Event in Newcastle on 11th December!

Our Palestinian visitors will arrive in Newcastle on the way to the Lake District - and this is giving an opportunity for them to meet people there. They will have a brief tour of the town, a meal, and then there will be an event at 7pm on 11th DECEMBER - details to follow. Only people who are not too tired are required to speak on that first day! But some will...  Great - and thanks to friends in Newcastle.

Small victory! but not enough.

Our formal complaint and constant reporting of the problems of the visa system (and probably that of others) have borne fruit: from today, there will be 50% more appointments available for West Bankers wanting to apply for UK visas.

We are pleased about this for the time being - it will help, for the time being - but it isn't the whole of the answer, we believe. The UK is operating a de facto discriminatory system and echoing Israel's categories for Palestinians which have no foundation in International Law.

The whole thing should be challenged.

We say in this petition http://www.petitions24.com/palestine_and_jerusalem,  [please sign and share].....

(picture, the Separation Wall between Abu Dis and Aizariyeh and Mount of Olives, Jerusalem)

Challenging the racism of the illegal settlement movement: while Israel continues to hold on to Palestinian land and to operate settlements on it, the UK should put Israelis and Palestinians in the same legal bracket.  This would mean a change, for example, to current UKBA rules that make visas unnecessary for Israelis and difficult for Palestinians.

As long as Israelis are settling Palestine and living on its land, the UK should make them subject to the same visa rules.  

Someone did this logo for us, what do you think?

Crazier and crazier

This UK visa system is crazy in so many ways, and certainly how it works is not clear.

Posts below talk about the disparity between Jerusalemites and West Bankers that is being implemented by the UK visa system. Yesterday, see post below, the one Jerusalem applicant in the leaders' visit had his passport delivered back by Aramex ... to Dar Assadaqa, Abu Dis, outside Jerusalem.  OK, he has got it back, but that is ODD.

Meanwhile, one of the West Bankers was told that her passport was ready, she could come and collect it from Jerusalem. As we wrote here yesterday, that system means that people from the West Bank who cannot get to Jerusalem face the old problem of getting someone to go to Jerusalem to get their passports.

Today, one of the participants from the West Bank had a telephone call saying that the other eight passports were with Aramex at Ar-Ram (why Ar-Ram?) and would come to him (why to him? - other people's passports are their own, he is not organising the visit!)  for payment of 50 NIS each (Why the 50 NIS? This wasn't told to anyone in advance.)  And what about the person who was told to collect hers...??

This system is creating maximum stress and confusion, quite apart from the inequalities it is operating and reinforcing.

UK participants and links groups...

Students’ links

Zaynab

Taif  

Robert  

Zak  

Emilio  

Women’s links

Nina

Annika

Mila

Cristina

Rosie

Youth links

Dunia

Banin

Mike

Shaz

Sam

Come and sing for Palestine - women's exchange

Today is the deadline for applicants for women in Palestine to join the women's exchange in March, which is called 'Come and Sing.'  Applicants are being invited for interview at Dar Assadaqa on Thursday and then the group will be formed.


We have space for fifteen young women from Britain to join this exciting project* - Do look on  the Twinning in Action webpage for the application forms - Hope to hear from you!


*This includes leaders.



Pictures are a choir in Aberystwyth in Wales working with some of the young visitors in our 'Common Ground' project, August 2013

The name 'Come and Sing' was from a song that they sang first there, which then was sung throughout the project .

visa system - you couldn't make it up

(More on the struggle for the visas  in posts below)

The visas for our visitors (now coming on 11th December) are beginning to arrive. The first passport has been opened and we find that after all this, the visa was issued on 19th November. It could have been possible for them to come in mid-November as originally planned, had they been allowed to collect the passports from Amman... and though they were told 'three weeks' at a point that  made us postpone the visit a second time, the visas are back now in time... we didn't have to change the date.

And in the middle, yet another madness. Look at this

(1)  If you put your passport application in in Jerusalem, they can deliver it to Abu Dis - Salah's passport was brought to Dar Assadaqa this  morning to our surprise and amazement.

(2)  But if you can't get to Jerusalem, so you have to put your passport application in in Ramallah, then your passport is left in the passport office in Jerusalem... so you have an extra problem as you can't go yourself to get it back.

What a system - how did anyone make it up?

CADFA volunteers will go to Jerusalem and pick up the passports that have arrived there, and so we are now looking forward to seeing our friends on 11th December... in Newcastle!