On Tuesday 20th March, LFPME and Caabu jointly hosted a ‘Witness Palestine’ with a panel of MPs who discussed the impact of the illegal occupation and blockade of Palestine on young people. They also considered the approaches to better support the realisation of peace and justice in the Middle East.
The event was chaired by Richard Burden MP and the MPs on the pane were Margaret Curran, Sadiq Khan, Ben Bradshaw and Lisa Nandy.
Richard Burden MP opened the discussion by providing an overview of the situation in the region and spoke of his recent trip to Gaza which was affected the Israeli bombing of Gaza. The delegation managed to get into Gaza for one day and Richard described the difficult circumstances that still existed. He also said ‘there was evidently an increased level of construction since his last visit and that it was clear that people with money were able buy goods, including construction material via the tunnel trade, but for ordinary people and the UN, the Israeli blockade on Gaza was really hitting you hard’. He said, the continued blockade clearly not serving any purpose other than making life more difficult for ordinary Palestinians and should be ended.
In her address Margaret Curran MP, the Shadow Scottish Secretary, spoke about her visit to the West Bank in 2011 and said that ‘nothing had prepared her seeing the day to day ‘grind’ of life for ordinary Palestinians. ‘The wall, the settlements, checkpoints and daily human rights violations were having a profound impact - increasing poverty, restricting economic development and putting a block on Palestinians being able to lead normal lives.’
She also spoke about how the right to education - a universal right which was not afforded to Palestinians and cited the fact that students from Gaza could not attend university in the West Bank and students in Jerusalem and the West Bank being unable to get to university or schools due to the physical restrictions and ‘hold ups’ they face at checkpoints. She asked ‘as a mother how do you cope and raise your children in a system that serves to restrict normality and seems designed to provoke violence and anger?’
She urged people to rally around the ‘right to education’ agenda as a means of raising awareness of the broader Palestinian issue in the public and political arena in the UK.
In his contribution, Ben Bradshaw MP informed the audience about a confrontation he witnessed at an illegal outpost in the West Bank. He said that ‘even though the Israeli Government recognises outposts as illegal, the Israeli Police that were there did very little to take action against settlers who were attacking local Palestinians’. He also mentioned an incident where Margaret Curran MP was surrounded by a group of settlers and their children who were throwing stones at her.
He went on to say that ‘time was running out for the two state solution given - the facts on the ground Israel has and is creating – with increasing illegal settlements, settler roads, and the ring of settlement expansion around East Jerusalem’. He called for action at both a macro and micro level to help change the status quo. He said it was important to continue lobbying on key issues, as was done regarding the issue of Palestinian children tried as adults in Israeli military courts. Pressure on that issue, he said ‘led to the age of Palestinians being tried as adults to rise from 16 to 18’. He also highlighted the need to raise more awareness amongst MPs, encourage more of them to visit the region, to get more constituents to lobby them and have CLPs invite LFPME and MPs to be guest speakers.
Lisa Nandy MP spoke passionately about the situation of children and said she thought she had “seen it all” when it came to child trauma in her former job with the Children’s Society, but was deeply disturbed and shocked by what she saw in the West Bank.
She said she was astonished by the size of the Wall and its impact. In one place she said one Palestinian family could not even see the sky as their home was surrounded by the Wall on all sides and to leave or enter their home they had to negotiate through an Israeli checkpoint. The child in the family did not play outside and did not join his friends down the road to play football. ’The fact that the children are growing up thinking this is normal is both frightening and worrying’ she commented.
She went on to talk about how the delegation witnessed the situation at checkpoints - with the congestion and people being held up, searched and humiliated. She said the effect of the children seeing their parents humiliated was concerning as was witnessing the stress of a mother seeing her child shackled in a detention centre. Lisa said the increased trauma, evidence of aggression, insomnia and fear was due to the Israeli policies in the West Bank and was leading to the subversion of normal family life.
Referring to a visit to the Jordan Valley, she said ‘the MPs visited Palestinian families who did not have adequate water supply as the supply had been siphoned off to an illegal Israeli settlement. She said ‘the Palestinian children in the village, without enough water, were able to see Israeli settler children splashing about in swimming pools nearby’.
She urged more be done to support efforts at reconciliation between Palestinians and Israelis and to utilise international pressure to enforce Israel to abide by the convention on the ‘Rights of the child’ for Palestinians. She concluded by saying that the ‘Labour party has a proud history of international solidarity and there is a case to be made, that wherever children are treated inhumanely, it is our responsibility to act and do all we can to bring that to an end.’
The final speaker Sadiq Khan MP, the Shadow Minister of Justice, talked about universal rights and youth justice and how they should be applied irrespective of where you are and who you are. He said Israel is familiar with international conventions and it does meet them - but only for those children that live in Israel and not for Palestinians. This he said ‘amounted to two systems of justice – one in line with international conventions for Israelis and one in contravention of them for Palestinians in the West Bank’.
He highlighted some of the violations taking place including ‘the illegal detention and trial of minors in military courts; the arrest and integration of children at night without representation or their parents; instances of mistreatment and torture; and pressure and coercion to sign false confessions’. He said, ‘in Israel if you are above 14, you must see a judge within 24 hours and if you are under 14 the maximum time is 12 hours even if that means a judge having to be woken up.’ This was not the case for Palestinian children he said.
He also added that the most common (alleged) offence by children was stone throwing which carried a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. He also highlighted that there were 311 children in military detention and around 7500 children, many as young as 12, have been detained or imprisoned at one stage or another.
Sadiq went on to say that ‘the rights of Palestinian minors are being breached at every stage - arrest, questioning, and sentencing’. He said it was ultimately about dignity and ended by saying ‘that the hallmarks of a civilised a society is the way they treat the most vulnerable’.
During the Q&A part the MPs covered several topics. Sadiq Khan MP said there was a need to be realistic about what can be achieved in the Middle East without the US, which is closed for business this year due to the Presidential elections. He stressed the importance of doing more to win over public opinion on Palestine.
Ben Bradshaw MP highlighted the positive role the EU has played in recent years. He also said that the language we use to describe the situation was important and there was a need to constantly re-assess it. He gave the example of possibly calling ‘settlements’ colonies, given in the US the word ‘settlements has a difference connotation given US history.
Lisa Nandy MP said there was a need to do more to ensure settler produce was not allowed into our markets and that British companies involved in supporting settlers and their produce do not benefit from export credit or UK and EU public procurement.
Margaret Curran MP concluded the event by saying it was important to raise awareness about the situation in Palestine by focusing on how the occupation, blockage, and violations of international law impacts on ordinary people and their day to day lives. She felt this would resonate with people better and hopefully encourage them to demand their MPs to act to support peace and justice in the region in line with international law.
