Pursuing peace and justice : confronting oppression in Palestine. Findings of Delegation to the West Bank, January 2016

Abstract

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals include pursuing peace and justice, ending poverty, reducing inequalities, and sustainable cities and communities. Currently these goals are far from being realised for Palestinian peoples in the illegally occupied territories. Specific issues include loss of Palestinian land, destruction of Palestinian communities through the ongoing aggressive construction of Israeli settlements – a flagrant violation of international law, the construction of the separation barrier or ‘apartheid wall’ separating villages from their agricultural lands and livelihoods, detention of children in military facilities over very minor offences, house demolitions as punishment in the absence of due process of law, the freedom of movement impeded by harassment at checkpoints throughout the territories, and repeated bombardments of the Gaza Strip, resulting in the loss of thousands of civilian lives and rendering hundreds of thousands of people homeless or displaced. In January 2016 Peter Matthewson, Massey University graduate and Lecturer in Social Practice at Unitec, Auckland, New Zealand, was privileged to participate in a fact-finding delegation to the West Bank, facilitated by a non-profit organisation loosely affiliated to the British Labour Party. This included briefings and direct observations of some of the specific issues listed.This presentation will share Peter’s learnings from this delegation. It will be argued that true peace can only be built on a foundation of justice. For this to happen the state of Israel needs to be held to account by the international community for its behaviour towards Palestinian peoples.

[Titles of slides from presentation] Global agenda for social work Delegation to West Bank, January 2016 This presentation ... A short history of nearly everything Since World War 2 1967 and since Palestianian land loss Jerusalem Qualandia Refugee Camp Settlements Separation Barrier House demolitions Children in military detention Experiences of detained children Non-violent resistence : Bi'lin Village Analogy : domestic violence Peace? What can we do? References