Archive for November 1st, 2009

The first day of TUFI’s delegation included a tour of the Old City of Jerusalem, meetings with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a meeting with Israeli’s Welfare Minister, Itzhak Hertzog, a meeting with a representative of the UN Quartet and finally a dinner hosted by the Government Employees Union.

The first delegate post is by Terry McCorran, a Unison Branch Chair (attending in a personal capacity)

The first thing to say is that Israel was not what I expected, at all.

It was a big surprise when we first landed.  I was expecting a large Israeli military presence – like there used to be in my home town of Belfast – but throughout the day we only saw a handful of soldiers walking around Jerusalem.

Unlike the perception from all the media reports, it was incredibly calm in Jerusalem, and the security presence was very light, even in the heart of the Jewish and Arab quarters.

View of the Old City of Jerusalem

We were told that the security was lighter than it had been for some time and that there had not been any Hamas suicide bombers for a number of years.  In fact, since Israel built its security barrier, to protect against terrorists attacks, the amount of suicide bombings has dropped by 90%.  It seems that this has enabled Israel to feel safer and therefore lift many security restrictions, making life easier for many Palestinians.

It is hard to describe how intertwined the significant religious sites are in the Old City  – Churches, Mosques and Synagogues next to each other, overlapping and sometimes even on top of one another.  The proximity is astounding.

I expected to see friction and stand-offs, but people were just getting on with their lives with complete religious tolerance and freedom.

The thing that struck me the most was the mix of people in the different quarters – Arabs, Israelis, Jews, Muslims, Christians and secular people all walking and working freely side by side.  Our Jewish guide seemed to be friends with every Palestinian in the Arab quarter and everyone was working together.

I got the impression that if left to their own devises – if the extremists on both sides backed off – the people of Jerusalem, Israel and Palestine would have peace.

In the afternoon we had a meeting with Itzhak Hertzog, Israel’s Minister of Welfare and Social Services, held at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament building.  He spoke about how democratic Israel’s parliament was, with members from a whole host of parties from across the political and religious spectrum.

After the meeting we were lucky enough to be taken into the Knesset’s chamber while it was in session.  It just so happened that when we walked in an Arab Member of the Knesset was making a speech against some of the government’s policies in the West Bank.

Later in the day we had a very positive meeting with a representative working for Tony Blair at the UN Quartet office in Jerusalem.

UN Quartet Representative with delegate from Community Union

He said that although there were still many problems for people in the West Bank, there had been significant achievements in the last twelve months.  He said that for the first time the Palestinian Authority was performing on the security side, which in turn has lead to improvements with security and access.

He emphasised that there was no comparison to how it was just two years ago, with checkpoints being opened up and dismantled and the economy growing dramatically in the West Bank.

Again this was another positive that has not been reported by the media.  And this is my concluding point – the main eye opener of the day for me is that there seems to be little or no resemblance between what I have seen today and how Israel is sometimes portrayed in the media back home.