Welcome to Palestine!

Heather

(Joint Advocacy Initiative Intern in Palestine)

On the eve of my one month milestone in Palestine I finally sit down to process my thoughts...I have absorbed a crazy amount of information which I don’t want to just relay back to you (I think if this would evoke any response from you, the international community would have intervened here long ago). So instead I want to share some of my experiences and what I have witnessed here with my own eyes. It won’t necessarily be PC or well articulated it is just an expression of my views – a piece of me to help you see a piece of Palestine.

So I arrived in Beit Sahour, which was much colder than I had thought (thanks a bunch lonely planet) and I was shown my accommodation options which turned out to be my accommodation option (a bit of a dive) but thankfully I am living near super nice people who volunteer at the JAI and so I settled in immensely quickly to my new surroundings.  I am still of course asking stupid questions like, ‘When do the bins go out?’ Or, ‘When is the set lunch time?’ I am learning everyday about the indirect, ‘go with the flow’ culture here and similarly in my office, deadlines, structure and forward planning are pretty unheard of concepts so is any kind of praise or recognition of my work at all!

By and large, in relation to where I am staying in the West Bank, you could be forgiven for being blissfully unaware that you are standing in occupied territory. My first experience of the occupation was the day after I arrived, on a trip to Hebron where the very centre of the city is occupied. As I had nothing to compare it to and because everything was still a blur after just arriving, it was only on later visits that I realised how crazy it was. Palestinians are barred from going down certain roads in their own neighbourhood, arbitrary checks of Palestinians’ IDs occur constantly and a part of a mosque was converted into a synagogue.

Closer to home is Bethlehem which instead of being like, ‘Oh little town of Bethlehem’ which I was made to believe every Christmas, it is more like Oh large town of noise, pollution and pervy men. Of course I was also expecting to see the exact hill where Jesus had been crucified, not a blade of grass out of place and the ‘stable’ where he was born. These of course are long gone, (things change apparently over a couple of thousand years!) only a metal star or a few candles commemorates the place where it was thought that these events may have happened and so I was more than a tad disappointed as it all seems just for show and to give tourists (of which there are many) a good photo.

Unlike Palestinians, Israelis appear somewhat more direct about their intentions. Simply put they want to protect land which they believe is Eretz Israel. This includes what is biblically known as Judea and Samaria (aka the whole of the West Bank) where over 2 million mainly non – Jews (mostly Muslims and Christians) live. To accomplish this goal, many Jewish, pro Zionists from Israel and around the world have moved into illegal settlements across the West Bank with a very clear intention of land grabbing and many of whom have made public threats on the lives of Palestinians.

I have heard of many atrocities already in my short time here. I witnessed a march on the 30^th March to commemorate land day when protestors against land confiscation were shot dead by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) in 1976. Many pro-Palestinians all over the world marched towards Jerusalem to show solidarity for the Palestinian people. I was in Bethlehem for this were I believe 15 were severely injured due to teargas and rubber bullets (ordinary bullets with a small coating of rubber, not bullets made out of rubber, as I once thought) and many more injuries were reported throughout the West Bank.

Another event on the 17^th April marked Palestinian Prisoners’ Day. I recently heard from a woman whose son has been in prison for the last 20 years. His crime: Driving a car carrying a person who was wanted by the IDF. He was only 20 years old at the time of his arrest.

I have also seen several Internationals being arrested here for raising awareness on particular issues, they however are released pretty quickly and can enjoy freedom again a luxury which Palestinians have not been allowed since the occupation began over 60 years ago.

Many people make draw similarities here (possibly to try and maintain hope) to the Northern Ireland and South African conflicts and resolutions. I think of the song ‘Waka Waka This time For Africa’ by Shakira and I think to myself maybe one day some equally bootylicious popstar will sing: This time for Palestine....

