Posted by admin on Friday, October 28th, 2011 and filed under England on Sunday, Faith today. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
By Matt Cresswell
THE WEST is unaware of the injustices taking place in Palestine, says former church envoy and one-time hostage Terry Waite. Having returned from the Occupied Territories, he said the differences between the two communities were shocking. Waite, the founder of Y-Care’s international division, who was incarcerated in Lebanon for five years in the late 80s and early 90s, said he was concerned about both sides in the Israel/Palestine dispute, but said this trip exposed considerable ‘unfairness’ towards the Palestinians.
Waite met with young ex-detainees suffering from psychosocial counselling after being imprisoned in Israeli jails as children. He also met with young people receiving vocational training. Waite also met with leading Palestinian negotiators, local leaders and youth workers.
Commenting on the recent release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit for 1,000 Palestinian soldiers, he said: “My visit did happen to coincide with the release of the 1,000 prisoners but that was purely coincidental, my visit was not connected with that at all.” He added: “What was very interesting, of course, was the fact that the prominence in the media was given to the one released Israeli prisoner and there was no prominence given at all to the 1,000 others who were either labelled as freedom fighters, on the one hand, or as terrorists on the other. This illustrated the deep divide that exists between the two communities, Waite said.
Waite argued that there was an increasing problem with illegal Israeli settlements between Hebron and Bethlehem which were taking land used by the Palestinians. If the land remained uncultivated for more than three years, the farmers lost it, he said. Waite spoke with a Palestinian farmer who said that Israeli settlers had taken land owned by his Grandfather. The farmer also said that he had dug a well, which the Israelis had filled in because he was unable to obtain a permit. Waite said the farmer was not even allowed to make repairs to his house. “These are the things in this country [UK] that we do not know about – the settlements – and they’re wrong. They are flagrantly against international justice.”
On the recent death of Libya’s former leader, Colonel Gaddafi, Waite said he was shocked by the manner of his execution. Waite, who negotiated with Gaddafi in the 1980s, said: “Gaddafi was a very unusual man, there is no doubt about it and I would certainly say that he was engaged in supporting violent activities around the world which caused the death of many people and that I cannot in anyway possibly condone. Having said all that, I thought the manner in which he died and the portrayal of his death added nothing to our understanding of human dignity. I thought it was barbaric, absolutely barbaric.”
In 1987 Waite travelled to Beirut as a church envoy to negotiate the release of several hostages held there. He was eventually released on November 18 1991 after 1,760 days of solitary confinement. He says the experience has helped him relate to ex-prisoners.
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