February 23, 2013 · 8:33 pm

A visit to Royal Pride school in Kampala

Heavy balls of rain lash down, their weight and intensity exaggerated by the tin roof under which we shelter. Looking out, the playground which minutes earlier had swarms of children playing in is now inches under water.

P1000317Godfrey, the headmaster of Royal Pride School looks out and predicts that it will “stop in 30 minutes”. I wonder to myself how he can know this, but chose not to question and stare out at the black brooding sky.

I begin to ask Godfrey about his school. He tells me that it is only eight years old and takes in about 280 children. Looking at the 8 small classrooms, 4 of which look under disrepair, it is hard to imagine that so many kids could fit into such an improbably small space.

Inside one of the small classrooms we are met by a swarm of children running and shouting, each waving their exercise books at me showing me their work. As I start to run out of unique adjectives to praise each child’s work, the teacher steps in and starts the process of trying to calm the children. It proves to be close to impossible while the ‘muzungu’ is still in the room so I follow my colleague out into the court yard leaving cries of “Muzungu muzungu” behind me.

Uganda September 009Back in the headmaster’s office I ask what the biggest challenges are to the children’s education. Without hesitation, Godfrey responds, “The biggest challenge that these children face is not education, but finding the money for their education. It costs them 30,000 Ush [£7.30] a term. I want them to come for free, but I need to pay the teachers a small salary”.

Indeed, a small salary it is. Some of the teachers earn as little as 90,000 Ush (approximately £22) per month.  Despite the small salary, all of the teachers look engaged and enthusiastic interacting with the children.

With no electricity all of the teaching is done with a blackboard at the front of the class. From the headmasters office I can just see one teacher writing, “My name is…” on the board while a hoard of youngsters eagerly copy.

For many children education of this description is nothing more than an aspiration. 18% of children don’t enrol into basic primary education. Of those that do attend, there is an average dropout rate of 66%.

Uganda September 008I ask Godfrey about this high dropout rate and he tells me that one of the best ways to keep kids coming to school is to offer food. Twice a day at Royal Pride kids get a bowl of porridge as well as access to running water.  This enough to keep them coming back, as Godfrey explained:

“Many of the children who come to the school don’t have the basics in their houses. They don’t have water, or food. We can give them that”.

Inevitably, teaching in this environment can be a challenge. The teachers have to think about basic sanitation as much as they do mathematics or English. I asked Godfrey if the teachers stayed at the school for long. He answered saying, “When a teacher comes to work here, we sit down together and discuss the types of children we have here. They have to know what kind of community we are in.  We have to put aside our own time to go and visit each family at home”.

The more I talked to Godfrey the more I became inspired by the incredible work he was doing with these kids. The place struck me as much as a social project as it did a school.

P1000314

I asked Godfrey what drove him to want to be a Head Teacher of a school. Godfrey is only 32 years old and I was curious as to what led him to Royal Pride.

With a wry smile, Basiime Godfrey looks out into the driving rain and says:

“This is a long story. I have no mother, I have no father. I was with an organisation”. He breaks off for a second to compose himself before continuing, “Sorry, when I speak about this, I feel like crying”.

Tears start to dwell up in his eyes and roll down his cheeks and I tell him that we don’t have to continue. He takes a step back and says, “Where I came from, it was a sad situation. I was living under a tree. Some people came to us and paid for [me to] go to school. This is all I want to do.  I’m sorry…”.

I break off the interview at this point and let all the pieces drop into place around us. Godfrey turns away from me and wipes tears from his eyes. Water drips down onto some paper work through the tin roof as we stand in silence.

Godfrey is someone who has worked tirelessly for these kids because, as he had said to me earlier, “I know what it’s like for these kids”.

As I walk up the hill away from Royal Pride there is open sewage running down the hill to the valley bottom where the school is located. Kids who are not in school peer out at the white people walking in the rain and openly stare in amazement.

I stare back and raise a half smile. Only now does it dawn on me that the kids at that school are the lucky ones.

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February 23, 2013 · 6:45 am

CHILDREN OF PEACE INTERVIEW

This is a copy of an interview I did for charity Children of Peace.  Children of Peace is a UK based charity that works with both Israeli and Palestinian children to build positive relationships for a future generation, whose communities might live and work in peace, side-by-side.

“Steve is a human rights worker who spent five months in 2012 in the occupied Palestinian territories as part of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Israel and Palestine. He is currently working in Kampala, Uganda.

Sarah Brown (Sarah): Could you tell us what sparked your interest in Israel/Palestine?

Steve Hynd (Steve): A mixture of design and chance is the straight answer.

My sister studied ancient Hebrew at the University of Jerusalem and was living in West Jerusalem in 2001 and experienced first-hand the impact suicide bombers had on the community in which she was living. I was at secondary school when this was happening and it challenged me to think about the conflict. My sister was moved deeply by what she saw, but will openly admit, she only saw one side of the story. This was my very first introduction to the conflict.

Since then I have been actively involved with human rights issues and organisations for a long time. Invariably Israel/Palestine came up – especially during my time at Amnesty International in the aftermath of Operation Cast Lead.

At first though, I chose to work on other issues and countries and took an active interest in countries such as Turkmenistan (described by Freedom House as ‘the worst of the worst’) thinking that there were others with more knowledge and better placed to work on the Israel/Palestine conflict. I thought to myself ‘what could I contribute?’

Only after getting involved with EAPPI, almost by chance, I have come to think that I do actually have a role to play and something to contribute.

Sarah: What made you decide to work with EAPPI?

Steve: I became interested in a model of human rights work that combined impartial monitoring with the concept of ‘protective presence’. This was being practiced by organisations like Peace brigade International (PBI) and the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme for Israel and Palestine (EAPPI). PBI worked mainly in South America and EAPPI worked in the West Bank. In the end I chose to apply for EAPPI for a range of reasons including being interested in positive examples of faith based organisations – this led me, in many ways by chance, to Israel and the occupied territories.

I had also come across EAPPI as I had previously worked for the Quakers (who coordinate EAPPI in the UK and Ireland) and had heard very positive feedback from people I respected. Before I applied I contacted Symon Hill (author of the No-Nonsense Guide to Religion) who at the time worked at Friends House in London and he had nothing but praise for the organisation.

Sarah: EAPPI has faced some recent criticism. Would you like to comment on that, or, more generally, on the assertion that Israel, as a comparatively accessible and open society, comes in for a disproportionate amount of scrutiny?

Steve: In the lead up to the Church of England synod vote (to endorse the EAPPI) they did come under a lot of criticism. A small amount of which I felt was valid, but a lot I felt was not valid and indeed was often inaccurate or misleading.

As with all conflicts, EAPPI as a human rights organisation challenges some vested interests and gets attacked because of it.

In terms of Israel more generally…

Israel is paradoxical in its human rights record. In one sense, as the question suggests, it is open and free. It consistently does well in terms of press freedoms and is a beacon of hope, in stark contrast to its neighbours, on issues such LGBT rights.

You cannot however, examine Israel’s human rights policy, without looking at their foreign policy and their on-going occupation of the territories and their continued disregard for International Humanitarian Law.

I have no doubt that some people use these violations as a tool to attack Israel – either because of regional politics or because of anti-Semitic values. Equally however, from my experience, most people working on the conflict are doing so because they care passionately about the victims. I know a number of good people working hard for peace that have been lazily labelled ‘anti-Semites’ – this cheapens a very serious problem.

Equally, sometimes the criticisms of human rights organisations are unfounded. For example, Human Rights Watch is often accused of ‘attacking Israel’ and focusing disproportionately on Israel. In reality, Human Rights Watch works on 17 countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Israel accounts for about 15 percent of published output on the region. The Middle East and North Africa division is one of 16 research programs at Human Rights Watch and receives 5 percent of total budget.

I accept that Israel has more focus on it than most other countries (such as Turkmenistan), but I still maintain that we need more focus on these neglected countries rather than less on Israel. In my opinion it is a disgrace how few people care about, or are willing to work for the people in Turkmenistan.

This why, whenever I speak to people about Israel/Palestine I insist that we can all be doing more and working harder.

Sarah: Could you tell us about some moments which most stick in your mind from your time with EAPPI?

Steve: It is hard to pull out a couple of moments. There was not a day that went by where I didn’t hear about how people’s lives were being affected by the occupation.

Perhaps the best place to start would be the occasion when I felt the most hope. I was in Sderot in Israel on the border with Gaza and we met with representatives from the peace group ‘Other Voice’.

Every house in Sderot has a built in ‘safe room’. I was told residents have just 14 seconds to get to it should they hear the warning siren before rockets from Gaza might hit. This is a physical impossibility for many such as Sderot’s elderly residents. People live in fear. Nearly all of Sderot’s residents have been affected by rocket attacks.

Despite this reality, I found people who were looking to work creatively with Palestinians to find a lasting peace. I passionately believe that change needs to come, at least in part, from within Israel. Groups like Other Voice might provide the seeds from which this change grows.

A second example that sticks in my mind highlights the complicity of the Israeli Defence Force in some of what is happening. I was in the village of Urif and settlers had set fire to a large section of Palestinian farmland. When Palestinians went to put the fire out, the IDF fired teargas at them and the settlement security shot a Palestinian in the spine. When Palestinians went to help the man, the IDF continued to fire tear gas at them. The whole time they watched on as the settlers continued to undertake acts of arson.

This is just one of many examples where the IDF were not fulfilling their responsibilities to protect the occupied population!

Sarah: Is there anything which really surprised you in Israel/Palestine? And anything which you have changed your mind about?

