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Open letter to the UK Foreign Secretary and to our Members of the European Parliament.
Dear Foreign Secretary and MEPs
We are writing to you as participants and helpers from
Palestine and the UK who took part in the CADFA Youth in Action women’s project,
'Women in Action' in March 2014.
We are pushed to write to you by a terrible
incident when the Palestinian group were returning home. They were on the same
bus crossing from Jordan to the West Bank when Israeli military took everyone
off the bus and shot and killed Ra’ed Eze’eter, a Palestinian judge. Our
Palestinian friends were put back on the bus and guarded by the military. They
had to sit, unable to do anything, while Ra’ed lay bleeding on the ground
outside. He didn’t die straight away but the Israeli soldiers kept everyone on
the bus and no one was able to help.
For your information we are enclosing a letter by Dalia al
Fanouneh, one of the Palestinian group, which shows her reaction to what
happened.
This incident has traumatised the Palestinians who saw it
and the UK friends who shared the project with them and felt so close to them
by the time they left. We are all upset beyond anything at this awful loss of
life, the terrible effect on his family and the impunity of the Israelis. This
happened suddenly and shockingly but it was just one incident in a day when
others were shot by the Israeli military in Palestine. No one believes that
that Ra’ed was guilty of anything; no one believes that an investigation by
Israel will do anything; no one believes
we can just accept this situation – a man is just picked off a bus and
shot???!!! What is this?
We know that it is the Israeli occupation. Every single one
of the Palestinian women’s group had terrible stories to tell. No-one’s life is
normal, living under occupation. Even to return home – a journey that would
take the British group a day (plane from Luton to Tel Aviv, a couple of hours
and then there) – took the Palestinians two days. A flight to Amman, a night in
a hotel because the ‘bridge’ is not open late, an early morning start to face
the many different checkpoints on the way back into Palestine and then get home
– and then in this instance the trauma in the morning, eye-witnesses to a
murder. And then being held for hours and hours by the Israelis who wanted to
take their stories before they could leave.
But travel (for example) is always difficult. The Separation
Wall, two colours of identity card which say where you can go or if you can go,
a complicated system of permissions that have to be got in advance and paid for
(and are not always honoured), and
sudden refusals to let people pass.
In the summer, Mazen Salahaldin, the Head teacher from Abu Dis Boys’ School,
was travelling to London on a CADFA visit as a leader of a group of children on
a Youth in Action project when the Israelis decided that he should not leave
the country. He was charged with nothing, but he was not allowed to travel. He is not alone. From a recent report by the Palestinian
Authority, 39 Palestinians were prevented from travelling out of the West Bank
in just one week.
Later in the summer, a group of Gazan school children coming
to London on a CADFA visit were not able to reach Britain because they could
not cross the Rafah crossing because of events in Egypt. The issue is that they are held prisoner in
their country and cannot get out except in one direction. The British people
can come and go via Dover, Gatwick, Harwich, Liverpool... They can fulfil their
human right to leave their country and return to their country in any
direction. The Gazan children could only
go one way.
We are writing to say to you, enough is enough. The list of
miseries, bloodshed, human rights violations in Palestine at the hands of the
Israelis is endless and unacceptable. We cannot accept another death like
Ra’ed’s. Why should we accept that Palestinians have two days of travel to
get home when a settler living (illegally) on their land gets home in one? Why should they accept their families divided, their lands stolen, their children imprisoned, and to be governed always by
soldiers?
We are asking you as the government of Britain and as our
representatives in the European Union to protect the Palestinians and to stop
accepting this situation. Britain and
Europe must insist that the Israel governments should respect
international human rights law and be called to account when it does not do
this. They have a way to do this.
EU-Israel Association Agreement (2000) states in Article 2 that
Relations between the Parties, as well as all the provisions of the Agreement itself, shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles, which guides their internal and international policy and constitutes an essential element of this Agreement.
You can help prevent
this happening again by enforcing this agreement now. Israel is showing blatant disregard for Palestinian
human rights and should be suspended from the Agreement until people are able
to live safely and normally.
Yours sincerely
Participants and helpers from the Women in Action project, from Palestine and the UK.
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