Follow Heather's journey by checking out her blog at : http://piecesofmepiecesofpalestine.blogspot.co.uk/

Weekend in the Jordan Valley

This weekend revealed to me the desperate but unyielding struggles of the Palestinian people residing in the Jordan Valley. The basic necessities that every human being should be entitled to are denied here – water, health, education and freedom – and it is not because of poverty, poor infrastructure or an underdeveloped economy, it is because they are intentionally stolen away from the Palestinians. The situation in the Jordan Valley is critical. Harmful Israeli occupation practices are intensifying, settlement expansion is increasing and strategic ethnic cleansing is succeeding as a result of the intense pressure exerted on Palestinians to leave their homeland. When Israel occupied the Jordan Valley in 1967, 320,000 Palestinians lived here. Now there are only 56,000 Palestinians residing in the region on a permanent basis.

On entering Jordan Valley, it is made clear to us that we are entering Israeli land. We must walk through a checkpoint to go any further. We take off our bags and coats, hand over our passports and walk through the metal detector. It is much easier for us to get through than for the Palestinian man who was travelling with us. He is forced to empty his pockets, remove his shoes and walk back and forth through the metal detector until the Israeli soldier is satisfied. On the other side we are greeted by a group of Israeli soldiers. It is impossible not to feel intimidated when you are being stared down and interrogated by your peers who are dressed in military gear and holding assault rifles. Surprisingly, we are provoked by a female soldier in the group. She asks us if we are going to meet an Arab friend and when we walk away, sarcastically wishes us to ‘have a great time, honey.’

Once in Jordan Valley, we make our way to the Bedouin Village of Khirbet Samra. The West Bank is divided into three territories as declared by the 1993 Oslo Accords: A, B and C. Area C covers 60 per cent of the West Bank. Unlike Areas A and B which allow for varying amounts of Palestinian control, Area C is under full Israeli administrative and security control. They control the roads, any land in the vicinity of settlements, and strategic areas considered ‘security zones’. As the most fertile area of the West Bank, many Palestinians are dependent on the land to provide for their livelihoods. We are shown a road that has been closed off by the Israelis. It is an essential road used by Palestinians to travel and access their agricultural land. Palestinians are only permitted to cross the road during a 30 minute window, two times per day, and three days a week. We are told a story of one family living nearby. A couple of months ago, their son was crossing this road on a tractor to reach their farm. The vehicle crashes and the boy falls and hits his head. When his family discover that he doesn’t return they approach the road but it is closed off. They can see their son injured at the side of the road but are denied access by Israeli soldiers. His family are forced to watch him bleed to death. 

Our car drives along a mud path, approaching a cluster of tents located at the head of a valley. We are in Khirbet Samra, a Bedouin village that has existed for centuries. It is currently overlooked by a settlement, and is also bordered by an army base at the entrance to the valley. The community is regularly harassed by settlers and the military, they have been issued several demolition orders, and have had many of their buildings destroyed. We are shown an animal enclosure that was destroyed the day before by Israeli settlers. 

At one point during the day, a settler car stops on top off the hill and tries to steal one of the sheep belonging to the village. It is just one of the strategies deployed to force Bedouin families to leave. One of the neighbouring villages we visit, Mak-hul, has a water pipe passing through it leading to the Israeli military base on the top of the hill surrounding the village. Water is a serious problem in the Jordan Valley. Since the occupation, Israel has monopolised the area’s water resources and controls where wells can be placed and how much water can be pumped from them. As a result, Palestinians suffer from a lack of access due to Israeli restrictions and extreme usage. While settlers are receiving hefty discounts on their water bills, Palestinians have no other choice but to install expensive water pumps and pay unreasonable fines for exceeding their allowed water usage.

We are greeted by the 25 children that live in Khirbet Samra. They offer us flowers and it is the warmest welcome that I have received so far in Palestine.

The aim today is to build a tent school for the children in Khirbet Samra with Jordan Valley Solidarity. Once finished, the organisation will send teachers to the school on a regular basis. The children have not been able to attend school as the nearest one is 20km away and they occasionally receive harassment from soldiers and settlers on their way to the school. In Area C, it is not an easy feat to set up a school. It is illegal to build without an Israeli building permit which is almost impossible to obtain. If you do build, the structure is vulnerable to receive a stop work order for demolition. 