Steve: It surprised me quite how the occupation affects every part of life for so many people. Before I went, I understood that terrible things happened. I didn’t understand that not a day would go by in the West Bank without either a demolition, a midnight raid of a village, some arbitrary arrests, detentions, excessive use of teargas, child detention, etc. The reality of everyday life for an ordinary Palestinian shocked me.

I was lucky, and unusual, in that before I went I didn’t hold many preconceptions about the conflict. In that sense I would say that the experience was a steep learning curve for me.

Sarah: Which commentators (journalists, writers or bloggers) on Israel/Palestine would you recommend to someone wishing to learn more about the region?

Steve: This question has a catch in it. One of my biggest gripes is that too many people approach the conflict from a partisan side-taking perspective. If you follow bloggers, journalists and writers, you have to take 90% of them with the assumption that they are pushing an agenda. In light of that, I feel more comfortable naming a few organisations (with the understanding that I might not agree with everything that they say/do)

  • B’Tselem – The Israeli Human Rights organisation.
  • Breaking the Silence – The Israeli organisation of ‘veteran combatants who have served in the Israeli military since the start of the Second Intifada, and have taken it upon themselves, to expose the Israeli public to the reality of everyday life in the Occupied Territories’.
  • Al Hac – Palestinian Human Rights organisation.
  • EAPPI – They provide regular on-the-ground accounts of what is happening.

I would encourage everyone to explore and read on this issue as widely as possible – trying to empathise with what has been written.

Sarah: Can you tell us something about your hopes/fears for the future?

Steve: The same as most people I think – I hope for lasting peace that enables Israelis and Palestinians to live side by side feeling safe and secure.

My fear? That the detrimental spiral of violence and mistrust will continue and people will continue to suffer.

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February 20, 2013 · 8:16 am

An unemployed mother, 11 children and a council ‘eco-mansion’ – the true cost to society

My home village, Churchdown, has become the centre of a media storm. Blowing in from middle England this storm is causing lasting damage. Not just to Britain’s poorest families but to each and every one of us.

Just round the corner from the Hare and Hounds in Churchdown, one of my old haunts, lives Heather Frost. Heather is unemployed and is currently living in temporary council accommodation with her 11 children.

Cue the tabloid hysteria…

The Sun reports “A JOBLESS mum on benefits is having a £400,000 council house built for her — and her brood of ELEVEN children”

The Daily Mail goes with, “mother of 11 to get six-bedroom eco-house after moaning her TWO council homes are cramped”

While The Express analysed the events saying, “The result has instead been to create powerful incentives for irresponsible people to bring into the world very large numbers of children they cannot possibly support”

I am not here to argue the morality of having 11 children, but to comment on the media storm surrounding this story.

I hope to show how it’s inaccuracies and how it causes lasting damage not just to some of the poorest in our society but to each and every one of us.

So where to start in this quagmire of misinformation?

Virtually all media reporting of the story goes to great length to try and generalise Heather’s quite extraordinary story into an attack on our benefits system in general.  The Daily Mail reports that there are over 190 families with more than 10 children and this is costing us, the taxpayer, over £11 million a year.

Of course, what the Mail describes is a fraction of the overall benefits system.  These 190 households sit alongside 1.35 million other households where at least one parent claims an out of work benefit.

Ally Fogg in the Guardian points out that the £11 million that these families receive, constitutes less than one hundredth of 1% of the total benefits bill of £100bn (excluding pensions).

The cost to us…the taxpayer? Small change.

The Express tries to score come political points with it’s analysis that we now have a ‘powerful incentive’ for people to have more children.

This ‘powerful incentive’ the Express describes is referring to child benefit. This currently stands at just £20.30 a week for your first child and then an additional £13.40 a week for any further children you have.

To put this into context. Krishna News in Churchdown paid me more money per week for doing a paper round than Heather Frost gets for each of her additional children.

Additionally, two of her children are between 16 and 20 so she would only receive child benefit if they are still in full time education. Her oldest child is now 21 so is not eligible for child benefit.

Who needs facts when you write for the Express though? Little inconvenient facts like the average reproduction rate of 1.9 children for families on benefit. The almost identical reproduction rate to those not on benefits.

If there is a ‘powerful incentive’ to have children on benefits (which there isn’t)  then those on benefits have yet to spot it.

Ah, but she is having a brand new £400,000 house built for her and her ‘brood’ The Sun reports. Well, keep reading and in paragraph 7 of that same story it explains how Tewksbury Council could afford this. It states, “Tewkesbury Borough Council sold a plot of land…to Severn Vale Housing association…A condition of the sale was that one of the 15 affordable properties they built on the site would be a six-bedroom home”.

The penny drops. When The Sun quotes Robert Oxley from the TaxPayers Alliance saying, “It’s scandalous that so much time and money is being spent on one custom-built house” he doesn’t actually say whether or not it is ‘tax payer’s money’ that is being spent.

These stories fuel a hatred for some of the poorest families in Britain. Regardless of how many times tabloids but the word ‘struggling’ mockingly in inverted commas, it won’t effect the fact that 1 in 5 Brits live in poverty and are struggling.

These stories though act as smokescreens. They force us to focus on how the poor are costing us rather than how poverty is costing all of us.

As we worry about the £11 million being spent on people with large families we learn to ignore the £25 billion that child poverty is costing the UK every year.

The people who suffer? Not just the 4.5 million at risk of homelessness who are currently on the housing waiting list or the 3.6 million children that are living in poverty in the UK.

In times of austerity, this media storm is costing all of us.

UPDATE: New Research out today suggest that in many UK cities over 40% of kids live in poverty.

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February 19, 2013 · 1:55 pm

A Sunday Morning in Kampala

“Praise the Lord, feel his love rushing though you. Feel him touch your soul. You are saved brother, you are saved”.

I wearily look up from my scrambled eggs and rather soggy toast. The church next door to my hotel has been going for over 3 hours now.

At one point there is a rather terrifying scream before there is an impressively drawn out chorus’ of ‘hallelujahs’.

I leave the last bit of soggy toast on my plate and make my way out into the mid-morning sun.

I sharply step sideways off the potholed concrete road into the red earth gutters as motorcycles and 4X4s swerve perilously close. All the time trying to keep an eye on the on-coming traffic and an eye on the fabulous views that stretch in front of me.

The sprawling city centre sits in the distance as I make my towards the notorious ‘Kabalagala’ area of town.  I pass men opening their shops opposite bars that are still going from the previous night.

The bass from a reggae bar seeps out onto the street. It feels like electricity is passing through the tarmac. As I pass each bar I peer in to watch the revellers who are still going, still enjoying the bars of Kampala – the city that truly never sleeps.

Short skirts and crumpled suits zigzag across the dance floors and prop up the bar as they refuse to accept that their night is over.

I walk on only stopping to buy some mango on the side of the road. The seller beams a smile back at me as I hand over about twenty per cent more than a local would – the ‘muzungo’ price.

With sticky fingers I finish my mango and make my way past one of Kampala’s 24/7 traffic jams. Nut sellers squeeze through improbable gaps in the traffic risking their life, quite literally, for peanuts.

These nut sellers seem to move with ease in and out of the traffic as I wait trying to find a break in the wall of traffic to cross into the shade on the other side of the street.

In the shade I am conscious of how quickly the sun has risen. On the equator sunrise is like sitting in a bath as it fills up with hot water – immersing you, the heat surrounding you.

The sun now shines hard on the red earth and strips through any pretence that the new day has yet to start.

This Sunday morning will be spent sleeping off last night’s excess for some, praising the lord for others and for me at least, exploring the maze of streets in the city centre.

As I make my way into the centre, a small minibus with its bumper hanging off stops to offer me a lift. On the front windscreen the words ‘TRUST ONLY GOD’ are printed. On this occasion I decide to take the advice and say I am happy to walk.

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February 19, 2013 · 5:48 am

The removal of ‘insulting’ from Public Order Act is a victory for free speech

This article was written for Left Foot Forward.

Rowan

MPs have confirmed that the word ‘insulting’ will be removed from Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986.

This is a major victory for an unlikely alliance of free speech campaigners including The Christian Institute, The National Secular Society and Rowan Atkinson.

Last month the home secretary Theresa May announced that the government was ‘not minded‘ to challenge a House of Lords amendment removing the word ‘insulting’ from Section 5 of the Public Order Act.

In the past Section 5 had been used against street preachers ‘insulting’ homosexuals and LGBT activists ‘insulting’ religious groups.

As Rowan Atkinson commented, “The clear problem of the outlawing of insult is that too many things can be interpreted as such. Criticism, ridicule, sarcasm, merely stating an alternative point of view to the orthodoxy, can be interpreted as insult”

This change in law is a victory for freedom of speech in the UK.

There remains, however, an important limiting role for the law to play. That role is to provide protection to those who are victims of threatening or abusive behaviour.

In 2011 I blogged saying that, “We all hold the right to live without fear or intimidation. This has to be legally separated, however, from being ‘insulted”.

The distinction has finally been acknowledged by the government and the change in the law later in the year is now just a formality.

It is worth noting, though, that even with this change in law, the discussion about what constitutes threatening behaviour compared to ‘insulting’ behaviour will remain. There is a considerable grey area around what the law should interpret to be ‘threatening’ and what it should view as merely ‘insulting’.

For example, ‘My Tram Experience’ – a video showing a vile torrent of racist abuse on a south London tram – sparked two very different interpretations.

I thought her behaviour was threatening and therefore called for her arrest, while bloggerSunny Hundal argued that she was simply being insulting.

