Marrickville and Bethlehem 'twinned'

On August 29, 60 people attended a public meeting in Dulwich Hill to launch a sister-city relationship between the inner-west Sydney municipality of Marrickville and the Palestinian city of Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The meeting, which was also the launch of the Friends of Bethlehem solidarity group, was addressed by members of a Bethlehem council delegation, including the mayor, Victor Batarseh, Arab Women's Union representative Marcelle Batarseh and Father Amjad Sabbara from the Church of the Nativity.

Batarseh and the delegation missed their scheduled flights to Sydney after their visas were delayed and only issued on August 23. The delay was due to complaints by Vic Alhadeff, chief executive officer of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies. He opposed the sister-city relationship, claiming that Batarseh was "anti-Semitic'" because he allegedly refused to recognise the Israeli state's "right to exist".

Batarseh explained to the meeting that while he saw a single, secular state in which Jews, Christians and Muslims had equality as the "unique solution" to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Palestinians were not only willing to recognise Israel's existence but were willing to accept a separate Palestinian state on only 13% of their country.

He described how "Bethlehem was dying" from being strangled by the apartheid wall, Israel's "separation barrier", that surrounds and divides it. "We need to build bridges not walls between neighbours", he said.

Batarseh explained how the wall separated Bethlehem from its agricultural land. This, along with the decline of tourism and the denial of travel permits for Bethlehem workers employed in Jerusalem, had created an economic crisis with 65% of the city's adults being unemployed and the council deprived of revenue for community services.

He described the effect on health and education provision of the separation of Bethlehem from Jerusalem and the psychological harm, particularly to children, of living in a walled ghetto under military occupation.

Praising Marrickville Council, which decided on the city "twinning" project on June 19, Batarseh urged Australians to visit Bethlehem.

Speaking to Green Left Weekly after the meeting, he condemned Western governments for not recognising the votes of Palestinians — a reference to these governments' refusal to accept the outcome of the March 2006 Palestinian legislative election, won by Hamas — while promoting Israel as democratic. "Israel can't talk about democracy", he said. "A democratic state cannot be built on religion. It needs to be secular."

Batarseh also spoke at a public meeting attended by 120 people on August 28 organised by Sydney University's Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies. The meeting was also addressed by Palestinian-Australian human rights lawyer Randa Abdel-Fattah and Jewish Australian writer Antony Loewenstein. The film The Iron Wall was screened.

From GLW issue 723