After a few hours, the school is completed and the children are eager to help us with the decorating. They get stuck in with the paint to their parent’s dismay. These children are beautiful. They want to play with us and continue to pick flowers and hand them to us. They are not a security threat and they are not terrorists. They deserve every opportunity in life. 

It is a bittersweet feeling once the school is finished. It represents resistance and resilience, a fight for the right to education, and the love and dedication displayed by the children. It is sad to think that in the near future this school will be demolished. 

At the end of my trip, I speak with a local Palestinian teacher who is volunteering with Jordan Valley Solidarity. He asks me what people in the UK think about the occupation and is clearly upset when I tell him that many people are not actually aware of the atrocities taking place here. He asks why the world does not care about the Palestinian’s suffering in the Jordan Valley and I also wonder why.

Vigil for Gaza at the LSE

Yasmin Ahmed

LSE Palestine Society

27 candles

On Thursday 15th March, the LSE Palestine Society held a candle-lit vigil on campus to mourn the victims of Israel's latest deadly bombardment of Gaza. The attacks, which began on March 9th, continued for five days, leaving 27 dead and dozens injured. Those dead included 12-year-old schoolboy Ayoub Useila, killed by an airstrike which also injured his 7-year-old cousin.

Twenty-seven candles were lit on Houghton Street just before sunset to mark the lives of those killed, and a two-minute silence was observed. A black banner with the words "Silence Is Complicity" was also displayed throughout the day, referring to the media blackout surrounding the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the complete lack of observance paid towards the relentless attacks upon it and its population of 1.5 million.

Second R2E lecture broadcast to Gaza!

Yasmin Ahmed

LSE SU Palestine Society

On Tuesday 13th March, following last month's International Relations lecture broadcasting to students at the Islamic University of Gaza by Dr Marco Pinfari [http://the-london-school-of-emancipation.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/right-2-education-project-gets-underway.html], Dr Menolis Melissaris from the Law Department at the LSE delivered the second in a series of five lectures as part of the LSE Palestine Society's 'Right 2 Education' (R2E) Campaign.

Dr Menolis Melissaris delivering a
lecture via Shype to students to Gaza

His lecture, entitled "An Introduction to Western Legal Thought" was broadcast live at 9am London time (11am Gaza time) to an audience of around 30 students. This was quite an extraordinary turnout given that over the three days prior to this lecture, and indeed during and after, Gaza was being pounded by Israeli air attacks, which eventually left 27 dead and dozens wounded. 

The third lecture in this series will be delivered by renowned Human Rights lawyer and LSE Professor Conor Gearty, who will be discussing the historical, philosophical and legal derivations of Human Rights Theory. 

For more information about this student-led project and to get involved, please email su.soc.palestine@lse.ac.uk

LSE Palestine Society hosts Deputy Speaker of the Israeli Knesset

LSE SU Palestine Society

On Monday 5th March, the Palestine Society at the LSE had the honour of hosting Deputy Speaker of Israeli Knesset Dr Ahmed El Tibi in a talk entitled 'Israel & the Arab Spring: The Way Forward'. 

From left to right: Chair Samer Abdelnour, Ambassador Manuel
Hassassian, and Dr Ahmed El Tibi

Tibi, who was introduced to the audience by the Palestinian Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Manuel Hassassian, began by discussing the discrimination that Palestinian citizens of Israel suffer from, such as the fact that "Arab citizens of Israel make up 20% of the Israeli population yet make up only 7.5% of public sector employees". He went on to describe the Knesset as at its "most racist, radical and extreme", giving the example of the Israeli law against family unification which essentially "forbids an arab citizen of Israel who is willing to marry a Palestinian woman from the West bank from having his life in his town in Israel unless he is willing to leave his country and live with his wife in Israel". Regarding this, he commented that "only Israel deals with romance and love as a conspiracy against the security of Israel".