With the change in law however, the police are some way towards having a clear distinction to follow. We are no longer asking them to be the judge of what behaviour is deemed ‘insulting’, at least.

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February 18, 2013 · 10:52 am

“This is what occupation looks like” says ex-Israeli soldiers

Breaking The Silence is a group of ex-Israeli soldiers who have taken it upon themselves to “expose the Israeli public to the reality of everyday life in the Occupied Territories”.

Today they put out this important message:

In the past few days thousands of people have seen the image on the right: a Palestinian child in the cross hairs of an Israeli soldier’s gun after the soldier took the photo and uploaded it to his personal Instagram account. It was shared hundreds of times, with many people expressing their discomfort with this absurd show of force where a person can aim a gun at a child just to post a ‘cool’ picture and get many shares.

The image on the left was taken by another Israeli soldier in Hebron in 2003. He later gave us the rights to the photo along with a testimony that were presented in the first Breaking the Silence photo exhibition. The solider in question took the photo using his own personal film camera to keep as a ‘souvenir’.

Both pictures are testaments to the abuse of power rooted in the military control of another people.

Ten years have passed. Technology and media have changed. The distribution of images has changed. But the exaggerated sense of power and the blatant disregard for human life and dignity have remained: this is what occupation looks like.

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February 5, 2013 · 1:32 pm

Our house is being finished – Mpola mpola!

This is a guest post by my partner Anya Whiteside who is blogging about our time in Uganda over at ‘Anya’s Blog‘. 

Ten days ago we saw the house that FENU have found for us to live in. If you go down Kabalagala, famous in all of East Africa for its many little bars and clubs that play reggae till the early hours you turn onto the busy Ggaba road. Here minibuses, boda bodas (motorbike taxis), bikes and people weave their way in and out while stalls of avacado, mango and pineapple vie for space with shops overflowing with plastic buckets, matresses and brooms.

All the way along the Ggaba road are small side streets leading off, some tarmac, some dirt. If you turn up one of these side streets you weave your way through a mish-mash of housing. Gardened and gated houses intermingled with simple wooden shacks, and this variety is one of the things I like most about this part of Kampala.

Our house is off one of these quiet side streets. It is a single story house next to a little store that sells sweets and phone credit to anyone who happens to be pondering past. There is a patch of ground outside where are neighbours-to-be sit shelling peas while their kids run about playing. On the other side are smarter houses, painted pink with a larger, gated courtyard.

DSCN4225As soon as we see the house we like it. It’s has several rooms, including a spare bedroom for guests and a little courtyard where we hope to fit a table and chair and maybe some pots of basil. There has even been talk of a chicken, though we are yet to find out whether letting it out onto the grass outside would lead it into a neighbours pot, and we’re not sure we want to be labbled as the crazy muzungus with the chicken on the lead!

The only problem with our exciting new house is that it’s not finished. The bathroom is in disrepair, it has no floor and the kitchen is falling apart. ‘Do not worry, it will be finished mangu mangu (quickly)’ beams the builder when we first look round. I discuss the situation with FENU and we agree the house is worth waiting for, and that every day I will make the short journey from the office to see how it’s getting on.

So every day I go. As I leave the office my colleagues wish me luck. I meet my new friend the builder who explains why that day the house is hardly further along than the day before. ‘The plumber didn’t come’, ‘there was a problem with the carpenter’. ‘we had a problem with a leaking pipe’ he says. ‘But’ he adds with a huge grin ‘do not worry, it will definitelybe finished tomorrow’. When I walk back to the office my colleagues ask how the house is coming along, ‘mpola, mpola (slowly)’ I answer, to which there are peals of laughter.

On Friday, however, we saw marked improvements – not only had a toilet been installed, but it also flushed, as the builder demonstrated with pride. So to celebrate Steve and I went to buy furniture with the wonderful driver at FENU called Hudson. Hudson took us to a multitude of places – the supermarket for the fridge, the backstreets for the pans and the wonderful hand-made street furniture market for our cane sofa. We arrived back at FENU exhausted and with furniture tied to every possible part of the vehicle. Our furniture is now occuppying the meeting room at FENU, but that shouldn’t be a problem as our house will definitely be ready when I visit it tomorrow!

UPDATE:

When we arrived the builder proudly showed us his handywork. He had inexplicably painted the kitchen and bathroom bright orange! We think we’ve convinced him we are happy for him to leave the sitting room and bedrooms cream but it remains to be seen….

DSCN4215

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December 31, 2012 · 6:22 pm

A tribute to Marie Colvin

As 2012 slips into the confines of history, I wanted to pay one last tribute to Marie Colvin – one history’s greatest journalists that 2012 so cruelly took from us. I want to ensure that something of her ethos lives on in my writing.

Marie Colvin

Marie Colvin

Marie Colvin is one of the 121 journalists who lost their lives in 2012.  She lost her life in Syria surrounded by the same killings, war crimes and atrocities that she had spent her life reporting as a war correspondent.

She not only did a job that many of us would be unable to do, but she did it without losing a sense of humanity in some of the darkest situations.

Jeremy Bowen described her “big reserves of empathy” – something that is so vital when you spend your time examining the worst humanity has to offer.

In a 2010 speech in Fleet Street Marie described the role of a war correspondent saying:

“Covering a war means going to places torn by chaos, destruction and death, and trying to bear witness. It means trying to find the truth in a sandstorm of propaganda when armies, tribes or terrorists clash…

Despite all the videos you see from the Ministry of Defence or the Pentagon, and all the sanitised language describing smart bombs and pinpoint strikes, the scene on the ground has remained remarkably the same for hundreds of years. Craters. Burned houses. Mutilated bodies. Women weeping for children and husbands. Men for their wives, mothers children.

Our mission is to report these horrors of war with accuracy and without prejudice”

What fascinates and inspires me however is what drove her to then put what she saw down onto paper.

Ingrained in Marie’s writing was a belief, a belief that if the atrocities that she witnessed were recorded and reported then at least there was the potential for action to be taken. Accountability.

If war zones are left without accountability we take nothing into the future except for the loss, anger and desperation which comes to define the bloody aftermath of war.

Marie’s writing acted as a basket to carry the possibility of justice forward. Without accountability, the truth, in all its bloody detail, is left to soak into the cracks of history.

Perhaps part of what drove Marie, and certainly what motivates a lot of my writing and human rights work, is more than just the possibility for action. It is the belief that people care.

In the same speech in 2010 Marie went onto say:

“The real difficulty is having enough faith in humanity to believe that enough people be they government, military or the man on the street, will care when your file reaches the printed page, the website or the TV screen”

In 2013, I am going to take these words with me.

I doubt I will find my ways into the war zone of Syria, but I am sure, wherever I end up, there will be human stories to tell. I hope that you, the reader, will also take these words with you.

I do what I do because, like Marie, I trust that you care.

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November 24, 2012 · 11:52 am

Watch: Yanoun – by Emmet Sheerin

This is a video by a friend and former colleague Emmet Sheerin. We lived together for a  few months in the village of Yanoun in the West Bank as part of the EAPPI programme. This is his short video which was made while we were there.

http://vimeo.com/54138761

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November 16, 2012 · 12:08 am

As Gaza burns Londoners take to the streets

Hundreds of miles away, families are huddled up inside their houses fearing the next explosion. Across the south of Israel and throughout Gaza, civilians are suffering the anxiety of a war that they cannot escape.  The second day of fighting in Gaza has left a mounting death toll and an unknown number of people with life changing injuries.

This bloodshed seems a long way away from the Israeli embassy in north London. It is though, ultimately why around 1000 people gathered here on a cold November night.

As I approach the planned protest I am met first by a sea of blue and white – mainly in the form of the Israeli flags but also Union Jacks. A few hundred people had gathered to offer support for Israel. I quickly have two leaflets thrust into my hand; one entitled “Defending Israel from Terror” and the other urging me to donate to “Rocket Aid”.

I dither on the pavement as I read the leaflets. Some of the language on the leaflets attracts my attention. The first leaflet states “Operation Pillar of Defence is aimed at removing the threat to Israeli citizens. No innocent civilians will be targeted” and I think about how this aspiration seems to so routinely not be lived up to. Amnesty International has stated that two Israeli airstrikes in the last week alone have failed to distinguish between civilian and military targets and as such constitute a violation of International Humanitarian Law.

My attention though shifts to a woman who is draped in an Israeli flag handing a small child a leaflet whilst saying, “it’s important everyone knows the truth”. I decide that now was not the time to discuss the philosophy of ‘truth’. Instead I start a conversation.

It would be fair to say that we don’t always see eye to eye on every issue. At times though we find common ground, “Israel’s external security threat is not to be underestimated” she says. At times though we had to agree to disagree, “I don’t know what more Israel could be doing to get peace”. I offer her a list. At times I am left speechless by some of her analogies – the bombing of Gaza, she said is like having children “you talk to them and you talk to them but sometimes you just lose your rag”. I bit my lip.

Despite at times finding her views unpalatable, she was friendly and engaging and our conversation attracted other around us. A young Londoner called Harry was hanging around the edge of the protest and soon we were having a good conversation. Harry is a 17 year old student who wants to study International Relations and oozes confidence and intelligence.

I asked Harry why he was there and he responded passionately about schooling and how he thought that every kid should have access to it without being scared of rocket attacks. Indeed, Harry who has family in Israel had none of the anger or angst that can sometimes be found in these situations and I believed him when he said “I’m also here for the Palestinians, I’m here because I want them to be free from Hamas, a terrorist government”.

