Archive: Awareness / Reading Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Archive for Awareness

Crib, Wise Men and Separation Wall

December 23rd, 2009 • Awareness, News
Tags: bethlehem, crafts, nativity, separation wall, the guardian

Bethlehem’s modern nativity scene

A Palestinian worker makes souvenirs at the Giacaman olive wood factory in Bethlehem.
The shelves of Bethlehem’s tourist shops this winter are filled with the gifts you might expect. There are countless carved olive-wood crucifixes, angels and last suppers. But there are also unexpected nativity scenes complete with Joseph, Mary, crib, wise men and large Israeli concrete wall with military watchtower.

Israel’s vast separation barrier is at its most prominent around Bethlehem. Here it is a tall concrete wall that crosses into the occupied West Bank, runs up tight against the Palestinian city and cuts it off from much of its farmland. For Palestinians it has become one of the most striking symbols of Israel’s 42-year military occupation.

In some of these modern interpretations of the nativity the wall cuts through the centre of the scene, dividing wise men and camels from the crib. At the Holy Land Arts Museum, on Bethlehem’s Manager Square, the Giacaman family sells a different version, carved carefully to scale with three slices of wall and a looming watchtower. These pieces are not cheap: the full-size version, made from olive wood and with a thick Cyprus-wood watchtower nearly 50cm tall, sells for hundreds of pounds. They are made only to order.

“It’s important that people see what is really happening here,” said Elias Giacaman, 27. “We could have said the scale doesn’t matter, but I wanted it to be actually accurate to show the real image of the wall.”

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Plight and Flight of Palestinian Christians

December 23rd, 2009 • Awareness, News
Tags: arab, bethlehem, christian, palestine

Palestinians can be Christians too

by Dr Hanan Chehata

The “Palestinian problem” is usually perceived to be a “Muslim” problem; a conflict between the Jews and the Muslims and, for the most part, it is. However, it is easy to forget that amidst all of the politics and international wrangling there is another small but extremely important group who also have a deep rooted and valid claim to what is undoubtedly the most disputed “Holy Land” in the world. It may only constitute an extremely small minority of the entire population (estimates range from anywhere between 2.3%-1.5%)¹ but the Palestinian Arab Christians living in Palestine/Israel also have a legitimate historical and spiritual claim to the land. After all, Palestine was the birthplace of Jesus Christ, the land in which he spent his short 33 year life and even shorter term of ministry and, according to Christianity, the place of his crucifixion and resurrection as well. Ever since the time of Jesus there has been a permanent presence of Christianity in the Holy Land. Not only is it a spiritual hub to which Christians from all over the world flock for pilgrimage and prayer, particularly during Christmas and Easter, but it has also been a home to countless Christians of numerous denominations for almost two thousand years.

However, in the last few decades there has been a perceptible exodus of Christians from the Holy Land. As the number of Jewish settler-colonists from all over the world has increased, the number of Christians living in the region has declined sharply. Whereas a few decades ago the number of Christians in Bethlehem, the city in which Jesus was born, was estimated to be around 70%, now they constitute well below a third of the total population.

There are many complicated reasons for this exodus, including the rise of Zionist extremism and economic hardships caused by discriminatory Israeli policies.

Read more…

Don’t forget to contact a Church and organise a screening of Bethlehem: Hidden from View

The Absurdity and Intention of Israeli Policy

December 22nd, 2009 • 1 comment Awareness, News
Tags: gaza, israel, khan younis, palestine, policy, refugee, uk

One family’s powerful and moving story.

by Mohammad Alsaafin

Khan Younis Refugee Camp

I am a Palestinian refugee, from the village of Fallujah which lies between Gaza, Hebron and Asqalan. I’ve never been allowed to visit Fallujah; my grandparents were exiled from there in 1949 (a year after the founding of Israel) and took refuge in the Gaza Strip. My father and I were both born in the Khan Younis refugee camp-he a few years before Gaza was occupied by Israel, and I in 1988, a month after the outbreak of the first intifada. My dad married a woman from the West Bank-they had met and fallen in love while they were both studying at Birzeit University, and when I was two years old we emigrated to the UK where he received his Phd.

Fourteen years later, in 2004, we all returned to Palestine to live in Ramallah. Now British citizens, my parents were determined that my three siblings and I would forge a stronger connection to our homeland than we ever could living abroad. At first, the transition was made easier by the fact that our foreign passports gave us the freedom of movement that was denied to other Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. For me, this reality was shattered when in late 2005 I attempted to cross the River Jordan from the West Bank to visit my aunt in Amman. The Israeli border agents told me that I could not pass, because I had an Israeli issued Gaza ID. Under Israeli military rules, this meant that I could not ‘legally’ be present in the West Bank because the Israeli occupation had mandated that Palestinians from Gaza could not enter the West Bank, and Palestinians from the West Bank could not enter Gaza. This policy had been in force since the early 1990’s, but was applied with increasing severity after the outbreak of the second intifada.

I lived the next four years under constant fear of arrest by the Israeli military, because that would have resulted in almost certain deportation to Gaza, and isolation from my family. For those four years, I never left the confines of Ramallah, so as to avoid the Israeli checkpoints on every one of the town’s entrances-but even this couldn’t give me a sense of security because I had to commute daily to Birzeit University, on a route frequently patrolled by Israeli forces from the nearby settlement of Bet El.

December 22nd, 2009 • Awareness, Film & Documentary, News

from Ma’an News Agency

Palestinian Christians pray at Sunday mass at the Latin Church in Gaza

Gaza – Ma’an – As pilgrims from across the world descend on the West Bank city of Bethlehem for Christmas, Palestinian Christians trapped in Gaza are left to pray that they will be allowed to attend this year’s celebration.

