La Palestine Lutta Continua........

Well……I’m back home after three months as an ‘Ecumenical Accompanier’ in the Qalqiliya District of the West Bank/Palestine. This program of the World Council of Churches, supporting South African EAs to serve in Palestine since 2002 [through the South African Council of Churches], as well as some other 14-15 country participants, has experienced a welcomed attention from Muslim and Christian Palestinian communities where EAs live and work. My village of Jayyus, with some 4000 souls trying to eek out a living through olive and fruit tree farming, offered me and my three other EAs an unending hospitality.

Me at my Jayyus house sign about EAPPI - courtesy of Municipality

  I monitored ‘agriculture gates’ through which farmers must pass, with permits shown to Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldiers….because farmers’ lands are on the other side of a barrier fence built to ‘protect’ expanding Jewish settlements!  I also stalked IDF army vehicles as they entered villages to interrogate young men suspected of ‘terrorist’ acts, such as stone throwing. Often, families suffered night time arrests of their younger males by these incursions. Human rights violations?  Yes.  No charges given. No ‘warrants of arrest’.  No information exchanged with families as to the whereabouts of their incarcerated members. Children under age 18 years taken away from their homes, violating child rights and parental rights to protection.  The list is looonnnng.

Now, I’m roped in as a volunteer with the upcoming Russell Tribunal on Palestine (RToP), taking place at Cape Town’s infamous District Six Museum on 5-6 November 2011.  This will be controversial:   to consider Israeli apartheid as a crime against humanity.  OR…..the official title:

TO HELP TO DETERMINE IF TREATMENT OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE BY ISRAEL MEETS CRITERIA OF THE UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION AGAINST THE CRIME OF APARTHEID

What are the consequences for Israel-Palestine and the international community?

The RT held a session in Barcelona in March 2010 – its ‘people’s jury’ made decisions on the complicity of the European Union and its member states in not holding Israel accountable to the UN Charter, Geneva Conventions and other instruments of international law.  Then in London in November 2010 another Tribunal session ruled on international corporate complicity in profiteering from Israel’s illegal Occupation in the West bank, pointing fingers at such conglomerates as Caterpillar, Veolia, the bank industry, etc.  The fourth Tribunal will be in the United States next year on the complicity of the US and UN in not holding Israel accountable to UN decisions and resolutions on Palestine. 

So, the purpose of the Cape Town session in November is not only to make the apartheid connections, but also to get the Palestine story into the mainstream international media – eg. the New York Times and Washington Post - ahead of next year's US session. 

The jury of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine is composed of international personalities known for their actions and moral integrity, and include:

Ronnie Kasrils, former South African government minister, writer and activist; Michael Mansfield, British barrister; Jose Antonio Martin Pallin, emeritus judge of the Spanish Supreme Court; Cynthia McKinney former member of the US Congress.

Stay tuned on my blog, as well at www.russelltribunalonpalestine.com