My travel in Palestine allowed me to have a better understanding of the situation in refugees camp. The little space they have doesn’t really allow to have any green space (gardens...), space for house building is quite limited so most of the families add up floors to their actual house, isolation is not really well done in the houses which means it’s quite cold inside the house even if winters are not really cold in Palestine (compared to France or UK).
When I discussed with Palestinians I also noticed that they don’t have much faith in their own government. To be honest, during my stay I only saw some UN cars around, but I never saw an official or an office from the Palestinian authorities. Also, they don’t really believe in the peace negotiations with Israel and the International Community. And on this point I totally understand their position. I went to Nablus, Hebron and Bethlehem and I saw many Jewish settlements. They are everywhere, most of the time on top of hills which is quite strategic as they can overlook the villages and defend themselves in case of attacks. All these settlements are protected by Israeli army and you can only enter it if you show your ID. From the information we have in Europe, I didn’t know that so many settlements were in West Bank. When you are there and you go around you will see these areas everywhere. Even from my refugee camp I could see a settlement area (and it was really close, like 3 or 4 km away). So what is the deal exactly? Are we all naive by believing that there will be peace processes starting again, while many settlements are already within West Bank? The situation seems to be quite tricky right now and it’s difficult to imagine how the situation will evolve in the next years. Will they still extend the Jewish settlements all over West Bank? How will the local people react?
I was also quite surprised to see that there is no communication between Palestinians and Israelis. As a Palestinian, the only contact with Israelis will be with soldiers or employers. The Jewish settlers don’t mix with the locals, they have their own areas and their own protection (armed soldiers). In Hebron, Jewish settlers even have a street forbidden for Muslims Palestinians: they are the only ones to be able to use this street (for security reasons of course).
Another subject discussed with many Palestinians was education. They all noticed that the level of education in Palestine has decreased with time. The classrooms are more and more crowded; quality of education is not as good as it used to be. Education is the backbone of any society, how can West Bank manage their future if education level keeps decreasing? I had the feeling that some people want West Bank population to stop fighting for theirs rights, for their land and for their freedom and the best way to achieve this is to attack their education system.
Also, the whole structures of West Bank society seems to be under Israeli control: economically (they even use Shekels, Israel currency), border control, energy supply (water, electricity…)… Palestinians cannot even own factories as they have to buy their products from Israel. It looks like they are not under the Palestinians authorities but they are totally under Israeli control.
My feeling is that we are crushing these people who want to fight for their legitimate rights. There seem to be also a risk to see parts of West Bank becoming part of Israel (dream of a big Israel). Despite of this situation, I have met some people who still resists, real fighters who know the fight will be on education, on helping the younger generation to have and fulfill their dreams and have better opportunities in life. To meet these people was the highlight of my stay in Palestine: real people, from who we can learn a lot. Despite of seeing the worse from human beings, they still keep their heads up and still fight for their freedom.
No comments:
Post a Comment