14 April 2020

Our reference: MC2020/01349

Richard Martin FRSA
President and Founder
Children of Peace

By email: president@childrenofpeace.org.uk

Dear Mr Martin
Thank you for your email of 18 February about the work of Children of Peace and your congratulations on my appointment as Minister for the Middle East and North Africa. I thank you for your support and for the continued important work undertaken by Children of Peace.

The UK’s longstanding position on the Middle East Peace Process is clear and has not changed: we support a negotiated settlement leading to a safe and secure Israel living alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state; based on 1967 borders with agreed land swaps, Jerusalem as the shared capital of both states, and a just, fair, agreed and realistic settlement for refugees.

The UK shares your commitment to helping build understanding between people on both sides of the conflict, including engaging in people-to-people work to bring together different communities. This includes promoting a more positive portrayal of one another to contribute to building the conditions needed for peace. We continue to urge the Israeli and Palestinian leadership to avoid engaging in, or encouraging, any type of action and language that makes it more difficult to achieve a culture of peaceful coexistence and a negotiated solution to the conflict.

To secure a peaceful and just political solution, it is essential that the two populations come together to develop shared visions and concrete actions for the future.

We remain committed to working with Israel to secure improvements to the practices surrounding children in detention, advocating for the mandatory use of audio-visual recording of interrogations and an end to the use of painful restraints. Children are also suffering as a result of the long-lasting movement restrictions and the serious constraints imposed by the Israeli occupation.

We firmly believe a just and lasting resolution that ends the occupation and delivers peace for both Israelis and Palestinians is long overdue. We will continue to press Israel and the Palestinians strongly on the need to refrain from taking actions which make peace more difficult.

I look forward to working with Children of Peace in the future to advance our shared goal of peace for Israelis and Palestinians.

The Rt Hon. James Cleverly MP
Minister of State for the Middle East and North Africa

Seven kilometers from the center of Jerusalem, born and raised in a village called Hizma. In my childhood I used to go out with the sheep after school, and I used to play football, soccer with Jewish kids from a Jewish neighborhood called Neve Yaakob. Until I saw they started building a settlement, and seeing the army in Jerusalem, stopping Palestinians and demolishing houses. Also I used to play the flute and that connected me to Palestinian music, folk lore, and revolutionary songs.

Then there was the war in Lebanon and the massacres there. My older brother was in jail so I used to visit him in jail also, so when I turned 13, 14 I connected myself to the Palestinian revolution and became an activist against the occupation. I was coordinator of a group of children, all around the same age. I believed in military, militia and I wanted to fight the Israelis and free the Palestinian people. I believed strongly in armed resistance.

I participated in a few hunger strikes, that also taught me how to unite prisoners, solidarity and patience. Among other learnings, hunger strikes were the most effective tool of the prisoners. That was my first practical teaching in nonviolence. We also studied Martin Luther King Jr and Gandhi. Also Nelson Mandela, who was in jail also at that time. I studied the Palestinian narrative and then I studied Hebrew and the Israeli narrative.

Also I often read some values from spiritual traditions from the Middle East, like Jesus’s teaching of love your enemy and Islamic teachings of turning your enemy into a friend. All of this turned me into thinking, along with some of the other prisoners, to believe there is no military solution to the conflict. There was a big emphasis put on transforming myself. I realized that the attachment each side has to this “homeland” was never going away. I learned from history that not mainstream ideas – revolutionary ideas based on humanity and love and sharing resources/power, in order to transform an unjust system – always win in the end. This is how my ancestors and what our Palestinian indigenous culture believes in, at its core.

The Palestinian tradition is a very spiritual tradition. I learned this from my mom, and from the history books I was reading. I came out of jail with a vision to work together with Israelis, Palestinians and others who think out of the box and beyond the competitive narrative of debating “who’s the biggest victim.”

That was my first time ever, to live in the same place as Israelis who are not soldiers or police. From learning about the other, to being in the same place, eating together – that was a big learning for me. It was deeply challenging but also deeply meaningful. I came back from the trip with a deep commitment to changing myself and my surroundings and not to give up, because there were a lot of challenging moments with a lot of the participants, and I could see the two narratives conflicting there around simple things.

It also created some personal friendships and the most interesting part that in Chile, we succeeded in having the Jewish and Palestinian communities meeting – for the first time ever (locally). For me, I felt like I was participating in changing the relationship on a global scale, and the history between our peoples.

Naturally there are dynamics, challenges, and also opportunities within these groups and outside of these groups. Especially around power dynamics, for example. Around victimhood and shared responsibilities – the main challenge is that we are trying to create a new reality, which is a vision and a dream, and for people outside, this isn’t where they are. So sometimes we get told we are selling out, that we love our enemy, that we are normalizer, and that we are not Palestinian anymore (or not Israeli anymore).

Also for many people in the journey, it is hard to keep hope, because they feel small and not effective, so somehow we need a few leaders who really see beyond the moments of challenges to keep the vision up high and to dream big. To see the small steps as a part of the bigger struggle for freedom and dignity for everyone.

Only a few of us are masters of this art.

Just kidding, but on a more serious note: many people in the west think Palestinians are violent by nature, but the truth is, Middle Eastern culture in by and large is really peace loving and friendly. We are very hospitable, and respectful of difference. In fact, Palestine and Palestinians are incredibly diverse.

For centuries we had many Jewish Palestinians as a core part of our communities. We still have many Christian Palestinians, and they are accepted equally in our communities. Where I live in Ramallah, the municipality is run by Christians, in Bethlehem also.

There are a wide range of opinions and stereotypes about Israelis – ether they are only morally good, or they are entirely evil. I would say that people are people everywhere. Our criticism of the Israeli system (government and military), is separate from our care for the Israeli people. We want to make change for the sake of Israelis as well as Palestinians. To be free and liberated from being either occupiers or occupied, to be either oppressed or oppressors. We want all people to be free. The liberation of people on both sides is deeply interconnected.

… is a reflection of the imbalance in power, supported by world powers, is damaging and deepening the mistrust between the two sides. It is also making more hopelessness in the streets, these steps are only deepening the sense of hopelessness in the Palestinian population. Unfortunately, the current, new Israeli government has nothing to do with any peace or reconciliation in the first place.

The people controlling the system have no interest in making any change. It is not on their agenda or in their interest, unfortunately. It is again using force to destroy the indigenous culture of the Palestinian people, especially in the Jordan valley, where there are local small communities living there. Colonial policies are not going to help Israelis to be an authentic or accepted part of the Middle East. You can’t build healthy or good relationships through force.

For people who care about the environment, or the health of indigenous communities, it is devastating. It will not create reconciliation or peace, it does the opposite. With that said, I remain optimistic. I believe deeply that human values are stronger than force, and that the people who belong to this land will never disappear. No force can take away the feeling of belonging to the land. This is call for each one of us to participate and take responsibility for making a change for the earth, for nature, for human rights. The corona virus shows us that we are all interconnected and just as the virus doesn’t seen nations or cultures or colors, we can act as a global human family with respect for mother earth, nature and animals as well.