Palestinian women living under occupation
I was honoured to be present at a meeting (Tuesday 9/3/10) in Stanley Road where two woman from Palestine gave a moving first hand account of what it is really like living in the occupied territories of Gaza and East Jerusalem.
Their experiences included the problems of underfunded crumbling schools and severely limited access to health care. They explained what is like to have to queue and pass through Israeli controlled check points, standing in line maybe for an hour, to be standing in the heat maybe waiting with children trying to get to a doctor. These check points exist even with the cities and additional check points can be added and removed at the Israeli’s will making many journeys frustrating and inefficient. The internal check points stop Arab buses but not the Israeli buses. Palestinians are compelled to pay the same tax as the Israelis but do not get the same services.
As I left the meeting it finally dawned on me that what they were suffering has a chilling parallel with the old apartheid of South Africa. Awareness is slowly growing – by reading this the message hopefully the message has touched a few more people.
Learn more at www.palestinecampaign.org
If you want to help Palestine with fair trade see http://www.zaytoun.org/