Imagine my surprise receiving a phone call the next day, a friend telling me a Palestinian family had just arrived. They were camping on the rooftop of the United Nations Refugee Agency, in the heart of Yaumatei. I thought I heard wrong. Camping? Are you sure? Desperate Mister Amir arrived from transiting in Beijing with 200 RMB in his wallet and the best he could do for the night, was pitch a tent in a safe place, to shelter his tired and jet-lagged family. You have to wonder what forced this hardened father to uproot his children and travel East for two years, humbly accepting hand-outs from anyone kind enough to notice his plight. With their youngest daughter only three years old, they fled the war-torn West Bank, because there wasn’t enough food, no chance of education and most importantly – no safety. Amir lamented: “Every day I prayed my children wouldn’t get killed amid all that violence.”
Their wilderness journey literally took them into the desert: from Jordan, to Doha, to Baghdad and finally into peaceful Thailand. There they hoped to receive international relief, but instead were detained for months before being released without assistance, to survive on the generosity of strangers. Incredibly, a travel expert came to their rescue, offering discounted tickets on a tourist trip to Beijing for the entire family. Ideally they should have flown to Helsinki or Frankfurt to start a new life, but they landed in Shanghai, to discover the hard way how inhospitable and indifferent that metropolis is to the poor. Amir explained: “We are kicked around like footballs, because no government is interested to offer protection to Palestinians – who have become a shameful international inconvenience.” Maybe in a couple of years I will tell you they happily resettled in Canada, but what are the odds? I had a sinking feeling reading their ID cards stating “Residential Area: Jerusalem” – a poignant reminder that for peace to be established, injustice must first be eradicated.
Their wilderness journey literally took them into the desert: from Jordan, to Doha, to Baghdad and finally into peaceful Thailand. There they hoped to receive international relief, but instead were detained for months before being released without assistance, to survive on the generosity of strangers. Incredibly, a travel expert came to their rescue, offering discounted tickets on a tourist trip to Beijing for the entire family. Ideally they should have flown to Helsinki or Frankfurt to start a new life, but they landed in Shanghai, to discover the hard way how inhospitable and indifferent that metropolis is to the poor. Amir explained: “We are kicked around like footballs, because no government is interested to offer protection to Palestinians – who have become a shameful international inconvenience.” Maybe in a couple of years I will tell you they happily resettled in Canada, but what are the odds? I had a sinking feeling reading their ID cards stating “Residential Area: Jerusalem” – a poignant reminder that for peace to be established, injustice must first be eradicated.