As I worked my way through the crowd trying to make my way to the much larger “pro-Palestine” demonstration I briefly met a man whose son had gone and joined the IDF, a spokesman for the ZF and a young girl of about 6 who “just wanted there to be peace”- a diverse crowd.

All the time though I kept being distracted by snippets of less guarded conversations in the crowd. “Fuck human rights” “Those Arabs, they would kill each of us if we turned our backs” “Why do Arabs always smell like they’ve shit themselves”. I couldn’t help but to be appalled and I wondered what someone like Harry would have made of some of these comments.

As I made my way through the lines of police between the protests, one stopped me and asked, “Are you one of them?” I gave an oddly constrained answer as if under interrogation and said “I was looking to get into the Palestine demonstration”. To seek clarification the officer asked “Are you Jewish”? I answered honestly, “no”. This seemed to be enough to let me walk freely between the demonstrations.

Once through I was met with the swaying force of 1,000 people all shouting and chanting. There were Socialist Worker Party banners everywhere.  Almost immediately someone approached me and said “solidarity brother” and held out his fist. I replicated and we did, what I thought to be, a slightly awkward fist tap (like a high five but with your fist clenched). He looked at me smiled and said, “Yeah fuck the Jews man” and walked off.

With no sense of irony he turned and immediately started talking to a group of Jews who are anti-Zionist and can often be seen on ‘pro-Palestinian’ demonstrations. Language is used and abused but I still found the flippancy in which he muttered the phrase “fuck the Jews” to be deeply disturbing.

A wee scuffle broke out at one point between a young activist called Joe and a portly policeman. I approached Joe afterwards and asked what the problem was. Angrily at first he said, “They won’t let me confront them…the fascist scum. The EDL are down there and these pigs won’t let me through”. He looks through the policeman who is still hovering over us and says, “The Zionists are standing side by side with the fucking EDL”.

I asked around and indeed even went back to check, and couldn’t see any sign that the EDL had been at either demonstration.

All around me the crowd is loud. They chant in slogans that have been used for as long as the occupation and the mass of people seem to move with a collective pulse. The atmosphere is intense and the police numbers grow around the edges of the swelling crowd.

A young man with a scarf around his face sees me making notes and winds his way up to me. He tells me above the ambient noise that he is Indian and this is the reason why he has come here today. “I am here for myself because my country was occupied for hundreds of years. I’m here standing up for myself but also for the Palestinians – the oppressed”.

I ask him if he thinks it will work, if this demonstration will make any difference and he responds simply, “we have to try”. Even though he has a scarf over his face I can see his cheeks lifting and some wrinkles appear in the corner of his eyes. He exudes a sense of optimism.

Just as I finish speaking to him a small fight breaks out and two protestors are taken away by the police whilst chanting defiantly “Free free Palestine, from the river to the sea, free free Palestine”. The whole evening feels electric as if at any moment it could spill over.

After a gradual decline though, the cold takes most people back to their warm houses. Only a handful of anarchists and activist are left. One proclaims proudly “I’m only leaving in handcuffs” to which a policeman responds “did you bring any with you”?

As I arrived back to the warm of my south London flat, I turn on my computer and I am virtually reminded of the reason why we had all trekked across London on this cold November night. The Palestinian news agency, Ma’an News has on its front page a story that is grimly entitled “Teen brothers among 3 killed in Israeli airstrike”.

It states, “An Israeli airstrike killed three Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday evening…bringing the death toll to 19 on the second day of fighting.”

No amount of goodwill on either side will bring back the dead and only the Israeli government and Hamas have the power to stop further bloodshed. Let’s hope the leadership was listening to some of the moderate voices out on the streets of north London  on this chilly November evening.

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November 12, 2012 · 1:43 pm

In defence of Amnesty International. A response to Nick Cohen.

An edited version of this article was published on the Liberal Conspiracy blog.

Nick Cohen held nothing back in this Sunday’s Observer as he declared that Amnesty International (AI) had ‘lost its way’. His attack varied from the organisational to the ideological but always ended with teeth dug firmly into the jugular of the most established human rights organisation in the world.

If you were to work your way through the red mist that hangs over his article you might, at times, find crumbs of real issues and debates – all of which are already taking place within the Amnesty International membership but to which his article adds little. Indeed, the misleading and at times factually wrong nature of Cohen’s claims makes it impossible for a neutral reader to disentangle his hyperbole from genuine debate.

His opening paragraph lays down the foundations for his meandering ideological attack as he accuses Amnesty of both suffering from a ‘post-colonial guilt’ and seeing ‘freedom as a bourgeoisie illusion’.

To simplify this argument in such a flippant way is to undermine the complexity of human rights theory.  These accusations strike at the heart of the debate between and universal absolutist understandings of human rights versus a more relativistic approach. The assertion that AI has fallen victim ‘from both sides’ misses its purposeful allegiance with the argument for universal, indivisible rights.

There is a very real discussion here that is raging within the AI membership. How you reconcile Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ECSR) – which could be argued to be relative to their surroundings – with AI’s traditional absolutist approach. AI would argue that there is no distinction, many members would and do. These sorts of subtleties though find little time in Cohen’s article.

Cohen moves effortlessly in the first two paragraphs from the ideological to the organisational attacking AI saying:

“it is a wreck. Staff have gone on strike in both its British and international offices to protest against the management’s decision to sack workers campaigning to defend prisoners on death row, women’s rights, gay rights and refugees”.

Indeed, AI staff have gone on strike and I have blogged about why they have here. I see no reason though for AI to apologise for moving its resources in an effort to globally rebalance its work.

Again though, the debate around growing globally and how this affects national sections is one that is fiercely debated within AI but Cohen seems happy to skip over it. There are many who disagree with me and feel that money raised in the UK should be spent in the UK, others think it is only right and proper to spread influence into geographic areas where traditionally AI has not had a significant presence.

Instead of taking on these interesting and nuanced points, Cohen goes for jugular. He quotes UNITES’s call for Kate Allen to stand down and then inexplicably connects that to Irene Khan’s recent ‘£500,000 pay off’ as Secretary General of AI.

I will not defend the outrageous actions of Irene Khan, nor the mismanagement that resulted in her leaving in the way she did. What I will do is clarify Cohen’s remarks. To start, he puts his comments into the plural “Amnesty’s directors receive £500,000 payoffs”. As far as I am aware only one Secretary General (Irene Khan) has received £500,000.

In addition, this £500,000 was not totally a ‘pay-off’. It included the current years pay and pension contributions. The actual ‘pay-off’ part of the sum was much smaller – although still outrageous.

Equally, it represents less than 1% of the annual budget, so to continue Cohen’s jumble sale analogy – it represents 1 pence of every pound raised being misspent (and that is a one too many).

What Cohen fails to say, is that at the time – the UK director Kate Allen was one of the fiercest critics of this whole debacle and spoke clearly and eloquently on the behalf of the UK membership.  Connecting the Irene Khan debacle with a call for Kate Allen to step down is unfair and misleading.

Cohen though is clearly not worrying about whose toes he is stepping on. He slips effortlessly back into his meandering ideological argument connecting AI financial situation with an accusation that “it is afflicted with a mental deformation: the racism of low expectations; the belief that human rights are “western” rights”. Again, this simply could not be further from the truth. If anything AI is too rigid in its belief that human rights are universal and applicable to all. Cohen offers no support to this statement.

Cohen moves on to take issue with AI’s expansion of its mandate, to include working on issues such as death penalty cases. Cohen argues that these causes AI has adopted (through a slow democratic process) are a ‘hodgepodge’ of campaigns that have resulted in AI work just being a ‘rich man’s self-indulgence’.  This ‘hodgepodge’ he describes partly reflects AI internal democracy (any member can bring a motion to their national AGM who will in turn take some policy ideas to the International Council Meeting to be voted on). It also however reflects AI growing capacity to work on ‘the full spectrum’ of human rights. Some in AI consider this a natural evolution for a human rights organisation.

Personally I see nothing contentious in AI adopting the death penalty as a campaign and developing it as a specialism. Indeed the last 40 years has shown us that AI has played a central role in the fight against the death penalty which has seen it almost eradicated in most of the world. This is a record in which I am proud to have played a small part of.

In what is the first logical step in Cohen’s article he connects AI growing mandate with the much more recent move ‘grow in the global south’ – an admirable goal. He then connects this with AI’s work on economic social and cultural rights, such as the right to education.

Cohen seems to see (or wishes to present no argument for) why AI might be working on issues such as the right to education. Instead he comments “Human rights “for the vast majority of the world’s population don’t mean very much”…Freedom of expression means nothing to a man who can’t read”. You can hear him sneering as he adds, “Poverty, not authoritarianism, was the evil that Amnesty must face”.

As a standalone sentence, ‘Freedom of expression means nothing to a man who can’t read’ makes a lot of sense. As I stated earlier though, there is a very real debate within AI membership about the scope of AI mandate and whether or not it should stretch to ESCR. Again though, Cohen shows no willing to dwell on such important questions.

Instead Cohen skips to another internal disagreement that resulted in the departure of Gita Saghal, the then head of AI gender unit. Cohen states she left because “she criticised its [AI’s} alliances with misogynist Islamists”. By ‘misogynist Islamists’ he means Mozzam Begg, a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner, who now runs the organisation ‘Caged Prisoners’.

I share some, but not all of, Gita’s concerns. Unlike her however, I feel confident within AI for room to debate these issues. The very idea that it was as simple as Gita being ‘forced out’ by AI though is simply misleading. Equally, the assertion that Cohen leaves unchallenged that ‘AI is in cohort with misogynist Islamists’ is also misleading. A curtsey glance at AI work on women’s rights across the Arab world will give evidence of that.

