Dr

I have been to tens of conferences of all sizes all over the world, and everytime I come back, I am almost ill. My daughter says to me, "Mom, why do you do this to yourself? Why dont you take a cruise and see nice places instead?" Nevertheless, I go out of principle. Sometimes I foresee the results. I know what is going to happen before it does. It is like the elections: you know who is going to win.

This conference is the only one I have been to recently about which I felt enthused. The people were genuine, spontaneous. They were so generous and loving! Mind you, I come from a very dry environment. I come from England where every person is like a cactus in its own wilderness. Each human being is left on his own.

Another thing is that -- perhaps I saw it many years ago in Mozambique, Algeria, and Zimbabwe -- people on the morning of independence, the eve of independence, tend to be romantic, idealistic, and full of hope. They have the capacity to hope. I also saw how it is possible with people who are committed and selfless to do things or try to achieve things. I am happy to have made it this time. I promised myself to come and ask you to give me a Palestinian nationality so I could spend the rest of my life in Gaza. I have been in transit for the last 25 years. I do not want to die in England. Here I have my friends whom I do not see or hear from very often, though we remain friends. You are extraordinary. You remain yourself in a world that erodes you and erodes the hope in your heart. It is something fantastic. It really gladdens my heart. I have to come back again. I feel like I am home. Thank you.

The first time I was inspired to think of Palestine was in Shatilla, in Beirut, in 1982. I met a Palestinian doctor who was about 60. I asked him why he was in Beirut, what had made him come. He said he was an Arab doctor in Tel Aviv, and as an Arab doctor, he would bring things to be recognized by the Israelis, and in this way, he forgot his identity. In addition, it suddenly occurred to him that the Palestinian people were more important to him than his identity. They were to be respected by the Israelis. So he left for Lebanon, and he said to me, "No money in the world, no title in the world gives me greater pleasure than the pleasure I enjoy working with our people in the camps of Shatila and elsewhere." That inspired me; then I went through Shatila, and I went back and wrote articles on the Palestinian situation. Then when I met Eyad, I came to Gaza.

I think I am in a unique situation because this reminds me of my past [in South Africa], which I share with you. In such a situation as we are in, we always look forward to something better, but when you have everything, you have nothing to look forward to. I think that the most important thing that Ive experienced here is that togetherness, that feeling of sharing which is still a part of this society. As I said earlier -- and I do not know how to explain it...maybe it's because of the closure of the borders -- this sharing of a common fate, of a common situation, makes it so that the people in Gaza can be as generous as they are. Here there is a sharing which we do not have anymore in well-developed countries because people are living as individuals and not as people together. What has produced a situation where individuals leave even their families to become individuals? Here, in the Conference, we saw and heard that children who come from intact families have better coping strengths both in the field of education and otherwise. This is fast disappearing in Europe, and everybody is looking forward to somewhere where they can go back to the roots of family life -- and this I think is so important in the Palestinian situation. Whether it will change, I do not know. But I hope we can change the economic situation without changing the togetherness, the feeling of group solidarity -- and I must say that the Programme has done such wonderful work, especially now that there is dialogue between Eyad and the PA. I hope that the situation will only improve.

I think the conference was extremely successful because, unlike many conferences, I go to -- and I do not attend many -- this one was not full of hot air. They are usually full of hot air. I have a picture that every word being spoken is a tiny balloon that is drifting out of his mouth. Why did he have to say so much? If it were like that, then the whole place would be choked with tiny balloons. But there was a genuineness, as somebody said, the feeling of solidarity, and not much of that feeling of voyeurism, people coming to see how lucky they are, people coming to wallow in the pleasure people take, to tell their friends, "Ive been to Gaza! I have been to Gaza! We are the rescuers..." -- there was not a significant amount of that. The papers were meaningful and substantial, and most importantly, it was not a kind of theoretical reflection. People had a purpose in mind; it was evident in their work. There was closeness; it was not a campaigning, but there was action.

While we all like to think of human rights as a goal that may someday be attained, in reality it is a struggle that never ends. No matter how much progress we ever make, human rights violations will always occur, and the struggle for human rights can be extremely exhausting. This conference has given us an opportunity to come together and rouse one anothers spirits, give one another ideas about programs that can be successful. For those of us who have been in the struggle for many years, we are comforted by this gathering; and for those of us who are just beginning to struggle, we are given inspiration. That has been the real beauty of this conference. It has embraced people from all ages and all countries, all orientations, who have come together to share their idea, and we thank the GCMHP and Eyad, and especially those who put together the conference.

The conference was held in a large well-equipped center that combines three huge separate meeting rooms. Throughout the conference, there was excellent simultaneous translation. Lunches and coffees were served there, allowing for maximum interaction among the participants. All of the conference participants were entertained each evening for dinner in a different restaurant in Gaza City.

It is a challenge to portray the atmosphere of this very significant meeting and the context in which it took place. It attracted several hundred international visitors, including many Israeli academics and human rights activists. For many of the latter, it was the first time they had visited Gaza. Ironically, the only people who had difficulty in attending were Palestinians nearby because of the near impossibility of their getting permission to come to Gaza from the West Bank!

On the one hand, a realistic view of the present situation for the Palestinians in that Gaza is now simply one large prison for Palestinians. There are soldiers and police around, but unlike before, it is now possible to walk anywhere at night. During my last visit, there was still a curfew. Now, there is a busy life on the streets of Gaza after dark that is very gratifying to see.

The logistics of organizing a conference of this size in Gaza were, to say the least, challenging for the organizers. Every participant had to be driven in three differently licensed vehicles to get from the airport, through the 'closures' and into Gaza City. Participants were housed in six different hotels and transported by bus to and the conference center and to the different locations where dinner and evening entertainment was offered. Everything was organized perfectly. In the evaluation, the only complaints were that the live music was too loud during the dinners!