“Oh Lord of peace, grant our country peace, plant the fruit of love in our hearts and give us freedom … We want to live like everyone else. We pray in this feast that the Palestinian people would reconcile, the siege would be lifted, and we would be able to go to Bethlehem, the birthplace of our Lord.”

These were the prayers sent up by Father George, the pastor of the Latin (Roman Catholic) Church in Gaza. Like 3,000 Gazan Christians, Father George is praying for a permit from the Israeli military to leave Gaza and visit Bethlehem.

He also pointed out that this year Christmas marks the grim one-year anniversary of the Israeli war on Gaza – Operation Cast Lead – which began on 27 December. More than 1,400 Palestinians were killed in the three-week offensive.

He said last Christmas season families stayed at home and prayed amid the explosions. “Our children thought the explosions were Christmas celebrations, but unfortunately it was the massacres. Christmas was so sad a year ago, but hope is there this year to celebrate.”

Read More…

Don’t forget to contact a Church and organise a screening of Bethlehem: Hidden from View

The West Bank’s English settler

December 19th, 2009 • 1 comment Awareness
Tags: english, settlement, west bank

More4 News, 2008:

“As hope is rekindled in the Middle East peace process More4 News travels to the disputed areas of the West Bank to meet the only English settler.”

As hope is rekindled in the Middle East peace process More4 News travels to the disputed areas of the West Bank to meet the only English settler. Restarting the Middle East peace process looks like it might be a step closer after Israel said it was nearing agreement on settlement building in the West Bank. Israeli leader Binyamin Netanyahu met the US envoy George Mitchell in London today and settlement-building was the key topic.

Palestinians have always seen the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank as one of the key obstacles to a final peace agreement. The settlements have grown steadily since Israel occupied the West Bank in 1969 – and now nearly half a million Israeli settlers live in the occupied territories. The Israelis agreed to stop building new settlements in 2003 as part of what was called the roadmap to peace. But expansion of existing settlements has continued. The Palestinians have refused to enter new negotiations with Israel until all building stops.

The Jewish settlers in the occupied territories have come from all over the world – more recently from Russia and the former Soviet republics. But others have come from closer to home. Much of the world believes new settlers are one of the main reasons that conflict with the Palestinians persists, but they believe they are fulfilling their duty in occupying their own ancestral land.

Matthew Kalman has been visiting one of the smallest settlements in the West Bank to meet an English woman called Shira Gilad.

Christmas in the Holy Land

December 16th, 2009 • Action, Awareness
Tags: bethlehem, bethlehem: hidden from view, Christmas, holy land

The film above is from The Never Before Campaign for Palestine, watch more films at their Youtube channel.

Don’t forget to contact a Church and organise a screening of Bethlehem: Hidden from View

Ramallah – The Arab Street

December 15th, 2009 • Awareness
Tags: al jazeera, arab street, documentary, film, ramallah, west bank

From Al Jazeera’s The Arab Street:

The Arab Street goes to the heart of the city to find out, bypassing the politicians and pundits to get the views of ordinary men and women. In this episode we visit Ramallah, home to 125,000 people, as well as the Palestinian Authority.

Penned in by Israel’s separation wall and with freedom to travel limited by road blocks, what is everyday life like for Ramallah’s citizens? Like most of occupied Palestine, Ramallah struggles economically. Its people enjoy the moral support of the wider Arab world, but do other Middle Eastern governments provide sufficient financial support?

What is life like behind Israel’s wall and will a freeze on Jewish settlements lead to peace?

Soy Palestino – a musical-comedy journey into Cuba’s politics

December 15th, 2009 • Awareness
Tags: cuba, documentary, film, music, palestine

From Al Jazeera’s Witness

When Osama Qashoo, a Palestinian filmmaker, travelled to Cuba in 2007, he arrived at a time of feverish political uncertainty as Fidel Castro suddenly seemed to be on the point of stepping aside. When Osama introduced himself as a Palestinian to the Cubans, people looked at him in disbelief. He soon discovered that Havana had its own Palestinians – mostly poor black migrants without any documents.

In fact, he found that in Cuba, “Palestino” is a term of racist abuse used to describe the people coming from the rural east of the island to the capital, Havana. He decided to embark on a journey to discover whether the Palestinians of Cuba had anything in common with his own people back home.

The first “Palestino” Osama met ran off with his notebook and the struggle to retrieve it led to a unique friendship with an extraordinary man.

Louisito is a singer and musician who lives in a small wooden box on wheels, covered with instruments made from junk. He entertains other homeless “Palestinos” with songs and comic routines. Louisito had not been home to see his mother for seven years, and so they set off together to meet his family in the east of the island, Cuba’s Palestine.

On a musical-comedy journey into Cuba’s politics, Osama Qashoo lifts the lid on this untold aspect of Castro’s Cuba. Inadvertently, and purely as a result of introducing himself as a Palestinian, Osama had stumbled on a hidden underclass in this staunchly socialist society.

“A moment of truth” from Christian Palestinians

December 14th, 2009 • Action, Awareness
Tags: bethlehem, christians, Christmas, faith, hope, palestinian, truth

A word of faith, hope and love from the heart of Palestinian suffering

We, a group of Christian Palestinians, after prayer, reflection and an exchange of opinion, cry out from within the suffering in our country, under the Israeli occupation, with a cry of hope in the absence of all hope,

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