Palestinian Children in West Bank Summer Camp: 'Break the Silence, Break the Siege'
Reageer (0)24-7-2010
This afternoon, I visited a Palestinian summer camp in the southern West Bank city of Beit Umar. The camp is named “The Freedom Flotilla Camp” and contains roughly one hundred youth aged 12 to 17 years old from the city.
In addition to normal summer camp activities like swimming, playing football and general running around with friends, the children staged a festival titled “Break the Silence, Break the Siege.” The festival, which was organized by various popular struggle committees in the west Bank, included poetry about the occupation, plays about Palestinian interaction with settlers/soldiers and traditional ‘debka’ dances. The aim was to send a message to the international community that Palestine is unified and Gaza is not separate from the West Bank. The children wanted to express their concern about the silence of the international community over Israeli blockade of Gaza and the ongoing occupation of the West Bank.
The Freedom Flotilla Camp in Beit Umar
The event took place after the weekly demo in Beit Umar against the occupation. I attended the increasing violent demo this morning with fellow activist Kobi Snitz. After the army violently injured one Palestinian photojournalist and rained sound grenades/tear gas on the non violent demonstrators, Kobi and I were invited to attend the children’s festival to address them about Israeli activists supporting of the popular struggle. Below video provided by Fil Kaler.
As soon as we arrived to the camp complex, a customary mob of kids surrounded us asking “what is your name?” and “where are you from?” in broken English. When I explained that I was Israeli from Jerusalem, most took a puzzled looked which only lasted for a couple of seconds and quickly dissolved as they would grab me by the hand and introduce me to all their friends.
Israeli Activist Addressing Palestinian Children in Beit Umar
During the festival, one by one a kid or groups of kids would get on stage to perform a poem or song about Palestine or the occupation. Most of the poems were about the unity of Palestine and expressed solidarity with the people of Gaza. After a slew of performances, it was Kobi’s turn to address the crowd. As he explained that we come from Israel and support the popular struggle movements in the West Bank in his Hebrew accented Arabic, I wondered what it would take for an Israeli summer camp to invite a Palestinian to address their participants. I tried to picture a Palestinian from Beit Umar addressing rowdy youngsters in Herzilya. To be honest, the picture was hard to convince.
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