HOLOCAUST IN DISGUISE

2 YEARS AGO, A INDEPEPENDENT BRITISH TEAM, WANTED TO EXPERIENCE LIFE IN OCCUPIED PALESTINE.

Saturday. As we jumped on our buses at 8 am we were told to expect confrontation. It was a lovely spring day, everything is peaceful, the birds are singing, and spring flowers. We arrived at the first checkpoint and the Army were there ready to stop us. With smiles on their lips and weapons in their hands they said, “You cannot and will not pass.” We jumped out of our buses and all demonstrated against the checkpoint. As usual I could not but be at the forefront. I was told by a soldier to move off the highway. I told him that I was not going to move until we were allowed through the checkpoint.

After a lot of argument he protested that he was only carrying out his orders. I told him that was the classic defence of the SS when they created the ghettos and murdered millions of Jews. He screamed at me that his grandfather was gassed at Auschwitz. I told him that he should be ashamed of himself. “Please lay down your gun and show solidarity with the Palestinians who are living in ghettos and are being killed every day.” He stormed away from the checkpoint to see his commanding officer. Similar confrontations were taking place all over the highway around the checkpoint. A young Israeli peace activist had her ID card taken off her by the police.

This meant she was a non person. We told the police, the soldiers that we would demonstrate and disrupt their work until they gave the Israeli woman her ID card, and we marched through the checkpoint and onto buses that came from Bethlehem. At Bethlehem Town Hall we were welcomed by the mayor of Bethlehem, a quick cup of tea and out to B . On the way we passed hundreds of people showing distress, and it turned out to be mourners coming from the funeral of a young 21 year old man who had been killed the night before in the village. The pain and suffering was everywhere and I was glad to move to the end of the village where we saw a group of young boys throwing stones at the settlers cars on the bypass road which, which only settlers could use to commute between settlements and Jerusalem. Because of the obvious danger, we moved along and found an army post with 8 soldiers all brandishing rocket launchers and automatic rifles.

I had my placard, “STAND UP FOR FREEDOM - END THE OCCUPATION”. Our Palestinian guide told put it away. But a small Palestinian woman articulated what my feelings were. “Mr. Davies has come to Bethlehem to express solidarity with the Palestinian people. He has a message of peace. Let him carry his placard.” The woman was right, and I carried the poster. Everybody stopped some 30 yards from the troops, but 2 women and I carried on walking right up to the command post right amongst the soldiers. “What a nice warm peaceful day”, I said. Yes, mumbled the young soldier. “Why are you pointing such evil weapons against young children who are only throwing stones?” The soldier with the rocket launcher said the Arabs bombed a school bus; they are terrorists. I pointed out that we had just passed the funeral of a young man who had been killed and had left behind a young family. Nearly 400 such cases since October 2000.

Who, I demanded “are the terrorists? Is it the Palestinians who have few if any weapons, or is it the occupiers like yourselves who have machine guns and rocket launchers?” Silence. “I don’t want to see Israeli children die.” “I don’t want to see Palestinian children die. I want the Israeli people to have peace. But you can only have peace if the Arabs can have freedom. The reason I’m here is not because I like arguing with you. but you cannot achieve true freedom unless we all have freedom.”

Death of a young freedom fighter

We were leaving. Beaty took one last picture and we went on to our next flash point. “We are going to visit a school”, said the guide. It was shelled last week. I saw a small band of children and youths building their own street block. It was just like Northern Ireland again. Every one of them collecting stones. One with a black type mask just below his chin read my placard and came over to shake hands and thanked me for coming into the danger zone to make a visit. I had my photograph taken by their makeshift barrier and rushed up the hill to meet Beaty and the rest of the group. All of a sudden there were shots and a faint smell of tear gas.

I met our group hurrying down. “They have shot the young 17 year old Palestinian lad with the mask” our guide said. “I’ve just spoken to him”, I said incredulously. “He is in that ambulance just passing, with blood pouring from him”. said the guide, “we must go now”. As we went past the alleyway with the barrier all the young men and children were lining up with their stones. No time to cry, no time to mourn. A new leader emerges and the spiral of violence goes on. As I sat on the bus I had to bite back the tears. I could still feel the young lad’s handshake on me as our bus sped away to the Arab centre where lunch was waiting.

March for Freedom

When we arrived at the Arab Centre, lunch was laid out for our international group. An announcement was made at the centre that all those who wanted to join up with the Israeli peace group “The Women’s Coalition for Justice and Peace” should grab a sandwich and rejoin one of the buses quickly. I, Beaty, Esther and about 35 others duly obliged. A quick trip to the toilet, 2 chunks of pitta bread and to the other side of Bethlehem. Our plan was to stop between Rachael’s Tomb and the main checkpoint and march with our banners held in what was requested as “a non confrontational way”. Well, I only know one way to hold my peace banner that was with pride and conviction. We were 150 yards from the checkpoint when an armoured car sped towards us. Two soldiers jumped out, pointed their guns at us and said, “This area is military controlled - go back at once”. I kept walking.

