This blog piece will be about my personal journey of the Palestine and Israel conflict. So, if your are not ready for a bias (I am being upfront here) truthful account on what is going on, I suggest you build up the courage and read on.
Where does one start?
Summer 2014 maybe (brief history)
Summer 2014, I had my flight booked to go to the West Bank to stay in a camp and get a cultural experience and see how Palestinians live. Not only would I have visited the Palestinian side, but the Israeli side and the occupied territories. (You know, the land which was forcefully taken from Palestinians, driving them out of their own homes)
Unfortunately, on the day of my outbound flight, our flight was cancelled to Tel Aviv due to what was happening out there.
Summer 2014 (even though this conflict goes way back) - I spent my whole summer going to Pro-Palestinian protests, making simple bracelets so we can sell and donate the money towards aid that was needed in Gaza and bucket fund raising.
I wish we didn't have to do all this, protest for justice and peace, for land which rightfully belongs to Palestinians, for the apartheid wall to be taken down and for an end to the killing and bombing going on.
The ground invasion of Gaza in 2014 -called 'Operation Protective Edge' started of when two young Israeli boys were supposedly kidnapped on Palestinian territory. They were found not long after but all hell broke lose.
Netanyahu ordered the ground invasion of Gaza to take place were thousands of Gazans were killed, displaced from their homes as they were getting bombed, had no food and aid was not allowed to enter the Gaza Strip. There was no where to go or hide.
Israelis took to hills which gave them a good view of the ground invasion and cheered as each explosion took place before their eyes. They cheered as another building was bombed to pieces. They cheered as each limb was ripped to pieces.
This is the disgusting side of some humans. How can one cheer knowing that innocent lives were being killed?
Four boys who were playing football on the Gaza beach beach were murdered by Israelis, a young boy from the West Bank was burnt and beaten to death and his cousin- an American Palestinian was beaten to the point were he was unrecognisable. (This still happens today...)
My point of this blog is, Netanyahu, the man behind all this murder, bloodshed, injustice and occupation was invited to London by our Zionist supporting Prime Minister David Cameron.
Thousands rounded up in front of Downing Street protesting against this and for Netanyahu to be arrested. This protest was rather intense as there were two sides. Pro-Palestinians and Pro-Israelis who were carrying their flags shouting their support for Netanyahu.
Shocker
There was only a few Israeli supporters chanting anti Palestinian chants. (What they did was steal anti Israeli chants and alter them to make them their own. They steal land, cultural foods and chants as well)
The Palestinian supporters outdid the number of Israeli supporters. What came to my surprise was the number of Christians who were on the Pro Israeli side. Do they not know that the side which they support are the ones killing innocent Christian Palestinian?
And Black Israeli supporters!? I understand there are Black Jews but for them to be supporting Israel was mind boggling. They are disliked and are wanted out. They are discriminated against but they are willing to stand for Israel. (Well that's none of my business...)
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| Officers as segregation between Israeli & Palestinian supporters |
The fun side
As intense as this protest was, I cannot lie and say it was all so serious (well it was but..) There were some fun elements to it such as slowing down the nice looking cars who held the Israeli flag up high and facing them with the Palestinian flags, then getting the cars ambushed and ripping their flag apart. Many were arrested but the audacity to fly the flag amongst those who were against it was rather stupid.
Israel supporters tried to aggravate the Palestinian supporters (at times it worked) but it seemed as though some police officers were taking none of it and actually arrested a few of them.
Police Officers
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| Police officer watching as people protest |
Police officers were quite surprising actually. Many of them had no idea why they were here and it was nice to explain to them. It is not that they are not willing to learn but they are not really allowed to have a political involvement so they decide to stay out of it completely. But many agreed that if they were out of uniform, they would be on the same side as those who supported humanity.
My sister is a police officer and at the protests last year, she was policing some of the protests as we, her siblings were protesting. But as she went on a break from policing for a year, she decided to take part in the protests and it was her colleagues who were policing us. Officers are often hated and during these protests, protesters forget that these officers are doing their job and are trying to protect
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| Pro Palestinians being penned in |
us and they do not get the respect they are due. It was nice talking to them and they appreciated that at least some people understood them. At the end of the day, they are human and are trying to help us as individuals but it is the policing system which fails us.
Getting Public transport involved
As I was standing in the middle of the road on one side of the traffic, I got bus drivers, taxi drivers cyclists and passer byers to join in the protest. 'Come on driver, you seem like you support Palestine. Give us a smile' and they would smile. 'Beep if you support Palestine driver' and they would press their horn. These drivers received a cheer from a huge crowd of Pro Palestinians. But not everything went as well. One driver closed his window on me... it didn't hurt - at all.
Cyclists raised their fist up high in solidarity with Palestinians and JON SNOW - Channel 4 news presenter - even cycled by. He was on the grounds of Gaza last year reporting the reality on what was happening.
We waited for Netanyahu to leave the building but there are so many exits to leave the Prime Minister's office so we didn't see him. Obviously he was too scared to face us and come out the way which is normally used. Dahm right he used another exit for his safety. He would have been ambushed. As the protest was supposed to be coming to an end, Pro Palestinians were not going to be the first to leave. We were going to be the last. There were only a handful of Netanyahu supporters left and some of them had put down their flags. We out numbered them. We stood opposite each other out voicing them as well. Where had they gone? Tired too quickly?
Getting rid of the last flying flag
They quickly dispersed and there were two men left still holding their flag a bit down the road. It was mine and my sister's duty to get rid of them. So we went and she held the Palestinian flag peacefully in their face. We told them that Judaism is a beautiful peaceful religion and they are ruining it with their Zionist antics. They argued otherwise and told us not to tell them how to practise their religion which we were not doing. I let my sister speak for the two of us as she knows a bit more and can hold a civilised conversation. They offered to take us for a cuppa coffee to talk - which was surprising to me.
Israeli man: Let's go for a cuppa coffee and talk about this. My treat
Me: Wow, you are willing to spend a few pounds on someone but yourself.
Yes this was surprising as in the UK, there is a stereotype that they are money hungry and selfish - to some extent. So to be offered a coffee came as a shock.
An elderly man got involved in our conversation and was talking about someone (I think someone who was related to him) and how she as a Palestinian was denied entry to Palestine.
Elderly man; She is Palestinian but has never been to Palestine
Israeli man: Then how is she Palestinian?
Elderly man: She is not allowed into her own country!
Me: *LOLS*
Israeli man: *turns to me* No need to be so rude
Is he stupid!? Millions of Palestinians are not allowed into their own country, for some, their birth place or their parents birth place. But they are still Palestinian. Of course I would laugh at his face for his stupidity.
Anyway, they could no longer hold this mature conversation any longer and one even admitted to it telling his friend 'Come on let's go. I cannot stand this conversation any more'. And off they went... walking away from Pro Palestinians with their flag held low.
And that is the story of how me and my sister got rid of the last Israeli flying flag, avoided arrest, conversed with officers and protested against Netanyahu.
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