As Cohen’s article drags on so it gets more and more alarmist. He quotes an anonymous source ‘within AI’ that claims “sustained and strategic campaigning that we do with partner organisations, the UK government, the UK public, etc, will end“. This is simply not true. Sustained and strategic campaigning in the UK will remain at the heart of AIUK’s work. Simple.

Cohen finishes with a rallying cry for members to not ‘take it’. And, to an extent, I agree. If you are a member, research these issues beyond Cohen’s misleading snapshots and then come along to the AGMs and debate and vote.

That is how a membership organisation works!  This is how we will ensure AI is able to do what it does best – fight for human rights and shed a light onto some of the darkest situations around the world.

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October 24, 2012 · 5:01 pm

Rockets and war crimes cannot break the Israeli peace movement

At the time of writing, 80 rockets have been launched from Gaza since last night – all aimed at the south of Israel.

The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) spokesman on twitter pointed out earlier that these rockets are not always intercepted.

The latest series of attacks have caused at least 5 injuries. Towns across the south of Israel are, once again, living in fear that a rocket could hit at any moment.

These attacks, due to their indiscriminate nature are a violation of International Humanitarian Law as they fail to distinguish between civilian and combatant. Amnesty International has accused Hamas, who regularly claim responsibility for these rocket attacks, of War Crimes.

These most recent attacks reminded me of my visit to Sderot earlier this year. Sderot is an Israeli town less than a kilometer from the Gaza border with a population of just 24,000 people. Life in Sderot is dictated by the near constant danger of rocket attacks.

Every house in Sderot has a built in ‘safe room’. I was told residents have just 14 seconds to get to it should they hear the warning siren. A physical impossibility for many such as Sderot’s elderly residents.

Town planners have ensured that there are always bomb shelters close by out in the streets. Every bus stop is built to double up as a bomb shelter. As a result, residents of Sderot are never far from shelter nor the reminder that they live in a constant danger.

Nearly all of Sderot’s residents have been affected by rocket attacks. 13 people have been killed in the small town in the last decade alone. The most recent was 35 year old Shir-El Friedman who was killed on the 9th May 2008.

Despite this terrifying reality, I met some within this small community that are actively looking to reach out to those living in Gaza.

I met a representative from ‘Other Voice‘ – a group of Israelis, mainly based in Sderot, who are working to end the circle of violence both in Gaza and Sderot. Their website states:

“The Palestinians are also suffering. They, like us, strive for a quiet and peaceful life and for a better future. We believe that only by working together can we reach a long lasting solution. Therefore, our group is in ongoing contact with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who believe, as we do, in non-violence and mutual respect that will bring about the much anticipated change”.

To meet Israelis living with this constant threat of attack but who were looking to create dialogue rather than conflict was truly inspiring. Too often, across both Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, I witnessed the exact opposite happening.

The most difficult question I am left with, is that I don’t know how I would respond if I lived under such constant fear! This however only exaggerates my admiration for those like the members of Other Voice.

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September 6, 2012 · 1:08 pm

Leo McKinstry should be glad there isn’t a fit for work test for journalists. If there was, he’d fail

This is a guest article from Eugene Grant. Eugene works in the third sector as a public policy advisor on poverty and welfare, and comments regularly on disability and issues of social policy. He blogs at Dead Letter Drop.

“Over the last few months we have seen a continuous drip-feed of stories which have promoted a range of inaccurate and generalised accusations against disabled people with long term health conditions. As a result disabled people have faced greater hostility from the public, with many claiming that they have experienced hostility, discrimination and even physical attacks from strangers.”

So starts the National Union of Journalists’ opening statement on media coverage of disabled people.

Last summer, a report strongly criticised some sections of the media for the way in which they reported stories on disability benefits. Specifically, the pejorative language such as the use of terms like ‘work shy’ or ‘scrounger’. The fact that this report came, not from a ‘usual suspect’ disability charity or campaign organisation, but from the respected, cross-party Work and Pensions Select Committee is an indication as to just how serious the problem has become.

The 2012 London Paralympics is a wonderful opportunity to openly celebrate disability and difference. But, a change in our social narrative is badly needed. As I have written before, disability hate crime – which itself is under-reported and often ignored by police – remains a vile and stubborn stain on our social fabric.

This goes not just for adults, but children too; a recent academic study of disabled children found a fifth of them had been attacked physically, sexually, abused emotionally or neglected.

It is worth bearing this all in mind, when you read this spiteful, professionally weak and woefully misleading article, titled, ‘The Paralympics show up a corrupt benefits system’ by Leo McKinstry in the Daily Express. It is not that Mr McKinstry’s view of the welfare state differs to mine, which vexes me most; I fully accept that people will have different views on what the role of the state should be in providing disabled and vulnerable people with financial support. It is the fact that Mr McKinstry’s tendentious argument is based on un-checked, un-picked and inaccurate assumptions; he presents fiction as fact and fact as fiction.

Let the dissection begin.

He says: “One particular target of the activists’ fury is the international firm ATOS, which, under the coalition’s new, more rigorous, benefits regime, carries out assessments to decide if individuals are fit to work and what level of support they might require.”

He is correct in so far as Atos – which, with a note of sad irony, also sponsors the Paralympic games – does conduct the government’s fit-for-work assessment, the WCA. But this is a test that is not fit for purpose. Were it fully functioning it would not have been the subject of several internal and independent reviews; nor would experts like Paul Gregg – who designed some of the welfare-to-work support packages connected to the test – have spoken out against it; nor would almost a third of those decisions that are appealed then be successfully overturned in favour of the claimant. But no matter. Let’s move on.

He writes: “[Benefit] claims have rocketed in recent decades because the system is so lax. In fact, the definition of incapacity has been remorselessly expanded to widen the scope for dependency.”

I presume he means when in 2005 the Disability Discrimination Act was expanded to include conditions like Multiple Sclerosis, cancer and HIV? So, none of these conditions could have adverse impact on a person’s ability to work or give rise to any additional costs? Right. There’s a reason you’re not a doctor, Leo.

He goes on “claims for incapacity benefit are dominated, not by the physically disabled, but by those with mental health problems like depression, stress and behavioural disorders.”

Read this again. What he’s suggesting is that people with mental health issues should not be entitled to state support, or that they’re all fakers who should just snap out of it. I myself am not an expert in mental health conditions but I’m pretty sure my colleagues over at Mind and Rethink would know of some people who would take serious issue with this.

He goes on:

“In this chaotic world, it is no surprise, that the total number of people on Disability Living Allowance has gone up from 1.1 milllion in 1992, when the benefit was first introduced, to 3.2 million today…”

See what he’s done here? All he’s done is point out that the caseload for DLA (a vital benefit that acts as a contribution to the extra costs disabled people have to pay as a result of living in our society with an impairment or condition) has increased. The ‘chaotic world’ and ‘no surprise’ bits helps frame it in a way that leaves readers with the impression that the only explanation for this rise in claims for DLA must be because people are fraudulently claiming it. Not because, oh I don’t know, that it’s well established that our society is getting progressively older and disability increases with age? Or that more people with critical needs are surviving into later life? Or that medical advancements are enabling many disabled people to live longer? Or that academic research shows that survival rates of very premature babies are, thankfully, improving, which suggests the number of people born with severe disability has increased. But these things are of no consequence right?

But wait, here comes the best bit. McKinstry writes:

“AND the anti-reform campaigners are in denial about the extent of this costly failure. They are fond of telling us that fraud represents just 0.5 per cent of disability claims, but that is a completely bogus figure.

In the courts there is a constant parade of cases involving serious benefits fraud, like the conviction last week of serial cheat Barry Brooks, who grabbed £1.8 million from the taxpayer by pretending to be confined to a wheelchair”

First, is the claim that the 0.5% fraud rate for DLA is “bogus…” Funny that, when you consider the figure comes from – wait for it – the Department for Work and Pensions. But more to the point, his only evidence for his claim that a Government statistic is ‘bogus’ is that there have been court cases of benefits fraud brought to his attention – of which he cites just one. And even then he fails to pick a case of DLA fraud. A quick Google search of Barry Brooks shows that he was jailed for fraudulently claiming support from Access to Work, and not DLA.

Mr McKinstry, you can lambast the welfare benefits system all you like. All that I ask is that, as a journalist, you do it accurately and check your line of argument. It’s a shame there isn’t a fit for work test for journalists and social commentators. If there was, you would fail it miserably.

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August 21, 2012 · 1:23 pm

Testimony from an IDF soldier living near Qalqiliya

I have written a lot on this blog trying to explain to you what life was like living in Jayyus, a small Palestinian village close to Qalqiliya in the West Bank. Equally, I tried to give the people I met a platform to tell their stories.

Well today I stumbled across this testimoney from an Israeli Lieutenant in the IDF who served close to Qalqiliya over ten years ago. Things have changed a lot since then but I thought you might appreciate this view of Qalqiliya from the eyes of an Israeli serving in the army.

The period this describes is October 2000. You can read the full testimony here.

“I was around Qalqiliya then, which was considered a very friendly town to Israelis. Many Israelis used to go there, shopping for everything, using local garages for repairs, buying stuff, drugs, everyone was hanging out there all the time, and suddenly all at once lots of Palestinians were attacking the checkpoint. A little checkpoint, and all those Palestinians coming along and throwing stones, and armed. You couldn’t even tell where this suddenly fell from.

This happened while you were already an officer?

Right after I was commissioned…Our objective was to lay ambushes on various roads in the area, which are the border line between a Palestinian village and a Jewish settlement. They would simply come down after nightfall and throw stones at a car. The driver – frightened – would move the car and get hit. Our objective was to actually catch them [The Palestinians] before the act.

