OCHA

A meeting had been arranged with OCHA (Organisation for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs)for after our classes today. As they are a UN organisation separate from UNRWA (the one set up specifically to deal with Palestinian refugees) I was keen to go along. The first thing I wasn't expecting was the fact that they have just three members of staff based in Nablus responsible for a massive area within the West Bank. They have a huge range of activities but basically they monitor all of the checkpoints and settler violence (protection), they work with all of the other organisations that are delivering humanitarian aid (co-ordination) and they bring all of this information to important actors in the region such as middle east envoys- Tony Blair et al (advocacy). So we were quite lucky to get the briefing from them.

I knew that they wouldn't be immune from the frustrations in the region but yet again I didn't forsee how bad these could be. One thing I had never really thought about unitl today was the 'back to back' checkpoints were the vehicle isn't allowed through the checkpoint but must transfer its cargo from one vehichle to another. (one vehicle on one side of the checkpoint, one on the other). This doesn't sound so terrible but it doubles associated transport costs and is often the case for vehicles carrying human cargo. The last time I was in Jerusalem I saw someone being transferred from a Red Crescent ambulance on my side of the checkpoint to another on the other side. Apparently this is an improvement as up until about a year ago having a Palestinian ambulance on the other side wouldn't have been allowed!

As I had read more testimonies from the 'Breaking the Silence' booklet this morning I wasn't in the best of moods. Reading these things seems to make it so much worse when your actually here and you can quite clearly imagine the places being talked about. Whilst I was waiting for my class to turn up in Balata I was talking to the local Palestinian volunteer about an Israli settlement we could see from the balcony we were standing on. The most prominent feature of the landscape is a big hill, in front of this two roads and then Balata camp itself. The road nearest the settlement is for Israeli's only. For some reason this annoyed me much more than it ever has before. A road that only people of a certain ethnicity can use. It's absurd. It's apartheid. That I could see it only a couple of hundred metres in the distance was so frustrating and I was tempted to go and stand on the road just for the hell of it. Non of the Palestinians I was with would contemplate going near the road as they know full well that they would be arrested immediatley if they did.

This total injustice and insanity and the fact that there's nothing that you can do about it is frustrating beyond words. This is the word that everyone who works here uses 'frustration'. Knowing that it is obvious and immoral that the things are the way they are but also knowing at the same time that nothing will change any time soon. In some ways though I was slightly boosted by the OCHA talk. The main guy giving the briefing said that he can't change everything and that it will take a very long time to effect real change but it was better to be here and doing something that not being here. Yes, lots of injustice does happen but perhaps there would be more if they weren't here. I know that that is the way I ought to be looking at things. That I can't possibly hope to make a big change but can make small differences. It's the kind of thing I always say to my classes back home ("you might not be able to save everyone in the world but the people you do help will be grateful, etc") but it's much harder to believe it being here.