The speaker then went on to talk about issues of democracy and security, arguing that Israel and indeed the world is selective about these things when it comes to Palestine whilst making a reference to Hamas' election in Gaza in 2008 which was wholly unaccepted by a number of countries. Tibi also alleged that "the word security is only compatible with Israel" given that "in Gaza there is much more need for security than in Tel Aviv".

After a 30-minute speech, a lively Q&A session ensued, with Ambassador Hassassian referring to the 60-year Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories as "the most ferocious occupation in modern history". 

Refugee Rhythmz hit the LSE!

On Friday 2nd March, the Palestine and Arabic societies of the LSE and Kings' College joined forces to bring a night of hip hop, spoken word and poetry. 

The lineup included live performances from renowned Iraqi-Canadian rapper The Narcicyst, up-and-coming British-Iranian MC Mic Righteous and Egyptian Arabic rapper Deeb, as well as a number of new up-and-coming UK-based artists. Speakers included Rafeef Ziadah and Sanasino and stalls were also available on the night, selling merchandise.

We would like to express our thanks to everyone who made this event possible and to the artists and poets who performed on the night, which raised over £500. Proceeds from this fundraising gig will go towards funding a full-time academic scholarship for a Palestinian refugee to attend Birzeit University, one of the best academic institutions in Palestine. 

List of performers: The Narcicyst, Mic Righteous, Deeb, Logic, Ed Greenz, Rafeef Ziadah, Sanasino, Lyricist Jinn, Tabanacle, Caspa.

Glasgow University latest to boycott Eden Springs

Glasgow University Palestine Society

In September 2011 Glasgow University Palestine Society relaunched a campaign which began several years ago to encourage the University to cancel their contract with Eden Springs.  Eden Springs UK are a subsidiary of Mayanot Eden, an Israeli company which extracts water from illegally occupied Golan Heights, bottling the water in nearby settlement Katzrin. Eden Springs has become a major target in the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions movement across the UK and Europe, responding to the call from Palestinian civil society.

The campaign consisted of public meetings, a student petition, an appeal for support to the Student Representatives Council, and a letter from staff at the University which voiced their support for the motion to cancel the contract.  Following a report submitted to the University in January 2012, a meeting was arranged between members of the Society and the Principal of the University, Anton Muscatelli.

The meeting took place on 13th March 2012.  The Principal assured the Palestine Society that the University acknowledged the concerns of the students and staff, and to this end would make a commitment to refraining from any future contract with Eden Springs.

The agreement from the University follows similar commitments from other Scottish Universities including Strathclyde University, Caledonian University, University of Edinburgh, Dundee University and others.  Similar campaigns have been run at Universities and Colleges across the UK.

Glasgow University Palestine Society would like to thank everyone who supported the campaign by signing the student petition and staff letter.  In addition to this, we would like to thank all of the individuals who assisted the campaign through offering advice and resources.  Thanks also to individuals who endorsed the campaign, and organisations such as Boycott From Within for their endorsement.

We consider this success significant not just for Glasgow Palsoc, but for all groups campaigning for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions of Israeli companies internationally.  The Palestine Society at Glasgow University will continue to pursue BDS campaigns against Israeli companies, the existence of which propagates Israel’s ongoing system of occupation, apartheid and oppression of the Palestinian people.

The Irreplaceable

By Fidaa Abuassi

I have got into the habit of letting my students guess the meaning of any new word from its context rather than stating the meaning directly. On the board I wrote these three sentences: “Appreciate the beauty of nature. Appreciate your mother and be grateful to her. Appreciate what you have before it becomes what you had.” Then, I asked them to try to guess the meaning of the word “appreciate”. As they guessed right, I asked them whether they are appreciative of what they have before it is irretrievably gone. Given that my mother means more than the world to me, I, assuming the role of my grandmother probably, prolonged the talk on this topic, offering some pieces of advice on how each should take good care of the mother and seek her pleasure obediently. “Appreciate the irreplaceable,” I heartedly throated, then, suddenly –or rather shockingly –stopped upon hearing a girl sobbing uncontrollably. I panicked. “Habibti, what’s wrong?” I knelt down next to her, begging.

