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THE EARTH IN Palestine is very different to Ireland. It is a rich, orange colour, which comes away easily as you dig. Having lived in Dublin all my life, I am not much of a country person – but I know the dark mud you find in the fields and bogs of this rainy country.
The soil in Palestine is physically very different, but there is one very clear similarity between the two. The deep connection between the people and the land.
I have just returned from a campaign planting olive trees in Bethlehem, Palestine as part of the Joint Advocacy Initiative. This was in solidarity with local farmers who have been cut off from their land by Israeli motorways. These motorways are for Israeli citizens only, so many Palestinian farmers must journey for miles to get to their land, which previously had been nestled in close to their village.
Checkpoints
They are frequently stopped and delayed at checkpoints, harassed and searched. And all in order to tend to their olive trees, their livelihood. Most of these fields are in Area C, which makes up the majority of the West Bank and is controlled by Israel.
Palestinians are prohibited from building on this land, even if they have owned it for generations. Any Palestinian constructions carried out in Area C can be demolished by the Israeli army.
Olive trees are remarkable things. They are astoundingly resilient, with deep roots allowing them to survive in the harshest of climates. The olive branch has been a symbol of peace since biblical times, when the Holy Family came to Bethlehem over 2,000 years ago.
Water supply
To this very place. The roots of the olive tree can find water far below the surface, which in this land is unfortunately very necessary. Israel controls 80% of water in the West Bank, and water shortages are frequent. In the refugee camps in Bethlehem, it is not uncommon to wake up and find no water in the taps. Water is sold to Palestinians at three times the price it is sold to Israelis.
In the hot summer months, Palestinians can have their water cut off for up to 30 days at a time, without warning. There are no water shortages in the Israeli settlements in the West Bank. I learnt fast how you can tell which are Israeli settlement houses and which are Palestinian houses.
Palestinian properties have black water containers on the roof to collect water reserves for when the water is cut off again. This visibly shows the apartheid system imposed by Israel. The facts are crystal clear – on average, one Israeli uses as much water as eight Palestinians.
The olive tree has long been a symbol of Palestine. On one day trip, we passed an ancient specimen, its leaves dancing in the breeze but its gnarled bark showing its age. This tree is 1,400 years old. It had been confiscated from its native earth and placed at the centre of a roundabout outside an Israeli settlement.
The symbolic hatred embodied in this act is shocking. But this is just one of the many injustices Palestinians face every day; from water shortages to restricted movement and the ever present Wall.
The Apartheid Wall runs like a scar all across the West Bank. At times an 8 metre high concrete mass with sniper towers at intervals, it is a constant reminder of the occupation. It cuts farmers off from their land, and frequently isolates families from carrying out normal everyday journeys.
In Aida Refugee Camp I met children who must undergo searches at checkpoints every morning to pass through the wall to school, a terrifying ordeal for a grown adult let alone a small child. I felt intimidated by the wall’s austere, grey presence; I can only imagine what it must be like to live every day in its shadow.
The city of Hebron knows all too well about checkpoints. Once a bustling commercial market town, the effects of the Israeli occupation are sadly all too evident. It feels like a ghost town. Soldiers patrol the streets with machine guns, and there are security cameras everywhere.
Extremist Israeli settlers who have moved in to the town carry out frequent acts of intimidation and harassment on the local Palestinian community. While we were there, perusing the few remaining Palestinian stalls, we got word that there had been a shooting near the Ibrahimi Mosque. The next few minutes were a confused panic, as our group was hurried back through a maze of side streets.
Killing of a child
Up high overlooking the city, we discovered that a 17-year-old Palestinian girl had been shot and killed by Israeli soldiers, close to the mosque. A child. Words cannot do justice to the devastation I felt at that moment. In the days that followed, there were five more killings in the West Bank. Defence for Children International states that Israeli forces have killed 49 Palestinian children, including 17 girls, since October 2015.
