Wednesday, December 19, 2007

A November 2007 report by The International Committee of the Red Cross details the denial of dignity in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in words and pictures: http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/palestine-report-131207
One particularly tragic story tells of a Palestinian family who had to watch a wildfire destroy their farmlands and orchards because a gate separating them from their property was "not scheduled to open." We were woken up by the light of the flames. We ran out and saw that our olive trees were burning. The fire birgade could not reach the fields because the gate was closed. Our fields are behind the West Bank Barrier and we cannot access them every day, so we could not clean the land properly. That evening we could do nothing but watch our trees burn, because the gate was closed."
Indignities such as this one do not create an atmosphere for a just and lasting peace.