Twinning: Friendship beyond Borders

 
 
Newham Jenin a solidarity group formed by proactive students in Newham launches next month. It will join the 40 plus groups from across the UK currently twinning with Palestine. Muna says, ‘We saw people around us doing things but we didn’t see things directly in Newham.’
 
As well as solidifying the community, Newham Jenin aim to be a source of clarity on the complex and controversial topic of Palestine.  Muna says: “People are scared to touch it because they don’t know a lot about it. We’re not here to alienate the Middle East but to get people in Newham involved in Middle East issues.”
 
For Newham Jenin social media is an important tool. ‘That’s what made us what we are today,’ she says, ‘It helps us get our message out.’
 
International campaigns are springing up across the internet in support of Palestinians hindered by conflict. ‘We All Palestine’ has racked up an impressive 700 likes on Facebook with supporters from Turkey to China, whilst the e-petition Azaaz which calls for a separate state for Palestine, has attracted over 400,000 supporters with signatures increasing by the second.
 
This comes ahead of plans made by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas for the recognition of Palestine as a nation state; Abbas will formally present his application to the UN council next month. It seems the internet plays a key role in uniting communities worldwide.
 
Newham Jenin has already begun fundraising for a mobile health clinic in Jenin Camp and they view their efforts as just beginning of a long term goal to raise awareness. She says, ‘we’re here on the basis of one issue- human rights.’ 
The Camden Abu Dis Friendship Association established in 2003 is a key instrument in uniting communities in Britain and Palestine. Nandita Dawson a member of CADFA says, ‘It’s a lot about people to people links.’
 
For CADFA who have just twinned their ninth school in Camden with a school in Abu Dis, the work comes thick and fast. Nandita says, ‘In Palestine you get people who are full of energy and optimism about getting to pass their message onto someone else.’
 
Visits offer the young people of Camden Abu Dis a window into another life. Nandita recalls a school visit based on the environment, the children were asked to fill out evaluation forms: ‘The Palestinian kids said “we were really surprised to learn about compost and recycling and wind power,” whereas the British kids said “We are just upset and struck by the problems that our friends have,” because there were kids who had been in prison.’
 
Child prisoners in Palestine are an issue that Camden Abu Dis is intently passionate about. The team are particularly concerned with Waleed, a former child prisoner. She says, ‘he’s absolutely brilliant but if things go a bit wrong you see this really distant distress on his face…he was only tiny, thirteen for god sake.’
 
The CADFA Child Prisoner Campaign has gone all the way to the European Parliament with the backing of Green Party MEP Jean Lambert, while both the Labour MPs for Camden, Frank Dobson and Glenda Jackson have pledged to write an Early Day Motion. But Camden Abu Dis is not stopping there and have their 1000 plus letters addressed to the European Court of Human Rights.
 
Aside from campaigns in Britain, CADFA has built a small diabetic clinic in Abu Dis for locales isolated by the Israeli Separation Wall. ‘In Abu Dis only a third of all the referral letters to the hospitals in Jerusalem get there,’ says Nandita.  Astonishingly the hilly terrain in Abu Dis means that the hospital is always in the view of the ill that so desperately require its resources.
 
 ‘The place that we are trying to make a twinning with has been taken over by a state which has not annexed it,’ says Nandita, ‘but given people coming into the settlements a vote while the native population don’t get a say.’
 
The Israeli settlement around Jerusalem has led to years of embattled conflict in Palestine. It is thought that the settlements are in breach of international law: the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention outlaws the resettlement by an occupying power of its own civilians on territory under its military control.
 
 I ask Nandita what impact, during their relatively short time CADFA has made in Palestine. ‘There’s something more open about Abu Dis than there was before. The kids are on Facebook together all the time,’ she says. (In fact there has even been a marriage between a teacher from Camden and a young man from Abu Dis.) ‘It’s getting stronger and stronger and next year maybe we’ll build the back seat and a way to sit on it,’ she laughs. 

Nicole Gordon