What do you do to catch them?

Lay an ambush. Our instructions were: anyone seen after 9 PM or so descending towards the road, you shoot. Legs down. Every ambush of this sort goes out with a small marksman rifle.

The instructions were to shoot at anyone arriving on the road without any warning? How did it go?

Think of a road with these steep hills on both sides which do not actually enable strategic control of the road. There are terraces of olive groves, that is the reason for this structure. It was rather logical geographically. This was at the time when the east-west highway was not yet constructed. There was just the old road. The new road simply bypasses all the Arab villages, creates an isolated route. There was none of this back then.

The situation was not weird, it was ridiculous. People shot at anything they saw moving. As a commander on the ground who is not supposed to shoot, you give the order to your soldiers and expect them to understand that if they see someone through their special sights who looks like he’s going to do something, they should shoot him in the legs or lower. In the knees. That was a very clear instruction. And they knew perfectly well how to aim and where to aim, regarding ranges. There are different ranges, after all. If you shoot at a leg you might hit the chest. There are situations where you know exactly what you’re going to hit if you aim here or there as regards the weapon’s deviation. And suddenly after two months of warfare, I don’t even know how long that was, two months of uncertainty, because there actually was uncertainty, what we called ‘waning and waxing tides’, two days calm and then chaos, and wild deployments, everyone in the area would leap at anything, stressed out like crazy.

So lots and lots of people got hurt and died, for no reason. Nothing you could even say they did. They did nothing. And then the army realized it was losing control. I’m talking to you here about a company in training of young soldiers, eight months into their army service. The older companies were even in a rougher spot. They had marksmen rifles so they would simply snipe away with more serious ammunition, not 5.56 but 7.62 caliber. Suddenly the army realized it had a problem. At least, the way I understand it now, they stopped it. They said: no more shooting. You need confirmation to open fire. Suspect arrest procedure. So then this procedure came in for suspect arrest. It didn’t exist until then. No such thing. Suspect arrest procedure went like this: You detect someone, you shoot….

It was a confused time. There were stones hurled, Molotov-cocktails, but no serious terrorist attacks. No targeted alerts. Nothing of the sort. As for intelligence information, it read like this: there is an attempt to enter roads. No one spoke of infiltration into Jewish settlements, soldier kidnappings, nothing targeted.

This instruction was handed down from the top, to shoot anyone approaching the roads after 9 PM?

Yes. It was a clear order, at least in our designated area. Anyone descending from that hill and looking suspicious, with no obvious reason to be there. Look, let’s say at 11 or 10 PM people have no reason to be there. Could be, perhaps they did do something. On the other hand, people at 11 PM don’t have too much reason to travel that road, see? So perhaps people really did try to throw stones, but hitting, I mean I’m talking to you here about kids hitting. Okay, they throw stones inside the village. Or there’s a demonstration in the village. The army tricks them by trying to enter and creating a riot. We knew that every entry of an army jeep into an angry village provokes a riot. That’s what brought them on, really. Not every commander was interested in keeping things quiet.

Some wanted to heat things up. Commanders? Company commanders?

Yes. The battalion commander was moderate, the company commanders were all gung-ho. Really. They were eager to enter and create planned disturbances.

A company commander would come along and say: tonight at 8 PM we’re going in for a provocation? Or during a patrol, he’d suddenly say: ‘Let’s hop in’?

No. It was more like, let’s hop in, make the rounds of the village now”.

 

This testimony was taken by the organisation “Breaking the Silence“

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August 9, 2012 · 10:54 am

Special Report: Palestinian Villages in the Firing Zone

This is a special report by my friend and colleague Leah Levane.

“Farming is in our soul and in our blood, if they take this away, we will be destroyed” Sara, resident of Jinba

The 30,000 stony, barren dunams of Massafer Yatta in the South Hebron Hills are beautiful in a stark and awesome way.  It is also, apparently ideal training terrain for the Israeli army, particularly in the event of another war with Lebanon.

Consequently the 1500 people, 14,000 sheep and 2,000 goats that currently live in 8 villages towards the southernmost part of the West Bank, will be evacuated and their villages destroyed so that the training can take place. The Israeli Minister of Defence gave these orders in the Israeli High Court on July 23rd 2012, as the government’s response to the villagers’ appeal to the designation of their homes and land not as Massafer Yatta, not as a collection of hamlets with their own names but instead as ‘FIRING ZONE 918’.

Although the Court has still to make its final decision on this case, the army has already been closing roads and on August 7th, set up a checkpoint between the villages of Jinba and Khirbet Biral’Idd. Helicopters flew over the South Hebron Hills to support the army’s actions, and soldiers then entered the village, frightening residents and damaging property. Even before the announcement was made, a car was impounded for 10 days that belong to Comet ME, an organisation linking these and other villages in the south Hebron Hills to electricity by putting in solar panels and wind turbines.

Life is hard in these villages even without the Occupation to contend with; water is difficult and expensive to obtain and transport across the rough terrain where there are only dirt roads. The school in Jinba operates from tents, which are cold in winter and access to teaching materials is very limited. The school in At Tuwani (just outside the northern perimeter of Massafer Yatta, was under a demolition order for many years and was also contending with settler violence from the nearby Havat Ma’on settlement outpost (illegal even under Israeli law, although all Settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law),

The area was first declared a firing Zone in 1999. 700 residents were evacuated.. The evacuation was halted by a interim injunction issued by the Israeli High Court of Justice (HCJ) in the year 2000 and in response to petitions filed by the residents and this limbo has continued since then following further petitions,, but no final decision has yet been made and this has meant that for over a decade, the residents of these twelve uniquely traditional villages have lived under the constant threat of demolition, evacuation, and dispossession.

Israel’s claims are that the people who live and continue their ancient culture of husbandry cultivation are nonpermanent residents and the villagers maintain that they are permanent residents but the Security Forces say they are not and that they are seasonally nomadic. School records in the area show that families are there year round.  (The Israeli Army is permitted under international law and if for security reasons, to remove people from a firing zone or limit their mobility within the area, except in the case of permanent residents.

These hamlets existed long before 1967 and some residents have ownership documents from the Ottoman period. And the historical existence of the hamlets has been recognised by the Israeli Ministry of Defense [see Ya’akov Havakuk, Life in the Caves of South Hebron (1985, Israel Ministry of Defense).

Now, after twelve years of waiting for a final decision, the Minister of Defence has announced that he wants to order the people from 8 of the 12 villages to leave.  These villages are: A-Sfay,  Al Kharuba, A-Tabban, Al Fakheit, Al Majaz, Al Halaweh, Al Mirkez, Jinba. Of the remaining 4 villages, at least two, Tuba and Um Fagara, have demolition orders on most of the structures in their villages. If the decision is implemented, what will happen to the people there?

In August and November 1999 the majority of people in these twelve hamlets were served with immediate evacuation orders due to their “illegal dwelling in a fire zone”. On November 16, 1999 security forces arrived and evacuated over 700 residents by force. The IDF destroyed homes and cisterns and confiscated property.  The villagers, dispossessed of their lands and their livelihoods, were left homeless. (ACRI – May 2012)

We met Sara, who is a teacher who lives with her husband and in-laws in Jinba.  Her husband died during the second intifada and later she married again. She has 5 children and the whole family have been subject to military incursions over the years. The DCO do not grant them any building permits, no matter how often they apply. Because of her first husband’s connection to the intifada, the family members are not allowed to work in Israel.  The option the Israeli government give them is to move to the nearby large town of Yatta where unemployment is very high and 75% work in the Israeli economy. Furthermore, as a large extended family they rely solely on agricultural activities for livelihood. Sara said “farming is in our soul and in our blood, if they take this away, we will be destroyed. “

Is the area needed by the Army?

The army had not held live-fire training in the firing zone for many years and by 2005, the two main military bases located in and around the firing zone, Adasha Infantry and Um Daraj, had been closed down. (Of course, this was before the loss of the Second Lebanon War in 2006).  These bases have not been reopened. (See 2005 B’Tselem Report (“Means of Expulsion: Violence, Harassment and Lawlessness against Palestinians”)

The Army has objected to the fact that there are people living in the area and visiting the area, other than those who in 2000 were granted the right to return to the area pending a final decision. Of course, the legal proceedings have been going on for 12 years and so it is to be expected that the villages have developed, the population grown and needs have changed. (See also section below)

British Aid and humanitarian needs in the area

The UK government funded 15 cisterns and a series of 19 toilets, including cesspools as part of the DFID humanitarian project. These structures serve 18 families (approximately 320 persons), the majority of whom reside in A-Sfay.  All these structures have had demolition orders on them for some years and the Security Forces contend that the establishment of the cisterns and cesspools was a violation of the Court’ agreeing that residents could come back into the area in March 2000 pending a permanent decision because this calls upon  Palestinian residents to preserve the status quo that existed at the time the (1999) evacuation orders were served. (my emphasis).

It is important, however, to note that international humanitarian law requires an Occupying Power has a responsibilityfor the humanitarian needs of the population and it is does not make sense to the residents that when the Court issued an order allowing the villagers to return to their lands in 2000, that it meant to deny them their most basic needs. Without these cisterns and cesspools structures, a humanitarian crisis would surely have already arisen.

Finally….