Trying to wipe her non-stop shedding tears off her checks, she seemed inconsolable. “Please talk to me,” I begged again as my heart wrinkled out of fear, for it was almost my first time I happened to be the only grown-up around where I had to be wise enough to handle all alone whatever went wrong. It was such a staggering burden for so young a teacher. “I… lo…s..lo..lost my mom,” she was still sobbing. “Oh my God!” I gasped. That was the last thing I needed to hear. Intuitively, I sensed it, yet I feared it. Sometimes I hate when my hunches fail to fail me. Speechless, I patted her shoulder with a failed attempt to calm her down. I wished I had not been destined to be a teacher. I regretted my way of teaching. I hated the contexts on which I placed the word ‘appreciate’. I cursed the topic I prolonged and the role of my grandmother I assumed. I thought I was too young to bear such a responsibility, such a mission, a teaching mission. I took her in my tiny, helpless arms, this time assuming the role of a mother, the mother she lost, most likely. I cried, sharing her the sobs, while beckoning to the other students to have a break or better to leave. I needed a break. A leave.

  

Till now, I haven’t dared to ask what happened to her mother. I knew some shattered pieces unfolded by one of her classmates. Selfishly, I didn’t want to hear any further details. Thank you! I have lived enough details. Details that have bestowed me with age beyond that of mine. Details that made me sound more like my versatile grandmother who seems to have much knowledge about anything and everything in life. Details that made my mind bulge with bitter-sweet memories. There, lying in my bed, totally drained, I couldn’t stop thinking of my bereaved student whose image seemed unavoidable as though imprinted in my weary memory, forever.

Since the moment I tasted death during the bloody war Israel waged against us, I came to realize that I would lose everything and everyone anytime all at once without notice. The war taught me that everything is temporary and nothing I would ever have I could count on, neither parents nor siblings nor friends and of course not home nor even life. Since that, I tried harder to accept such a poignant fact with much patience and rectitude. Still, I am not yet ready. I failed, and I am still failing, even in faking. Since the day I experienced how others experienced real deaths and losses, I fear experiencing it myself one day. I resist me growing attached to a thing or a person, fearing to experience its loss, not because I lack this sense of appreciation about which I talked earlier with my students, yet because I have this sense of insecurity and uncertainty that the occupation implanted in me by making life so elusively vulnerable to death.

The kind of life I have had made me the person I am today. Such a life makes me see things with exaggerated nostalgia. A life that freaks me out when it whispers to me that the family I am with today while enjoying a Friday meal together, might not be there tomorrow. Why is that when I enjoyed a walk with a friend, a laugh with a brother, a dance with a sister, or the like, I see these moments as mere memories, having the feeling of missing those people while I am actually still with them? Why do I seem to have always craved a sealed promised that I will have my family and my friends for life and never ever to lose them? Why can’t I accept the universally acknowledged fact that nothing lasts forever. Impossible to have it forever? Hasn’t the Israeli occupation taught me this, a zillion times, so practically? Or hasn’t the occupation been a qualified teacher yet? Appreciate or don’t. It wouldn’t make any difference, had someone been destined to have such a life under such a merciless occupation that masters causing suffering to people by making them experience losses, consistently.

Yesterday, I went with a group of internationals to visit the Sammouni family. They wanted to hear the countess-times-told story directly from the mother. Sorrowfully, I happened to be the interpreter of the story. Of grief. Of agony. Of injustice. With tears streaking her face, the mother stopped narrating. I stopped translating. Spontaneously, I gave her a tight hug, thinking, with much naivety, that by hugging her, I could soothe her aching heart (I don’t know what role I assumed that moment, a husband?). As I turned my face to tell my friend Komal, whose eyes were already swollen with tears, that what we heard was enough, I found everyone was apparently agonized by her agony, speechlessly mesmerized. This mother lost her husband and her child. Both were murdered in front of her eyes. All what she hopped for at that very moment was to have a final look at her husband’s gun-shot corpse which was totally drowned in his innocently spilt blood. The solider didn’t let her, despite her heart-rending weeps. “Allah yesamho (God forgives him)! He didn’t allow me to see my husband for the last time,” she recalled, still feeling the same pain she once felt and tore her heart apart till the rest of her death-drenched life. Three years have elapsed, and yet she can’t survive the horrible memories of losing the irreplaceable. Her husband. Her son.

