Brighton-Tubas Region Friendship and Solidarity Group

A delegation of ten people from Brighton have just returned from Tubas region of occupied Palestine. The delegation is part of the project by the Brighton-Tubas Friendship and Solidarity Group. The group's aims are to highlight Israeli war crimes against Palestinians in the region, raise awareness about life under occupation and create practical solidarity links between grassroots organisations in Brighton and Tubas region.

This Summer the group helped to fund the building of a school in the village of Fasayil in defiance of Israeli military restrictions. Volunteers from Brighton also went out to help construction. Palestinians in Fasayil are prevented from building any new structures by the occupation force's military administration.

Back in Brighton there is a sense of disbelief and outrage that this could happen, but for the Palestinians there is no disbelief. This is the grim reality of everyday life in the Occupied West Bank, and has been for decades. The interminable onslaught of the Israeli occupying forces has deprived Palestinians of their land, homes, livelihoods, education, resources and freedom of movement; there is simply no area of Palestinian life that has not been shattered by the occupation. The response to the latest demolition order in Fasayil is typical of the quiet strength and courage of the Palestinian people – ‘They can knock our school down as often as they want. We cannot stop them from doing so. We will build the school again and again and again. They cannot destroy our determination to give proper education to our children. Our childrens’ education is our future. They will not succeed in their attempts to drive us from our land’.

The delegation has been consolidating links already made with organisations such as the Tubas Red Crescent, agricultural cooperatives, students’ unions, Tubas womens’ group, local trades unions and schools. Its aim is not charity but friendship and solidarity. When asked, Palestinians say that what they want is for their stories to be heard, for the truth of their situation to be taken to the outside world. On a recent visit to Brighton by three Palestinians from Tubas they stated unequivocally that while money is needed to run any campaign, they are not interested in attempts to make this occupation more comfortable for Palestinians, but in an end to the occupation.

The delegation stayed overnight in a village in the Jordan Valley and was able to make an early morning visit to th nearby Israeli settlement, witnessing Palestinian men and children loaded onto trailers being driven off to the fields to work, and men and women working in the packing house, pacing dates and grapes for Tesco, Fyffes, Jordan River, Carmel Agrexco and King Solomon dates. These work gangs, reminiscent of apartheid South Africa, were all going to work on land that has been stolen from local Palestinian villages within the last 4 years. They work for the settlements because they have no choice. They work for a pittance and have no rights or job security.

The Brighton Tubas Friendship and Solidarity Group was set up in March 2006. As well as organising delegations to Palestine, the group sells soap and handicrafts from a women’s group in Tubas, has hosted a group of Palestinians from Tubas in Brighton, has funded and helped to build a school in the Jordan Valley and plans to send a nurse to work in the area in December.

Personal blogs have been written by the group that can be seen at www.brightonpalestine.org/blog