Day 2. By Jon. (who bravely typed the whole thing!

On day 2 the 6 of us drove from Abu-Dis to Bethlehem, a drive that while concentreted within Palestine land took us through several check points, as we drove through the first one we decended into a valley, at the bottom of the valley our attention was drawn to a fast flowing river, yet this was not the winding flow of a river in a national trust park this was raw sewage sent into the valley from an Isreali Settlement. The Settelment sat, as do all at thhe top of the hill on occupoed land, the refuse and sewage spewelled into the land aknoldged by the Isrealies as Palestinain, this scene was not a one off, it was a scene that was to repeat itself time and time again; what land wasnt taken was to all Isrealie efforts effected by the occupation.

Our first visti in Bethlehem was to meet the General Secertary of the Hotel Workers Union, a meeting that was to paint a picture of the effects of the wall on trade unionists in Bethelhem, but also to plant the seeds as to the support that might come from our return home. The General Secratary explained how the area had suffered from 65% unemployment. hotels had on average moved form employing 33 workers dwn to 13, hotel closuers had created a significant impact on the town, closures that had come about through Zianist rascim under the guise of 'security'. the settlers had opened accomodation and hotels in their settelments leadning to the decline of the tourist economy, this had lead to wages falling by 40%. the union has responded by proping membership fees and blending membersghip to the uncertainty of the labour market. the trip to Bethlehem and our firts meeting in the city had demonstratde the shear intend by the Isreali authorities to oppress and destroy at arms length the beauty of the Palestinian people, while doing all in its power to provoke a violant confrontation.

our second visit of the day, and our second round of Turish Coffee, Mint Tea and Baklava took us to the Transport Union in Bethlehem and to more discussions around the effects of the wall. for me it is really important to express how the building of the wall represents a new battle in the servival of the Palestinians, a wall that for many Palestinains rises from the ground out of sight from the western world. a battle for the Palestinians that screams to all throughout the world for thier thoughts and support, to ignite and reignite solidarity campiagns and to move the plight of the Palestinians to a higher priority.
Points reinforced by the Transport Workers Union who painted a picture of high unemployemnet leading to many poeple purchasing taxis, a licence and competeing with the the hords of taxis that choke the streets. this over supply of labour had crusshed wages, and brought collapse to union membership. the union had responded by establishing health care for trade union members. Our host went on to speak of how the wall had created extensive problems for its workers transporting goods, often trips that might take 15 - 20 minutes would now take over 2 hours, not simply due to the road blocks that shall be mentioned further on, but because the wall had forced the drivers to drive often in the wrong direction. to attempt some relative context: a trip to Bristol from London where you are unable to travel along the M5 and instead you are forced to travel through the back roads to Birmingham, a trip of an hour and an half, is increased to 4 hours.

our third visit of the day highlighted not just the problems created by the wall and check points but the shere intent to clense the land of Palestinians. our trip took us to a meeting with Local Government dignitries at a town called Bait Fajar, a town with 13,000 residents 80 % of whom work in the towns many quarries and stone manufacturing units producing stone and marble tiles. 70% of the produce was exported to Isreal the effort to export these stones was indeed and effort. the town lay 2 miles from an exit on a motterway, at the turning off stood a Check point and to one side a new settlement of 10,0000. for the workers of the town transporting the stone by lorries would often be at the whim of the soilders; good day the lorries go through, bad day; they dont, and between the 2 lorries would have to unload their cargo (stone tiles) pass through and reload. a journey of 40 miles could take all day. If the placemnet of the settlemnet and the road bloke wasnt bad enough, the present and intended building of the wall would cut the town off from the motoraway access, forcing the lorries to travel 60 miles for what would have been a ten mile trip. the fear of the Local authority was that the towns employers would be forced into ressession and closure, fortunatly the wall has yet to be built, our trip back unto Bethlehem took just 15 minutes. an exepreince that reinforces the impending effects of the wall and the need for increased mobilisation of solidarity.

Our final trip of the day took us through a cooperative Olive oil press, where people from miles around came to press thier oil and sell on or exchage as in most cases with the this impossed black economy. on our way back to the hotel we passed through a refugee camp created by and losely overseen by the UN sinse 1948. this was a place with great pride and ovbious dignity by its residents, yet the shadow of the Isreale governemnt was never to far away, we were told that often the water or electric would be turned off - harassment that simply follwed the sam,e that we had experineced so often on our trip.