“Fidaa, please ask her how we could help her”, asked one. I wanted to tell him that there was nothing he could offer, had he not been able to bring her husband and son back, had he not been able to erase that painful part off of her memory, had he not been able to make her forget how her husband and son were shot to death in front of her. However, he wanted me to ask her and so I did. “How you could help!” she heaved, “Khalas faGadna el ghali (we lost our beloved)”. I inhaled her pain and exhaled a deep sigh. Between me and myself, I vowed to never come back to that place again, believing that I have been weighed down with enough pain and sorrow. Later, however, I reproached myself for being too susceptible to bear hearing a story of pain, let alone living it with its details. Yet, I felt compelled to never get tired of telling the story. The story of injustice. Of losing a beloved. The irreplaceable.

Too complex? I'll make it simple for you.

 Yasmin Ahmed

(LSE SU Palestine Society)

Last Monday (20th February) marked the start of Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), an annual international series of events held in cities and campuses across the globe with the aim of highlighting the apartheid nature of the state of Israel and to raise awareness about the daily struggles that are faced by Palestinians as a result. 

As such, the Palestine Society marked this week by reenacting an Israeli checkpoint on Houghton Street, with the aim of highlighting one of the many obstacles that are systematically designed and implemented by Israel to degrade and restrict the lives of Palestinians. The response to our stunt was overwhelmingly positive, with numerous individuals including staff and non-LSE passersby expressing their appreciation and solidarity with our efforts and the message we were manifesting.

However, this was all completely ignored as attention was immediately diverted away from the very distressing and brutal reality in Palestine to “Violence on Houghton Street”, following the bombardment of the stunt by four students who decided to throw water bombs towards us, with one missile hitting a member of the society directly in the face. In the aftermath of the shameful yet very telling attack on the checkpoint reenactment and on members of the Palestine Society, and as an attempt to rationalize and thus excuse the deplorable behaviour of the attackers, we were accused by the Israel Society of trivializing a very “complex situation for both sides” and that we shouldn’t have been surprised about the attack because we had “intimidated Jewish students” by holding “oversized guns”. Too complex? I’ll make it simple for you.

According to a September 2011 report compiled by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Occupied Palestinian Territory (OCHAOPT), there are currently 522 roadblocks and checkpoints in the West Bank. This is in addition to an average of 495 ad-hoc ‘flying’ checkpoints that were put in place in every month of 2011 which further obstructed movement across the West Bank. As a result of this, 200,000 people from 70 villages are consequently “forced to use detours between two to five times longer than the direct route to their closest city”. And it doesn’t stop there. According to MIFTAH, the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy, between September 2000 and April 2011, 401 Palestinians died at checkpoints as a result of preventing medical personnel at Israeli checkpoints, and there were 32 stillbirths at checkpoints.

Furthermore, the 62%-completed “security fence” that Israel is currently building ‘along’ the West Bank has 80% of its route built inside the West Bank, on Palestinian territory. Why do we call this “fence” an Apartheid Wall? Because in actual fact, it is a 26 foot concrete wall which serves to isolate Palestinian communities and families in the West Bank and entrenches the annexation of Palestinian land by Israeli settlements, which were deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004 and are considered by the international community as a flagrant violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which stipulates that “the occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”. 

This is not a distortion. This is not disputed. And it is certainly not complex. These are quite simply the facts. Our stunt, described as a “disgusting simplification” by the Israel Society, doesn’t even begin to come close to fully highlighting the pain, suffering and humiliation that Palestinians are put through every single day as result of checkpoints, the wall and the continued occupation of their land. If staging a mock checkpoint and holding oversized guns was offensive and intimidating for some, then how should they be feeling about the fact that there are hundreds of actual checkpoints guarded by IDF soldiers armed with real guns that Palestinians are greeted with on their way to university, work or to the hospital? 