Massafer Yatta is in Area C, an area comprising 62% of the West Bank, including all the Israeli Settlements and Settlement outposts.  It is almost impossible for Palestinians in Area C to get permits to build houses, schools, cisterns, clinics, tents. Everything is considered a structure, solar panels and wind turbines and even the water tankers that have to be driven in by tractor to all the Palestinian villages in this area. There are now more Israeli citizens living in Area C of the West Bank than Palestinians (350,000 Israelis compared with c. 150,000 Palestinians and these figures exclude the 200,000 Jewish Israelis living in the annexed part of Jerusalem, which was part of the West Bank until 1967.)

My thanks to ACRI (Association for Civil Rights in Israel, who together with Rabbis for Human Rights and Breaking the Silence provided much of the history and technical information

Leah Levane is serving for three months with the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). EAPPI brings internationals to the West Bank to experience life under occupation. Ecumenical Accompaniers (EAs) provide protective presence to vulnerable communities, monitor and report human rights abuses and support Palestinians and Israelis working together for peace. When they return home, EAs campaign for a just and peaceful resolution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict through an end to the occupation, respect for international law and implementation of UN resolutions.

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July 25, 2012 · 2:21 pm

Amazing people inspire Steve to spread the word

This article was was published in the Stroud News and Journal.

Human rights activist Steve Hynd has returned home to the Five Valleys after five months working in one of the most volatile, divided regions on the planet. The vital observations he made in the  West Bank helped inform major peace organisations desperate to bring stability to the landlocked territory, which has been fought over for decades between Israeli and Palestinian troops. Having met some extraordinary people on his travels, Steve is now keen to share his experiences of life in the strained region, where human rights abuses continue to shock the world.

“I LOVE Stroud – everything from its green valleys to its award winning ale. It has a buzz about it that combines a feeling of vibrancy with a relaxed tranquil atmosphere.

It was therefore quite a jump for me to go from a quiet life in the west country to accepting a position with a human rights monitoring scheme in the West Bank.

I have just returned from five months with the scheme, which was co-ordinated by the World Council of Churches.

Throughout my time I witnessed some terrible human rights abuses but I also met some inspiring people carving out lives for themselves in incredibly difficult situations.

For example, I met Mohammed in East Jerusalem who was evicted from his home aged just 14.  His neighbourhood, Sheikh Jarrah, is being targetted by Israeli settlers looking to establish a permenant Jewish presence there.

Today, Mohammad lives back with his family but is forced to live alongside the settlers in his house, which has been literally divided into two, with his family living in the back and the settlers  living in the front.

What struck me most about Mohammad’s story was the honesty with which he told it. He would be the first to admit that he reacted with deep anger towards all Israelis, feeling the rage and injustice of the situation in which he found himself.

This was until Israeli peace activists such as Tzvi Benninga started to come and help him, his family and his neighbourhood. This was the first time he had met an Israeli who was not a soldier or a settler. Every Friday, Palestinians, Israelis and internationals come together to protest in MohammadÕs neighbourhood.

One of my organisation’s roles was to go along to these protests to monitor proceedings. In the past it has been met with violence and tear gas and it would be our role to report that.

Mohammad is just one of a series of inspiring characters that I met whilst I was there. Now that I am back home I feel it is only right to try and tell the stories of a few of the people that I met.

As such I am hoping to do a series of talks around the area about my experiences.

If you would be interested in hosting a talk then please do not hesitate to contact me by emailing stevehynd24@gmail.com.

Whenever I asked anyone I met what they would want me to do to help their situation they nearly always responded in the same way – ‘go home and tell people what you have seen here’, they would say  – so this is what I am hoping to do.

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July 17, 2012 · 10:50 am

Israeli surrealism: ‘This is not an occupation’

This article was written by Chris Cox, a friend, a journalist and currently based in Hebron with EAPPI. Chris will be blogging throughout his stay in the West Bank.

Hazem Abu Rajab outside his house in Hebron, July 2012. [Photo: Eero Mäntymaa]

The art of surrealism involves mastering the element of surprise, the jarring juxtaposition, and the perfect non sequitur. This week, a judiciary panel appointed by the Israeli government proved themselves to be gifted surrealists: boldly breaking with decades of legal consensus to the contrary, the panel concluded that Israel is in fact not occupying the West Bank.One of its arguments, in a nutshell, is that occupations only last for short periods. Because Israel has been ‘a presence’ (or, in the language of unanimously-approved UN resolutions, ‘an occupier’) in the West Bank for over four decades, the situation no longer qualifies as occupation.

Try telling that to Hazem Abu Rajab, who shares his Hebron home with the Israeli border police. Since March this year, the Rajab family – nine in total, including Hazem’s parents – have had armed police occupying two-thirds of their house. Two of them sit outside the front door around the clock, while another mans the roof – on which flies an Israeli flag.

That would be enough to make anyone’s life miserable. When I visited Hazem last week – along with my EAPPI colleagues – he told me that the border police routinely pretend they do not know his family members, making them wait up to 20 minutes while they ‘confirm’ their identities before allowing them into the house.

But this is not an occupation, of course. It’s essential to remember that.

The Rajab family are in this situation because Israeli-Jewish settlers broke into their home in March this year, claiming to have purchased it from a Palestinian man – a claim the Rajab family flatly reject. Hazem told the Guardian how his family were woken at 1am by Israeli soldiers, armed and wearing black, who broke down three doors. “Within five minutes, 100 to 150 settlers were inside,” he said.

The settlers have since been evicted, but their claim has led the Israeli authorities to classify the property – which has been in the Rajab family for generations – as ‘disputed’.

“It’s going to take forever,” says Hamed Qawasmeh, a UN human rights officer. “It’s always like this. Once a home is ‘disputed’, no one can move into it.”

Hazem has spent the last seven years converting the basement of the house into an apartment, so that he can get married and live there with his wife. He works as a labourer, on low wages, and had painstakingly laid the foundations for the next phase of his life.

Now, Hazem and his family are trapped in limbo while the case makes its glacial way through the Israeli courts. His basement apartment was welded shut by the settlers when they moved in, and remains so.

Meanwhile, Hazem says, the border police humiliate his family in dozens of ways on an almost daily basis. He tells me the guards urinate in front of his female family members, swear loudly and play music, and make the Rajab family keep their windows closed on hot summer days.

“Each one of them is a government on his own,” says Hazem.

But this is not an occupation. Remember that. This is not an occupation.

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July 16, 2012 · 4:08 pm

2000 Trees 2012 – bringing you the best new and underground music, despite the weather

‘Happy Campers’ – Photo by James Popel

Stood with my hood up, rocking the full waterproof image and ankle deep in mud I met Claire, a happy camper at Gloucestershire’s 2000 Trees festival. From under her waterproof cape she wipes off the water running down her face and comments, “to the untrained eye, this mud might look as bad as Glastonbury in 2007, but it really isn’t you know. You can glide through this mud without worrying about losing your wellies”.  Looking around, it was clear that the mud and rain wasn’t dampening spirits. I asked Claire if she was having a good time and she responds with a wink and a smile, “the best”.

I spent the last weekend at Upcote Farm, the home of 2000 Trees, trying to pin down exactly what makes this festival not just good, but bloody epic – despite the weather.

2000 Trees has become an integral part of the alternative festival scene and has consistently attracted me back. Founded in 2007 and selling just over 1,000 tickets it has grown in the last six years to four stages and attracting just under 5,000 festival goers.

At the heart of the festival is an ethos to do it differently, to not succumb to the same old festival formula. In their own words, “as cheesy as it may sound 2000trees genuinely started with six mates sat around a campfire complaining about the state of UK Festivals…and their ever spiralling ticket prices, poor facilities and pursuit of profit at all costs”.

This ethos of ‘doing it differently’ transcends the baseless words of small festival rhetoric into an exciting reality that can be seen penetrating every corner of the festival.

The food is varied but it is nearly all local, sustainably sourced or organic. This commitment to great local food and drink permeates right through to the bars who stock Cotswold Lager. Their policies on using bio-fuels and their great recycling record have meant that they have won “A Greener Festival” award for their on-going commitment to environmental sustainability. Last but certainly not least is their commitment to booking the best new and underground music Britain has to offer.

2012 alone boasted a diverse line up varying from Lucy Rose to Pulled Apart by Horses. In addition, there was a continued emphasis placed on the local music scene in and around Gloucestershire. Local independent labels such as ‘I Started The Fire Records’ were strongly represented throughout the weekend and enjoy a close working relationship with festival.

These artists join the likes of Frank Turner, Bombay Bicycle Club, King Blues and many more that have graced the small stages in the festival’s short six year history.  Personally however the highlight of the whole weekend came in the form of a band that was completely new to me, the Bristol based trio ‘The Cadbury Sisters’. The three sisters blend a three part harmony with ease to create a melancholic but beautiful mix of contemporary folk.

The festival’s commitment to bringing the best of new and underground British music, all of which has been personally scouted by the event organisers, has resulted in the festival becoming a firm favourite with the artists as well as the punters.

As Chris T-T (Xtra Mile) commented to me, “The best bit was the family feeling that Xtra Mile artists had through the weekend; especially with Lockey and Marwood playing almost every year, Trees feels like the label’s home festival”.

Pushed for a ‘worst part of 2000 Trees’ Chris T-T commented, “The worst bit was the plastic hexagons they laid down to help people get across the site; they had tiny holes in, so as you squelched on them jets of mud spunked up through the holes, right up your legs”.

I think most festival organisers would take that if that was the worst criticism thrown at them.

Late on Saturday night, by chance, I bumped into Claire as we were both walking down the hill back to the main arena and we talked some more about the festival and what we thought made a good festival epic. It was one of those pleasant festival conversations you have with complete strangers. As I walked away I wished her a good weekend.  As an afterthought she shouted after me and said, “Isn’t everyone having fun though”. I responded honestly, “yeah, they are”. She then did my job for me summarising perhaps all that you need to know about 2000 Trees and said, “perhaps that’s what makes 2000 Trees epic?”.

