Spring in Palestine and Easter at home
I have recently returned from Palestine, which is the first time I have been back since my son was born over two years ago. It was strange as I used to travel back about 4 times a year, but just like the last time I was there I was pregnant. It's a more personal and offensive thing to be detained by security agents, frisked and interrogated when you are carrying an innocent child inside you, not at all like the bravado I used to show when I was in my early twenties. As I left the interrogation my passport finally returned to me and headed for Jerusalem, a tear slipped down my cheek as I realised that like myself, this child- like my older son- would never be able to call this place home. It still stings.
I was shocked by how much was exactly the same; the midday bustle on AzZahra street, the crowd of sellers at Qalandia checkpoint and the green hillsides that, enjoying their last of the winter rain, had already started to bloom into pinks, whites, lilacs and reds beneath the olives. So much had also changed though. The container checkpoint that marks the start of the descent into Wadi Al-Nar was just a few soldiers sat on a couple of cans propped up by their machine guns when I was last here, it is now a full-scale checkpoint with a building, cameras and fencing. Nablus is a busier and trendier town than I had ever seen it before. As a Palestinian you learn to take things easy- the good and the bad- and that is what I kept reminding myself when I felt the familiar twinge of despair creeping in.
I was in Palestine to work with olive farmers and women's cooperatives making maftoul to support their conversion to organic and fair trade practices. As I met with the first olive farmer called Abu Nidal and his wife under the heavy grey Nablus sky, I was surprised by how positive he was about his situation. After all, 2018 saw record numbers of olive trees destroyed under the occupation and attacks on farmers in recent history. I asked him about the terrible harvest this last year, driven by trees being uprooted and destroyed by settlers and the army and by record numbers of pests and diseases brought on by climate-driven changes to the weather patterns. He smiled, shrugged and pointed to the now heavy falling rain- 'Yes that's true, but look at all this winter rain now. I am expecting an excellent harvest in 2019! I am even going to buy more land', and here was further proof of the Palestinian resolve of taking the good with the bad and just getting on with it, resilient and hopeful as ever. He walked me up to his land looking down over the village with flowers and wild herbs fragrantly growing under his olive trees, and told me how in the summer months, his whole family comes here to sit under the trees and cook and eat food. He said that this land was passed to him by his father and his grandfather before that, and that one day he would pass it onto his eight children, the youngest of which was just a baby cradled in his mother's arms.
I spent the next few days getting my head around the excruciating restrictions and permits put on Palestinian businesses to import and export goods and how much more expensive and how much more time it took to get things out of the country with all the security checks and back-to-back lorry system at the separation barrier. It reminded me of the Kairos Palestine call which asked us to support Palestinian business, as the barriers they face in the occupation are designed to make them fail with too much cost and uncertainty for a business to flourish. I thought about Abu Nidal's passion for his land and the world class extra virgin olive oil he produces and how much more he could sell if the occupation didn't exist. It filled me with an enormous sense of duty to continue building pressure back in the UK, especially though our Sabeel-Kairos campaign 'Investing for Peace', in which we ask the UK churches to stop investing in companies profiting from the occupation. Now that the Quakers in Britain have decided to adopt this policy, we have real traction to encourage other churches to do the same, and this is a critical time to support this campaign. If you are not yet a member of Sabeel-Kairos, we encourage you to join knowing that your support can move forward this essential advocacy work we are doing.
The annual conference of Sabeel-Kairos will be held on Saturday 29 June at Carr's Lane Church in Birmingham. Rifat Kassis from Kairos Palestine and David Cronin, Author of 'Balfour's Shadow' will be speaking along with Prof Adam Sutcliffe who will lead a session on antisemitism. There will also be a campaign workshop by Sabeel-Kairos and War on Want. There is also a chance to buy Palestinian food and crafts and view photo exhibitions. Tickets are £30 each and include a buffet lunch.