Jenin refugeecamp-never stop fighting for your freedom!!!

Yesterday I went with Jakob to Jenin. Jakob is organiser of the Conference „Walk your Talk“ and was in Jenin before.
Our goal is that we spend 3 or 4 days of the Conference in Jenin with about 80 participants.
In Jenin is in the West banc, which means in the occupied Palestinian territories. Foreigner only can enter when they get the permission from the Israeli Military. Palestinians have no control about their borders.
The „checkpoint“ is kind of a big hall, with little rooms inside and at least 5 security doors you have to go through.
We got the permission to enter, cause we know a german activist-Harry-who is working with: „Medicines without borders“ and has personal contacts with big people of this checkpoint. And without those contacts we would not have been able to enter.
Abdallh, he is in the Governorate of Jenin picked us up at the other side of the checkpoint.
He organised a whole day for us, drove us everywhere we wanted to go.

After a meeting with the Governor of Jenin itself, Abdallh brought us to the Arab-American University of Jenin. It’s outside of the town in the beautiful hills of Jenin. Before the withdrawal of 2 Israeli settlements  between Jenin and the Uni it was not allowed for Palestinians to use the direct road.
The students had to take 60 km detour to get to the Uni.
The Uni is private and the name: “Arab-American” has only advertisement reasons, there is no further connection to America, except of the fact that the courses are given in English. We connected with the students working in the public relation office and inch Allah we will have an open meeting and conversation with some students about the Conference and what they think about the idea of coming to Jenin.

We visited the “Freedom theatre” in the Camp. There is a documentary film called: “Arna´s children” dealing with the theatre and its work and the occupation.
Juliano, the son of Arna, half Jewish-half Palestinian received us there. He had a strong opinion about the Conference coming to Jenin, especially Israelis.
 He said that he does not has to prove to an Israeli that he is a human being…he does not want to be in the Zoo, where the occupier can come to visit Palestinians like  monkeys.
He stressed out his main goal: to work against the normalisation of the state” being occupied”.
People, no matter which nationality are warmly welcomed, when they can take a clear and loud position against the occupation, the settlements in Palestine, the Apartheid-wall and if their speak out for the right of return of the Palestinian refugees.
In all this points I agree so much with Juliano and try to find a connection between our idea-to connect young people and their destinies with each other-and my clear political statement and opinion.
The lack of loud voices under the Israelis I met so far makes me feel really helpless.

Abdallh invited us to have lunch in house in a little village close to the town.
He has a garden where his wife is planting organic vegetables and fruits.
Abdallh is from the political party Fatah. With 17 the Israelis put him into prison because he belonged to a group where one person did a suicide attack in Israel. He stayed 8 years in jail. After this he was arrested several times again so that his full prison time amounts 10 years.
Abdallh is for the 2 state solution. For him any peace agreement with Israel could only become a question if Israel recognise his blame concerning the massacres and the expulsion of the Palestinians from 1948 on and the permanent suffering of the Palestinian Population under Israeli Occupation.

I met a lot of more people, but its impossible to write down everything.
On the checkpoint a group of man stand around. They presented us the guy who was the owner of the land where the huge checkpoint was built on and which the Israelis stole from him.
For the goodbye Abdallh gave us a Palestinian scarf with the Palestinian flag and Yasser Arafat on it.
Wisely we did not wear the scarves when we went through the checkpoint, fortunately again with Harry.
We were checked and Jakob had to pack out his backpack.
As the security guy saw the scarf with the Palestinian flag, he ask us what this is…it would be against his country…we couldn’t believe this comment and where laughing…so he decided that we only can enter the next morning. Only with Harry’s help and his diplomatic talk with this guy we could entered, our luggage was checked again, we had to go in some security rooms….it took a long time and its strange for me and I really want that I never get used to it.

Incredible hospitality and openness of the people I met yesterday made this day to the first good day since long time.

Next Tuesday I will return to stay for some days and we will have further conversation with young people about the Conference !