A year has passed, it feels still as if it was yesterday not because the memories are fresh from what I experienced but because the relationships established stop me from distancing from it all.

I am not even sure I could, all things so closely felt... the news and op-eds, the declarations, the reports...I am as close to the situation as when I was there.

Next week I will be in Brussels with a Delegation of former EA's to speak to MEP, ambassadors, whoever who has hears, the will and the time to listen to what we've lived while on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian territories.

I am worried with a current trend in European Capitals pretending that inviting the parties to talks is enough. Each house built beyond the Green Line, each demolition of a water cistern, house eviction or demolition, relocation of bedouins occurring is endangering an already slim chance for a Two State solution.

What is the proposal then? If we do not want two sovereign States, what do we stand for? An Eretz Israel were a part of the population is neither a citizen nor a foreigner? I've heard this from a settler and couldn't really see for me how that would work. Neither could he, although he did his best to explain that the "palestinians" or "arab israelis"(in his words, his own concepts which he did not really explain) would enjoy all civil liberties but no political rights. Complicated reasoning he did not seem eager to explain.

A State where all, jewish, israeli-arabs, bedouins, refugees from 1948, refugees from 1967, West Bank residents and Gazans are citizens? I can't really understand where the Israeli Government is headed, but I am even more afraid that neither does he.

In a few hours I'll be meeting some Members of the European Parliament, I will tell them what I have witnessed. I hope they believe me, I have sometimes difficult believing it myself, as if it all was a bad dream. Then i read the Haaretz, the New York Times, El Pais and UNRWA, UNOCHA reports and i realize that I was awake.

I am hoping for the day in which this reality is nothing but a memory, replaced by equality true freedom and hopefully two sovereign States.

It hardly feels like Christmas time this year!

On the 24th of the December throughout the World, Christians will gather in churches, with family, friends and communities to celebrate the birth of Christ. They will be chanting about an Holy Night in an Holy Land where the son of God was born and was welcomed by shepperds, foreigners and angels.

It certainly were very different times back when Jesus was born in that cold night, in that crib in Betlehem. The land was also under occupation, life was hard work and not much else. The Roman soldiers, like the Israeli soldiers today, were receiving the taxes for the Emperor, administering the local allegiances and keeping the "peace".


We are today, as we have been yesterday, and will be tomorrow at a crossroads to say and live up to that fundamental truth that :

"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not the privilege of a few, it is the duty and endowment of all. In Palestine, as in many other places of the World, we are failing Humanity by being timid, coward and silent. To speak the truth, to proclaim it is our only option.

 

UNTITLED

Witness statement as given to B’Tselem on Sunday 21 November 2010

At 6am on Friday 19 November 2010 M.A.N., aged 22, went with his grandmother through the agricultural gate at az Zawiye to help her tend the family’s olive trees on the west side of the separation barrier, where they own land.

At 11.30 while the grandmother continued to work on clearing the land, M. came back to the gate intending to go to the mosque to pray. As the gate was not yet open, he sat down on the ground and leant against the gate. He put his pruning saw and his bottle of water on the ground beside him and waited. He was pleased when two jeeps appeared as he thought that they would open the gate early, but the soldiers were verbally aggressive towards him, they then started beating him and kicking him. He asked why they were attacking him and was told that he had caused trouble to the Israeli security by sitting by the gate. It seems he had set off an alarm. They accused him of trying to cut the barbed wire because he had his saw with him.

Another 15 jeeps drove up and the soldiers sent a radio message that they had caught a troublemaker. A female soldier from the last jeep was told to go away when she asked the others why so many were surrounding this man who had no weapon. Most of the soldiers realised this was a false alarm and they drove off leaving two jeeps.

The officer remaining said, ‘You are alone now, I can do anything.’ M. tried to shout for help but they tied a gag around his mouth. The officer told him to take off his shirt and trousers and his underwear, they put his hands behind his back and handcuffed him, they then posed for photographs, one soldier each side of him. He was then blindfolded but he continued to hear the clicks of camera shutters. There were male and female soldiers present. There was some laughter and taunting. Proposals of a sexual nature were made.

Still naked he was put into a jeep and driven to a military camp. There was music, laughter and dancing while they decided what to do with him. They made him sit naked in the hot sun and told him they would put the photos on facebook.

He was then sent to an officer called A. who started crying when he realised that he had several things in common with the victim: they were the same age, both married and both fathers of small daughters. A. said that he had seen M. on the camera at the gate and knew that he was sitting still. He removed the blindfold and the handcuffs and gave M. his clothes. When he heard the other officer coming, he put the handcuffs back on him but this time in front; he also replaced the blindfold, but loosely.

The first officer led him to a small jeep, the sort used by officers, and he drove around for 1 hour 15 minutes accelerating and braking sharply so that M., who was not wearing a seat belt, was thrown suddenly forward and back. When they reached a checkpoint in the separation barrier, the officer kicked M. out of the jeep, and while M. was lying on the ground, he threw out the saw and bottle of water.

A few minutes later a car arrived at the checkpoint. Palestinian workers were being driven by an Israeli. They saw that M. was in handcuffs, and the Palestinians asked the driver to take him towards his home. The driver was suspicious at first and asked what had happened. M. showed him his ID and his previous permit, the current one having been taken by the soldiers. (Because he is a young man he has to reapply for a permit every two months.) The driver was convinced and drove him to the az Zawiya bridge from where he was able to get home.

*The above is an edited version of the statement collected.Source is undisclosed according to publisher concerns.