What happened this week on our campus does not indicate a need nor a desire for dialogue. The attack on the stunt was a clear-cut case of inexcusable bullying, physical intimidation and a shameful interference with the right to free speech and freedom of assembly. Moreover, the assault was particularly offensive to the Palestinian students who were involved in the stunt, some of whom are from Gaza, who have lived through and witnessed the utter criminality, terror and injustice imposed upon their families by Israel. To come to study in the UK and suffer this degree of intimidation and bullying from supporters of Israel on our campus is appalling.

If this incident has taught us anything, it is that when confronted with the reality of an unjust, illegal and inhumane set of state policies that systematically discriminates against Palestinians and seeks to strip away every shred of their dignity, those on the side of the oppressor are left with no ammunition. Except for water bombs. 

Right 2 Education Project gets underway at the LSE!

Yasmin Ahmed

LSE SU Palestine Society

On Tuesday 21st February, Dr Marco Pinfari from the International Relations Department at the London School of Economics delivered the first in a series of five lectures being broadcast to students in Gaza as part of the LSE SU Palestine Society's 'Right 2 Education' Campaign.

Dr Pinfari delivering his lecture live via Skype to Gaza

Tuesday's lecture, "An Introduction into International Relations Theory" was broadcast live via Skype to the students from the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG), a university that the LSE Students' Union is currently twinned with. Students from the IUG were gathered in one of their lecture theatres as Dr Pinfari gave an overview of the different schools of thought within International Relations and how they translate into state policies. The 40-minute lecture was followed by an interactive Q&A session, during which students came up to the stage to ask Dr Pinfari about further readings and how certain points he raised can be linked to the Palestinian struggle.

Isra Migdad, one of the students in Gaza who attended the lecture said that "Dr Pinfari simplified the three concepts of realism, liberalism and marxism and the handout he provided was very useful. I'm looking forward to the next lecture, where Dr Pinfari will link the three concepts to the Palestinian issue".

The next in this series of lectures will again be delivered by Dr Pinfari next week, followed by three further lectures from professors in the Law and International History departments.

For more information about this student-led project and to get involved, please email su.soc.palestine@lse.ac.uk

Palestine Society calls on LSE to protect our right to peacefully protest

LSE SU Palestine Society

Students attacking the peaceful stunt staged by the LSE SU Palestine Society

On Monday the 20th of February, students from LSESU Palestine Society re-enacted an Israeli checkpoint on Houghton Street, as the start of Israeli Apartheid Week. The re-enactment was to show the suffering Palestinians face on a daily basis, trying to live their lives. All students which took part, had pre-agreed to take part in the re-enactment and students who did not wish to be involved were not forced to take part. The re-enactment passed peacefully for two hours, with students responding incredibly positively to the action.

An hour and forty minutes into the stall, four students threw numerous water bombs at the wall which was being held up by several students who were members of the LSESU Palestine Society members. The balloons hit our members, with several of these missiles hitting these students directly in the face, who were as a result incredibly upset by the incident. The missiles  which were thrown knocked down one of the walls being held up by members of the society falling on these students. This could have potentially seriously injured society members and passers by, as they were heavy wooden panels which required holding up by students.

The LSESU Palestine Society fully condemns the actions of the four students who threw the missiles. The re-enactment and stall by the Palestine Society was completely peaceful, and the reaction of these students is unjustifiable. The actions of the four students presents a threat to the wellbeing of our societies members who were peacefully re-enacting the daily struggles of Palestinian people. As soon as the incident was over Palestine Society members returned to re-enacting the checkpoint.  This incident shows the victimization of peaceful protesters who were simply trying to draw attention to the cause of the Palestinian people. For students taking part in a peaceful protest to have missiles thrown at them for no reason is completely unacceptable. Many members of our society who were taking part in the re-enactment felt incredibly threatened as a result of the incident. We as a society call on management to continue to protect our right to peaceful protest on LSE’s campus.

 Long Live Palestine!