Forced Staycation Behind An 8m Wall

Today I booked my holiday for my family and I .  Yay!  It has been two years since we have had an amazing vacation.  We are going to the US and will be touring across Nevada and California.  Our visas are authorised, our flights booked and soon we will be off.  There is likely to be no restriction of our movement, we can go anywhere we like and experience wonderful activities.

Imagine waking up to this wall every day, on the other side is the rest of the world that you have no access to!

It struck me that if I lived in the West Bank, it would be unlikely that I would be able to have a holiday like this.  Being Palestinian, I would be be living behind a 430 mile, 8m tall wall that cuts off my world from that of the rest of the world.  It is like living under apartheid, in fact, it is living under apartheid but with the added feature of living behind the Berlin Wall.  If I wanted to take my family

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away on vacation I would have to get a permit, probably travel miles to apply for it and would probably get it refused.  I would be forced to stay behind that massive wall.  Actually, if I did get the permit to go away on vacation, there is a law that says that I no longer have a claim to my house.  It is an Israeli law which then entitles the Israel Defence Force to take my home and either knock it down or give it to families of Israeli settlers.
If I was Palestinian, I would be too scared to leave my home for a holiday and be forced to live fearfully in my own home.  I wouldn't be able to give my children the experiences that many children outside of the West Bank get every year.  They would get a forced 'staycation' behind that 8m wall.
It breaks my heart to think that Israeli children and Palestinian children are not getting a chance to build peace together because they live in an atmosphere of fear and hate.

In July, I am raising money for a human rights charity in London called Amos Trust who seek to work with local grassroots organisations across the world that are building hope and peace in troubled places endorsing non violent protest and inspiring change.  Please sponsor me as I jump out of a plane by clicking the banner below.  If you can't sponsor me, no worries, but please share my post.  Building awareness is more important.

Thanks

John

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Great news from The West Bank. Palestinian family gets their home back.

I love good news don't you?

I want to tell you a bit about the charity that I am jumping out of a plane for called The Amos Trust and for the good news that they delivered to a family a year ago.

The family in question, is a Palestinian family who live in the West Bank.  The West Bank, in the Middle East, is rapidly being colonised by Zionist Settlers from Israel.  Large pieces of land are being taken away from their Palestinian owners to make way for Israeli families to start a new life.

Amos Trust believes in non violent protest and seeks to highlight the injustice that is happening for Palestinian families.

The family in question that I want to tell you about had their house bulldozed down.  It was done by the Israeli Defence Force which was seeking to displace the family from their home.

A year ago, and in protest of this injustice, Amos Trust raised funds and volunteers to visit the West Bank and spend time with this family rebuilding their home.

Imagine the impact that the good news about rebuilding their home had!

My friend Lia Maclean, was one of the volunteers and she helped build the home for the family.

The displaced Palestinian family - Photo Lia Maclean

Volunteering for this project is risky.  There is every chance that the IDF could return, arrest volunteers and demolish whatever progress had been started.  Despite poor whether and losing a couple of days in progress to the weather, the volunteers worked together and did a fantastic job working with local builders.

Amos Trust volunteers supporting the displaced Palestinian family by helping to rebuild their home - Photo Lia Maclean

The building team really started from scratch.

Photo Lia Maclean

Photo Lia Maclean

The end result was this beautiful home which the displaced family could move back into.

The completed home. Time to move back in! - Photo Lia Maclean

The good news from the West Bank however is that the building work finished a year ago and thankfully the IDF have not been back with their bulldozers.  Lia revisited the home and the family recently to see how settled they were.

Lia Maclean visiting the Palestinian family who are now back where they belong.

As I write about this, I feel emotional about my time in the West Bank, when I met a family in the same position.  The reality is that Palestinian families are being displaced all the time, illegally.  The UN won't do anything about it (despite their laws being broken) and sadly our Government won't do anything about the treatment of Palestinians because they want to maintain the £7Bn trade that the UK gets from Israel.

Charities such as Amos Trust are working hard to highlight what is happening in the West Bank and Gaza. They are highlighting the far right wing activities of the Israeli government, the displacement tactics, the apartheid wall and the intention to displace more and more Palestinian people from their country.

I'm not into politics, but I do care about the children that are losing their homes because of their race and the children that are put in prisons which until recently were managed by the British company G4S.

My sky dive is not going to fix this, but it might help more people to understand more about the situation in The West Bank and put pressure on our government to not support Israel in these activities.

I want to thank Lia, for making a stand and for doing something practical to help that family and thank Amos Trust for coordinating the project.

Lia wrote a blog about her time there and I would like to share that with you. Just click here. Thanks to Lia for all her great photos!

Please join me in supporting the good work that has already been done so far and what has already been committed to for the future.  If you would like to sponsor me please click the banner below.

Thank you.

John