Friends International Center in Ramallah
January - February 2009 Newsletter
(Vol. III No. 1)

From the Program Coordinator

Gaza is still under siege.  The daily bombardment of Gaza by the Israeli army has ended but the Israeli blockade of Gaza continues.  The devastation is immense, almost unbelievable.  I have not been to Gaza since the war on Gaza that began December 27.  Seeing the devastation on TV is very different than seeing it in person, yet one is able to get some sense of the tremendous devastation from images shown on TV.  During the war on Gaza, I tried as much as I could to keep in touch with friends and past colleagues in Rafah, Khan Younis, and Gaza City by phone.  I felt that I did not have much to offer, except a word of encouragement and solidarity and contact with the outside world.  One friend in Gaza said:  You have no idea how much your call means to us.  We feel cut off and totally isolated from the rest of the world.  

One rare day I was able to connect to friends in Gaza City by phone.  It was the day after the night-long intensive Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.  First I talked to my friend, Hanan, her husband and their children.  They said the previous night was as if “the gates of hell had opened”.  No one had slept all night.  She said they were all frightened, especially the children.  There was shelling all around them.  The only thing the adults could do was to keep laughing to keep up the spirits of the children.  I didn’t want to talk to them very long because I did not want to waste their charged cell phones, however, they told me that they had had electricity for a couple of hours that morning and everyone’s phones and laptops were charged, the first day they had electricity for some time.  This particular family lives in a single-family dwelling in Gaza City and had five other families living with them for over a week.  Some of the families staying with them had homes in parts of Gaza that were evacuated.  One of the families staying with them escaped the complete destruction of their own home.  Fifty people in all, including adults and children, had been staying together in one house.  Some nights they all had to sleep in the basement due to the heavy bombardment.  The day I talked to my friends, all fifty persons staying in their home had spent the previous night in the basement without any water or electricity.  One of the men staying with the family was a doctor and had asthma.  That night she sprayed water on a pillow and let the doctor breathe into the pillow.  With the tiny bit of water they had, she was able to help his breathing.  “No one can imagine what we are going through, especially last night.” she said.  My friend, Hanan, who is a dentist in the UNRWA clinics, was recruited to do general medical assistance too.  She said ambulances were being prevented from traveling to the sick and wounded and dead.

Hanan told me about the plight of the Samooney family in Gaza.  This family is related to her.  Many of the extended family members of the Samooney family were killed.  Some of the survivors were interviewed on some of the TV stations.  Hanan told me that 14 babies of the family survived and were now without parents.  The surviving members of the family were trying to find ways of sharing the 14 babies among them so each would have a home.

I ended my conversation with the family by Hanan saying:  How can the whole world see what is happening and stand by and not say a word?  

To read more about the situation in Gaza:  

Click here to read more about what is being said about Barack Obama

Click here to read Jeff Halper article

Gaza: President Says Blockade Must End
"As part of a lasting cease-fire, Gaza‘s border crossings should be open to allow the flow of aid and commerce," President Barack Obama said last week. In this memo http://action.fcnl.org/r/26593/54128/, FCNL lobbyist Jim Fine states that the first test of the administration‘s Israeli-Palestinian policy will be whether the administration presses Israel to open these borders, and the second will be how it handles Hamas.  Jim Fine is the Clerk of the Steering Committee of the Friends International Center in Ramallah.

From the Friends International Center in Ramallah

As a result of the war on Gaza many groups cancelled their trip to Palestine and Israel.  However, a few who came visited the Friends Center:  
Ron Polhamus lead a CPT (Christian Peacemaker Team) delegation to Palestine and Israel.  On January 22 he and six Quakers from the delegation visited the Friends Center.  We were pleased to welcome participants from the CPT delegation and share with them the work of the Friends Center.  

On February 18 we showed the film Why We Fight, a film by Eugene Jarecki.  Why We Fight is the Grand Jury winner at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival.  It takes an unflinching look at the anatomy of American war-making.  The film launches a non-partisan inquiry into the forces – political, economic, and ideological – that drive America to fight.  Inspired by President Eisenhower’s 1961 farewell address in which he warned Americans about the dangers of the “military-industrial complex”, filmmaker Jarecki weaves unforgettable stories of everyday Americans touched by war with commentary by a “who’s who” of military and Washington insiders.  Featuring John McCain, Gore Vidal, Richard Pearle and others, the film explores a half-century of US foreign policy from World War II to the Iraq War revealing how political and corporate interests have become entangled in the business of war.    

After we viewed the film, Jimmy Johnson (the International Coordinator for the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and a researcher and analyst on the political economy of the Israeli arms trade, who is from the Midwest of the United States) and Sam Bahour (a Palestinian-American businessperson and activist based in Al-bireh/Ramallah.  He is a Managing Partner of Applied Information Management (AIM) and serves as a Board of Trustees member of Birzeit University.  He is also a Director at the Islamic Bank and the community foundation Dalia Association) led us in a discussion.  

Sam Bahour leading a discussion after the film Why We Fight on what this means for activism today.   sbahour@palnet.com

Jimmy Johnson responding to the film Why We Fight. www.icahd.org/eng/

Click here  to read an article by Jimmy Johnson  

From the Ramallah Friends Meeting

Marlies and Sytse Tjillingii from the Netherlands Yearly Meeting worshipped with us.  They also visited the office of the American Friends Service Committee to hear about the Quaker Youth Program and the Amary Play Center in Amary Refugee Camp.  They met with Dr. Adel Yahya, an archeologist and current director of PACE to hear about the effects of the Wall on Palestinian cultural life.  

From the Occupation: Monthly Action Focus:

The Right to Enter (RTE) Campaign continues it’s focus on the responsibility of third states concerning the matter of Right to Enter/Re-Enter in enforcing human rights and international law in a situation of military occupation.
The past weeks we have witnessed an increase in Internationals being refused to enter.  
The Campaign continues to collect the names of persons - Palestinians and Internationals who have been denied entry at one of the ports Israel controls (Ben Gurion airport or one of the bridges across the Jordan River from Amman).  If you are a person who has been denied entry or know of someone who has been denied entry, please contact Anita Abdullah at anita_abdullah@hotmail.com  

Due to the fact that there is no clear policy for denial of entry, a person is allowed to enter via one of the ports controlled by Israel at the discretion of the Israeli immigration official.  The denial of entry is random.  People continue to be given a one-week visa, a new trend and alternative to being denied entry completely.  
For more information on "Right to Enter/Re-enter" go to www.righttoenter.ps


Kathy Bergen
Program Coordinator
www.ramallahquakers.org