant Friends in Britain.
Madeleine
lived her conviction that national borders were obviously secondary
to the things which matter to Friends, and by example she showed
that, in the European field that was given to her to work, personal
relationships and shared spiritual experience take no account of
nationalities.
Martyn
Bond, Founder Member of QCEA
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