One soldier ran after me.”Go back or you will be in serious trouble”, he said. I stood still for two minutes and whilst the soldiers were arguing with Beaty Esther etc. I walked along the narrow pavement. A Palestinian woman and her young boy aged 6 stepped out into the road. That was my opportunity. I walked with the woman and her son to within 20 yards of the crossing. I’m sure we looked a loving happy family. I then hurriedly left them (not wanting the woman to get into trouble), held my placard high and walked through the lines of soldiers and police. There was a look of disbelief on their faces, and just the other side of the police/soldiers line were a group of Israeli settlers singing Zionist songs and dancing like mad. I stopped on the other side of the road and for a minute I was at a loss as to what to do next. . . Then it was obvious. I started slowly and quietly to sing “We shall overcome”.

A camera crew saw me and started to film. First to me and then to the settlers. I sang with all the passion and feeling within me. I thought of the young 17 year old Palestinian shot and snatched from life two hours earlier. I thought of Tad and Kern, Wendy, all my beautiful friends. The settlers kept looking, their chanting became more and more subdued. I held out my hands towards them as I sang out the words “We’ll walk hand in hand today” They stopped and stared, then turned their faces away to the police and soldiers who were somewhat riveted to the spot.

“Peace and Freedom!”

I shouted “Self determination for the Palestinian People!” The cameraman asked me why I was there, why I had come. I come from Wales with a message of Peace and Goodwill from CND Cymru and the people of Wales, not only for the Palestinians but for all the peace - loving Israelis who come to this checkpoint under the peace & justice banner. I then made my way down to the main grouping of the Women’s Coalition for Justice and Peace. Twenty - five minutes later Beaty and the rest of the International Peace Group arrived. They had been prevented from coming and finally had to make their way around the checkpoint through the fields in the same way that all Palestinians had to do on a daily basis.

4 pm The demonstration over, I made my way back to the Notre Dame Hotel in an Arab minibus. - fare 3 shekels paid for by my two lovely US friends Don and Kate. On the way home I saw a bedraggled Beaty and Esther sitting by the side of the road, but the driver just sped on to Jerusalem.

Last meeting of the Conference, then to bed.

DAY 7 - Feb 25th Welsh comes into its own at shellshocked town of Biet Sahour

The young intifada lad who looked after me asked for my address. He had just finished his degree at Bit Zeit university and was desperate to come to Britain. I gave him a choir leaflet and ringed Wendy’s e - mail address. We went into a nearby garage and quietly rested, before moving to where the car was parked and off to Ramallah. I took a last look at my new found friend at the barricade.

There were the young intifada preparing to defend their reconstructed barricade. The soldiers reloading their tear gas launchers. What would they fire? Rubber coated steel ball bearings; or is it going to be the lethal bullets that have killed so many young Palestinians? Every time a young man is taken out, killed at the barricades, there seem to be 3, 4, or 5 to take his place. Life seems so cheap in this hellhole of a refugee camp.

Later that night, I walked around Ramallah and bumped into the young graduate. “Can I walk with you, mister Ray?” The town of Ramallah was bursting with people who were going about their daily business.”Why are you and your friends on the barricades day in, day out, putting your life on the line?” He stopped me, gently pushed me into a shop doorway. “Mister Ray”, he said. “They stole my country from me in 1948; they force marched my mother and father out of their village and dumped us in a refugee camp. In 1967 they invaded our second home on the West Bank. They stole our fertile land and gave it to the Israeli settlers. They tore down our houses, dug up our olive trees and at the drop of a hat they placed a curfew. Every few miles they put up road blocks, sometimes we take hours to go just 10 miles. They degrade us, they humiliate us at every turn. We have had a sham peace process for ten years, and the only thing that has happened is that they take more and more land for settlers. We are blocked in by bypass roads. We live under an occupation that is worse than South African apartheid. My generation will not stand for it any more.

It does not matter if we all have to defend ourselves from the guns are stones. It does not matter if we die. I have two choices; either we live under occupation as Europe did under the Nazis in the second world war, or we resist. I chose to resist.”

I shook his hand and he gave me a huge hug. “Thank you for coming, mister Ray. Thank you for being a human witness to our suffering. I will never forget you. I will never forget”.

As I fly home to Wales I reflect on the many injustices the Palestinian people suffer. I am determined to work relentlessly for the peace, justice and freedom they so badly need, so richly deserve.