I come towards the end of my volunteer verbatim theatre-making project at the Alrowwad Culture Centre in the Aida Refugee Camp in the city of Bethlehem in the (occupied) state of Palestine and had thought not to write a column about my project, partly because readers have no doubt read of or seen television news visuals of the “big picture” here many times.
However, last week a local event occurred that told me it was indeed time to write a column about life in the occupied West Bank, for it brought home at close quarters what in Australia we usually only get to see from afar.
As the Palestinian news agency Ma’an reported: “A 15-year-old Palestinian child was killed while dozens of others were wounded by Israeli forces during violent clashes in the Dheisheh refugee camp in the southern occupied West Bank district of Bethlehem predawn Monday.”
This was just down the road from where I’m working. Bethlehem immediately went into mourning, the city’s population went on strike and rehearsals were of course cancelled for the day.
The next day, I announced to my student actors that I would dedicate our production to the memory of 15-year-old Arkan Thaer Mezher, which deeply touched them.
What the Israeli Defence Forces were doing was unfortunately their standard two-fold process: using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut and, at the same time, engaging in collective punishment for the alleged actions of a few.
Read the article by Ray Goodlass in The Advertiser.
[Ray Goodlass is promoter of the Palestine Theatre Project 2018.]