Irish people have always had a close relationship with the land – it provided food, shelter, warmth. This year, we are having a commemoration of the birth of our nation state, of breaking free from oppression and celebrating the 1916 Rising – our own intifada. Irish poet Seamus Heaney once wrote:
‘Between my finger and my thumb
the squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.’
While I was in Palestine, I dug with a shovel. Now I am back home, I am digging with the pen. Digging for justice. Because the olive tree that is Palestine must be allowed to grow.
It must be protected, given water and nutrients and space. We have to believe that this is achievable. As the little olive saplings we planted begin to take root in Palestine’s soil, I believe it is not only achievable, but inevitable. Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish says, “without hope we are lost”.
This is what the olive tree campaign I travelled with is all about – it is keeping hope alive.
Katie O’Kelly is a playwright and actor, committed to creating politically relevant theatre. She participated in the Olive Tree Campaign, organised by the JointAdvocacy Initiative. Her play about Palestine will be on in The New Theatre, Temple Bar, from 2nd-7th May.
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Bulgaria has one of the lowest vaccine uptakes in Europe. Only 28% of the population vaccinated with an extremely high case fatality rate in comparison to Ireland. Their population is only a little bigger than Ireland, and despite having lower reported case numbers – they are at upwards of 100 deaths per day.
So anyone questioning whether vaccines work, here’s your answer.
@Seán Ó Briain: They have amongst Europe’s highest death toll per head of population, with 30,530 official COVID-19 deaths and 60,140 excess deaths. They have a population only a little bigger than us, 6.9 million, that’s like us having 22,000 COVID-19 deaths and 43,000 excess deaths.
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-tracker
@Colin Conlan: “However Bulgaria’s number of cases in past six months was half of Ireland’s”
Their “reported” cases.
Aren’t your kind always harping on about “only deaths matter, not cases”?
Well for a population similar to Ireland’s, they’ve had over 5 times the amount of deaths as us.
@Colin Conlan: That is misinformation of course, they had 12,017 COVID-19 deaths in the last 6 months, 778 deaths in January (564 deaths if they were same population of Ireland, but we announced 123 deaths). Their deaths in Jan were 5.6-fold ours.
https://www.google.com/search?channel=crow5&client=firefox-b-d&q=covid+bulgaria
@David Jordan: Please pay closer attention to my comment. I referred to *cases* not *deaths*.
Around 1st of July 2021 they had 422k total cases. Now they have about 800k cases.
Ireland had around 1st of July 2021 272k total cases. Now it reached 1mil.
@Colin Conlan: Are the testing as much as us?
@Colin Conlan: Also, one other thing, do you honestly think that Bulgarians equally enthusiastic about getting COVID tested as us, given their very high rates of vaccine scepticism and anti-everything?
@David Jordan: Yes, they are testing as much as Ireland. However! The correct question is: Are people there going to be tested? I could not answer that with data. But I have my suspicion that answer is no. So I will double their case numbers. They have about 50% rural population.
In that case the number of positives are same as Ireland. Which makes sense. And still vaccines does not seem to have an impact on protecting others.
Something else interesting. The Delta wave took much less time. Just over a month. Ireland is dragging Delta since Sept until now into Omicron.
@Colin Conlan: And to continue on the aspect that Delta wave took much less in Bulgaria. Number of deaths presented here as argument were per unit of time at peak. Since the Delta wave spanned on different lengths of time between Bulgaria and Ireland it is interesting to calculate the amount of deaths per wave rather than per time unit at peak.
@Colin Conlan: Delta was dragged out because vaccines were reducing infection rates, it reduced infections by 50 – 80% (Qatar data), but you are right, Omicron is transparent to vaccines.
At this point, now Omicron is dominant, Vaccines prevent serious symptoms and save lives but they no longer prevent infections getting passed on. That is why we are riddled, but have very few deaths (Omicron is also intrinsically milder).
