Six days sounds a very short time, but I managed to meet so many of our partners while in Palestine and Israel and came home once more with renewed vigour for continuing the work of the British Shalom-Salaam Trust. I hope therefore I can encourage YOU to support the Trust.

Can you imagine your home being demolished?  Can you contemplate it being destroyed a second time?  It is beyond our comprehension and yet the whole village of Al Arakib has become a symbol of Bedouin resistance in the Negev because it has been demolished 33 times since July 2010.  A handful of families, citizens of Israel, are hanging on, staying in the cemetery with their few remaining possessions and animals.

even the cemetery has been measured up by the JNF

So why has it been demolished?  It’s so the Jewish National Fund can plant forests.  Attempts are being made by members of the Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Rights (www.dukium.org) to challenge the situation legally and this is why BSST supports them.

We have also given money to pay for a mobile water tanker for the villagers and Aziz proudly showed it to us. It takes him 7 hours to drive the tanker, hitched to a tractor, 22km to fill it with water each week. There is a Jewish village 2km away but they refuse to sell water to Aziz.

Aziz telling me of the difficulties filling the tanker with water

washing before prayer

Later that day, we donned “We are Al Arakib” T shirts and went with Haia, the CEO of the Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Rights to the nearby village of Wadi Al Na’am, for the annual Land Day commemoration – in memory of the land confiscations of 1976, when 6 Bedouin were shot dead protesting.  The meeting, attended by 2000 Bedouin and a group of Israeli Jews, was disciplined and extremely well organised, with speakers from the Knesset amongst the many campaigners.

“we are all Al Arakib”

Haia speaking at the Land Day meeting in Waadi Na’am

A fun day out in the forested hills between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv had serious content. This was a seminar on identity and racism, run by Sadaka Reut, Arab Jewish Youth partnership, another recipient of BSST funds (reutsadaka.org). There were 36 young people, aged 15-16, equal genders and equally divided between Arabs, Jews and members of the black community. There were competitive organised games, followed by discussion groups on the core topics, before a party arranged by the young people themselves.  A representative from Oxfam Israel was evaluating the event and was suitably impressed, as was I.

Bonding games at the Sadaka Reut weekend seminar

The African Refugee Development Centre women’s shelter (www.ardc-israel.org) in downtown Tel Aviv is a welcoming place for (mostly Eritrean) women and their children who have had a horrendous time at the hands of exploitative people- smugglers in the Sinai. Most have been raped and arrive pregnant. The rent for the premises is funded by UNWRA and the centre has links with Physicians for Human-Israel, (www.phr.org.il)for provision of medical care, and also a hospital in Tel Aviv which offers terminations without charge. Many women get work in the informal sector and move out with support from ARDC. Demand is very high for places and refugee status process very longwinded and rarely successful. I was very impressed with the work done here and the need but regretfully don’t think this fits BSST’s criteria.  If donors would like to support the centre, we can pass on donations and claim Gift Aid to pass on to ARDC – contact bsst@bsst.org for more information about how to do this.

 “Min El Bahar” means “from the sea” in Arabic.  All of us live near the Mediterranean Sea and our  wish is that the Palestinian who live not far away, could participate with the happiness the sea inspire us.

This is what Rachel told me.  She is one of three wonderful women I had lunch with in Tel Aviv, who met through Machsom Watch and now organise annual Sea Holidays for Palestinian children. See minelbahar.com

A project which we don’t yet fund, as it is supported by big donors, is WCLAC, Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling, based in Ramallah. I spent the next day with an amazing woman, Salwa Duaibis, a human rights specialist, who told me about a mental health project they are doing, collecting testimonies from women about the trauma of night raids and arrest and detention of children. Salwa  took me and 2 American visitors, one a psychotherapist who works with trauma patients, and also Gerard Horton, a lawyer from Defence of Children International, (www.dci-pal.org) to visit a Palestinian village, a-Nabi Saleh, where we had coffee in the house of a very articulate mother who lives with her family in the centre of the village.  Her graphic descriptions of the terror and trauma of the disproportionate responses of the Israeli Defence Force to the village’s weekly peaceful demonstrations about the encroachment of their land by the nearby settlement of Halamish left us speechless.

Settlers have given a new Hebrew name to the Al-Kous spring in Nabi Saleh

I hope I have given you enough reasons to re-double YOUR support. Please donate through this website. Thank You.

Gill Yudkin