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July 10, 2012 · 9:35 am

Violent attacks in Yanoun, West Bank

For the last two months (May 2012 – June 2012) I have been staying in the village of Yanoun in the West Bank. It is with great sadness that I share this latest report coming from EAPPI.

On Saturday, 7 July 2012 at approximately 3:00PM (GMT+2) Israeli settlers from the illegal settlement of Itamar approached three Palestinian farmers in Yanoun who were harvesting their wheat and grazing their sheep. The settlers were armed with knives and killed three of the farmers’ sheep. A clash then ensued, in which the settlers and farmers began throwing stones at one-another.

When EAs arrived to the scene, three fires were ablaze in the fields, but it was unknown whether the flames were intentionally lit by the settlers or were started by teargas canisters that the Israeli military fired at the farmers. Nonetheless, two wheat fields and one olive grove were burnt, and when other Palestinian farmers arrived at the scene to turn out the flames, Israeli soldiers and police prevented them from reaching the fields by firing more teargas at them. In total six Palestinians were injured, and five were hospitalized:

·       Jawdat Bani Jaber (Hospitalized): was beaten and stabbed multiple times by settlers, then shot in the face and foot by Israeli soldiers. He was then handcuffed by Israeli soldiers and attacked again by the settlers while the soldiers pursued other Palestinian farmers. After being attacked, the military did not allow a present ambulance take him to a hospital or care for him for approximately 3-hours.

·       Ibrahim Bani Jaber (Hospitalized): was beaten by a soldier on his head with the butt-stock of an M16 rifle, causing damage to his eye, and was later beaten by settlers while handcuffed.]

·       Hakimun Bani Jaber (Hospitalized): was shot in the arm at close range by a soldier.

·       Adwan Bani Jaber (Hospitalized): was beaten by settlers with clubs.

·       Ashraf Bani Jaber: was beaten by a soldier with a club.

·       Jawdat Ibrahim (Hospitalized): was handcuffed, beaten by Israeli soldiers and then released for the settlers to attack as they watched. He was then tied up by the settlers and left on his land; he was found the next morning (Sunday, 8 July 2012).

Rashid, Mayor of Yanoun and long-time EAPPI local contact, expressed fear that settlers initiated the clash to enforce new invisible boundaries, which would defacto confiscate much of the area’s wheat fields to the Itamar Settlement.

ADDITTIONAL INFORMATION:

Yanoun is a small village in Area C of the West Bank, just southeast of Nablus. It has about 65 inhabitants who are dependent upon farming and animal husbandry as their main source of livelihood. The village is surrounded by the illegal Israeli settlement of Itamar and since 1996 the residents of Yanoun have consistently experienced settler harassment and violence, as well as property damage and confiscation.

In October of 2002 the settlers of Itimar forcibly evacuated Yanoun of its inhabitants. International humanitarian agencies and Israeli human rights organizations then came to Yanoun to provide a protective presence with the aim of facilitating the return of the community. These left Yanoun within weeks of the community’s return; however, the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) has remained in Yanoun since October 2002. Based in Yanoun Ecumenical Accompaniers (EAs) provide a protective presence, monitor, and report on human rights violations in the community, as well as the entire Nablus Governorate and Jordan Valley.

INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW:

The International Court of Justice has stated that the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention for the Protection of Civilian persons in Times of War applies to the occupied Palestinian territory. All Israeli settlements are illegal according to Article 49 the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states, “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”

Article 4 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states, “Persons protected by the Convention are those who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals.” Thus, according to International Humanitarian Law, Israel has the duty as an occupying power to protect Palestinians from settler attacks.

We encourage you to:

·       Forward this article to your networks.

·       Inform your representative in parliament about what has happened in Yanoun.

·       Update news/media agencies (radio, TV & print) in your countries about this incident.

·       Contact (Preferably fax) the following officials and call on them to condemn this attack and hold Israeli settlers accountable for the human rights violations that they commit against Palestinian civilians:

o   Your Ambassador and/or Consul General in Israel

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Sherut/ForeignInIsrael/Continents

o   The Israeli Ambassador in your country

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/About+the+Ministry/Diplomatic+missions/Web+Sites+of+Israeli+Missions+Abroad.htm

You may use the sample letter below or draft your own:

Dear Ambassador / Consul General / Minister / Judge Advocate General / Lieutenant-General,

I call upon you to condemn Israeli settler violence against Palestinian civilians and to call for all those who violate human rights in the oPt to be held legally accountable for their actions.

On Saturday, 7 July 2012 at approximately 3:00PM (GMT+2)Israeli settlers from the illegal settlement of Itamar approached three Palestinian farmers in Yanoun who were harvesting their wheat and grazing their sheep. The settlers were armed with knives and killed three of the farmers’sheep.

A clash then ensued, in which the settlers and farmers began throwing stones at one-another. Israeli soldiers and police arrived to the scene only to support the settlers’ attack on a defenseless community.

In total six Palestinians were injured, and five were hospitalized:

·      Jawdat Bani Jaber (Hospitalized): was beaten and stabbed multiple times by settlers,then shot in the face and foot by Israeli soldiers. He was then handcuffed by Israeli soldiers and attacked again by the settlers while the soldiers pursued other Palestinian farmers. After being attacked, the military did not allow a present ambulance take him to a hospital or care for him for approximately 3-hours.

·      Ibrahim Bani Jaber (Hospitalized): was beaten by a soldier on his head with the butt-stock of an M16 rifle, causing damage to his eye, and was later beaten by settlers while handcuffed.

·      Hakimun Bani Jaber (Hospitalized): was shot in the arm at close range by a soldier.

·      Adwan Bani Jaber (Hospitalized): was beaten by settlers with clubs.

·      Ashraf Bani Jaber: was beaten by a soldier with a club.

·      Jawdat Ibrahim (Hospitalized): was handcuffed, beaten by Israeli soldiers and then released for the settlers to attack as they watched. He was then tied up by the settlers and left on his land; he was found the next morning (Sunday, 8 July 2012).

Though the settlers were the attackers in this clash, the Israeli Military and Police provided them with protection to carry out the attack. The soldiers and officers attacked Palestinians who defended themselves from the settlers, did not attempt to put out the fires that blazed throughPalestinians’ fields – nor let anyone else do so, and delayed medical attention for the victims of the attack.

Like the many Israeli settler attacks that take place on an on-going basis across the occupied Palestinian territory, no Israeli settlers were arrested during this attack.Sincerely,

YOUR NAME

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July 6, 2012 · 1:02 pm

Another Friday, another protest in Kafr Qaddum

This is a guest article by my friend and colleague David Heap who is currently based in Tulkarm. It was originally published on the EAPPI website.

For the Abu Ihab family, Friday wasn’t too bad. Admittedly there were Israeli soldiers on their roof firing tear gas, they couldn’t leave the house, the sons had been chased down the stairs by armed soldiers and the stink of tear gas and burning car tyres drifted through the room. But Isra’a, the youngest daughter, said they weren’t really afraid today.

Kafr Qaddum is a pleasant Palestinian hillside village of some four thousand people. It has a mayor, a mosque, an elementary school. It had a road joining it to the next village one and a half kilometres away – but not anymore.

Between the two villages are two Israeli settlements, legal under Israeli law, but illegal according to UN Resolutions, which expressly forbid the civilian settlement of lands occupied as a result of conflict. The road was closed for security reasons by the Israeli authorities in 2003. The only security problems the townspeople were aware of were some damage to their crops and olive trees in the early days of the settlement, but all had been peaceful for a good while. Israeli authorities had reportedly promised to re-open the road at the same time as the main road beyond it to Nablus re-opened. This happened two years ago, but their road remained closed.

Since the first of July 2011 the people of Kafr Qaddum have held a demonstration every Friday against the closure, which means a 20 kilometre detour to get to families and friends and a six-fold increase in bus fares for students. It can get very angry, as it had on the 15th of June this year, because the Israeli army had raided the village in the middle of the night before and detained 20 young men. They can be held in administrative detention inside Israel, many kilometres away from their families for hours, days, weeks, months or years, often without trial. If they admit to the claims against them (often stone-throwing) they can be released upon payment of a fine that is around 10,000 shekels (€2000.) A Palestinian going to work in Israel as a labourer or farmhand earns 120-180 shekels per day.

That Friday, it was a game of kids advancing and throwing stones, soldiers dashing forward threateningly with the guns, kids running back, soldiers withdrawing, kids advancing again went on till the main adult procession came up the hill. Tyres had been set alight and were now billowing smoke. The same pattern of ebb and flow was repeated, only now tear gas was being lobbed regularly. Mostly into a field to the side of the demo, but some skittering along the road into the crowd. Men were regularly brought back choking and temporarily blinded and a Red Crescent ambulance zoomed up and down giving aid to the worst affected. One man was hurt more seriously as it seemed his shirt had caught fire and he was burned.

Things quietened down after an hour or so and the procession came back chanting slogans. A quiet enough day we were told. Unlike the previous week there had been no chemically-created “Skunk” water shot from water cannons and no sound bombs, which disorientate and nauseate as well as deafen.

Back in the Abu Ihab house, which is at the outer limit of the village and always caught up in the midst of things, things were now quite calm. The soldiers had left the roof and for once had not cut the television cable. The mother was preparing a huge and delicious meal of chicken, rice, vegetables, pickles, pitta bread, tea and coffee.

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