I leave Palestine this morning after an intensive week with the University of Bethlehem facilitating a course in nurse education to an enthusiastic and highly able group of nursing faculty and preceptors (clinical supervisors). I’m part of a team of three from PRIME, the others being a surgeon and a palliative care physician, who it has been a delight to work with, pooling our expertise, working collaboratively.
The context here in Bethlehem is quite different from others I’ve worked in. I’m used to working in communities with high levels of poverty; often living in quite primitive conditions lacking water, food and electricity; frequently with limited access to education and health; usually with considerable disparities between men and women. Here the people on the whole are well fed, school access is high, girls and women are respected, valued members of their communities and, in general, able to access the same kind of opportunities as many of the boys and men.
The special nature of the oppression of living under the occupation is new to me, and shocking.
Every evening we have been hosted generously by a member of the School of Nursing faculty in their home, meeting their family and sharing food. The impact of living in the occupied territories is never far from the surface and weaves its way into so many aspects of their lives.
Jerusalem is just 5 miles away, clearly visible across the valley, yet the journey there depends on whether someone has Palestinian or Israeli papers. A journey that takes 20–30 minutes for ‘permitted people’ takes at least an hour and sometime up to three. Cars have different coloured licence plates; white for Palestinian, yellow for cars owned by Israelis and ‘permitted people’. Having the right coloured licence plate gives access to many of the direct routes, including a speedy new bridge between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. The Palestinian people have their landscape scarred by the bridge but are denied access to it.
The expanding ‘settlements’ are almost literally marching across the territory. When we facilitated workshops at the historic Cremisan Monastery, we were surrounded by ancient vineyards, olive groves and wooded hillside, yet confronted across the valley by an expanding settlement with 2015/6 houses being completed and land being cleared down the hillside for further expansion. The Monastery fears it will suffer as others have done, losing its land relentlessly, without recourse to any appeal process or compensation.
Academic colleagues speak of not being able to use Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv and instead having to travel via Jordan to the rest of the world. This means leaving one or sometimes 2 days earlier to ensure they get through the border from the West Bank to Jordan, allowing sufficient time for hold ups at the check points and so incurring additional cost and needing more time.
The imposition of restrictions has clearly increased over the last 10–20 years. A recently qualified doctor spoke of how as a child he remembers travelling to Jerusalem when there was just a single check point and his family could visit Jerusalem relatively easily. Nowadays, such an expedition requires considerable advanced warning and documentation.
Radiotherapy is not available in Palestine on the basis of not permitting radioactive materials, so anyone requiring radiotherapy needs to travel across the border. A colleague told of her brother with advanced cancer recently travelling to a hospital in Jerusalem and being required to get out of the car at each checkpoint and stand in line, despite his condition.
Of course, I’m looking through a Palestinian lens.
I’m taking away two contradictory images. Firstly, immensely positive memories of highly able and conscientious colleagues at the University of Bethlehem, committed to their country and the continuing education of high quality Palestinian nurses. And secondly, a population struggling against what appears to be an active and relentless process of having their territory and rights increasingly eroded from under their feet.