So I agree you, at this point, vaccination no longer protects others, that benefit is no longer there e.g. if I’m vaccinated and visit an unvaccinated Bulgarian relative, I could infect them. Thankfully Omicron is mild (we’re very lucky, it could have gotten worse).
That said, Omicron arrived in Bulgaria only 2 weeks ago, this you can see from the huge spike they had since the new year.
Hopefully it will quickly displaces Delta and reduces deaths.
@Colin Conlan: Also, look at Gibraltar and COVID:
https://www.google.com/search?channel=crow5&client=firefox-b-d&q=gibratar+covid
100% fully vaccinated, 81% got boosters, but they are riddled with Omicron. But the important thing, no more deaths.
@David Jordan: Is not clear what argument you have there. Delta wave finished clearly in Bulgaria before Omicron arrived. There’s nothing to “displace” there.
https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=irl&areas=bgr&areasRegional=usny&areasRegional=usvt&areasRegional=usnd&areasRegional=usky&areasRegional=usfl&areasRegional=usmi&cumulative=0&logScale=0&per100K=1&startDate=2020-08-01&values=cases
On 28th of Dec before Omicron rocketed number of cases, Bulgaria had 17.6/100k a day. Something that Ireland didn’t have since July.
@Colin Conlan: Yes, 2 weeks ago Omicron arrived. We’re not disagreeing here, deaths are falling despite rapidly rising cases, Omicron is milder and it likely heralds the end of the Pandemic. I’m not arguing with you.
I think if things don’t change, I mean if a worse variant does not show up, by next winter, I think it would be best if Omicron specific vaccines, possibly combined with the flu vaccine, are recommended for >65s, like the flu vaccine is today.
@Seán Ó Briain: have you shares in the vaccine or what? It’s their choice if they want to take it or not
Why is the title of this article misleading?
Protesters are anti-restrictions not anti-vaccine!
@Colin Conlan: False. They are anti everything. Anti-mask, anti-restrictions and anti-vaccine – despite having barely no one vaccinated and their hospitals full of covid patients with 100+ people dying every day there, despite their population being able the same as the island of Ireland.
Nothing misleading about the article.
@Seán Ó Briain: To protest anti-vaccine exceeds individual level. To protest against vaccine mandates does not exceed individual level. No one there protests that *other* citizens of Bulgaria should not be vaccinated.
Conclusion: they are not “anti-vaxxers” but anti restriction on personal level.
@Colin Conlan: They aren’t protesters either but rioters, once you turn violent you are no longer protesting, just look at the BLM riots.
Deep suspicion of anything coming from the Bulgarian government is a legacy of the soviet era, as well as the population’s sorry experience of government corruption since that time.
@John Mulligan: Agreed. I knew a Czech citizen whose conditioning was to distrust anything the Irish government, or any government said, but who would immediately accept any medical conspiracy theory they came across on YouTube, without doing any checking into the background of the YouTube speaker or channel, or anything they said. And their brother was a surgeon in the Czech Republic!!!! They didn’t put the same kind of faith in what their brother told them.
@David A. Murray: misinformation and suspicion is a major problem in Eastern Europe. Anti everything and pro nothing apart from conspiracy theory’s. Obviously not all of them but a large chunk of them. Victim complex across the whole region.
Bulgaria is a country many Irish people only know from going there for packaged summer holidays on chartered Balkan Airlines flights. Groups of schoolchildren and adults in winter also flew to the country for cheap ski holidays. Some of the country’s red wines have been found to be tasty and cheap. Before the early 1990s it was very much a conforming member of the Soviet bloc. What sort of regime rules there nowadays?
@Garreth Byrne: Since you are asking, there was 3 elections in 2021, and only after the last one there was a wide enough coalition to form a government. Basically, everybody who was against GERB, a populist party that ruled for 10 years, joined that coalition. GERB’s leader Boiko Borisov is a bit like Berlusconi, I think. No discernible policies apart from to make him and his chums rich.
Nuke em…
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