{"id":2314,"date":"2023-06-20T19:45:56","date_gmt":"2023-06-20T18:45:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spbr.org.uk\/?p=2314"},"modified":"2023-06-20T19:51:21","modified_gmt":"2023-06-20T18:51:21","slug":"trees-behind-the-fence-a-palestinian-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spbr.org.uk\/index.php\/2023\/06\/20\/trees-behind-the-fence-a-palestinian-voice\/","title":{"rendered":"Trees behind the fence &#8211; a Palestinian voice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>As in all past years, we surround the run with events that we hope raise awareness about Palestine and give voice to Palestinians. This year was no exception with talks in the Palestinian Voices tent.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-large is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/spbr.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/catherin-and-mahmoud-plant-the-tree-768x1024.jpeg?resize=193%2C257&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2315\" width=\"193\" height=\"257\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/spbr.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/catherin-and-mahmoud-plant-the-tree.jpeg?resize=768%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/spbr.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/catherin-and-mahmoud-plant-the-tree.jpeg?resize=225%2C300&amp;ssl=1 225w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/spbr.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/catherin-and-mahmoud-plant-the-tree.jpeg?resize=1152%2C1536&amp;ssl=1 1152w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/spbr.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/catherin-and-mahmoud-plant-the-tree.jpeg?w=1500&amp;ssl=1 1500w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/spbr.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/catherin-and-mahmoud-plant-the-tree.jpeg?w=1050 1050w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 193px) 100vw, 193px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>Before these talks, on Saturday, we were joined by Mahmoud Zwahre, activist and academic who helped plant a solidarity tree in Meersbrook Park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This was accompanied by Catherine reading a poem, <em>Trees Behind The Fence, <\/em>translated by our friend and comrade Arwa, who sadly died during covid but spent many days and hours, as Catherine explains in this video, defending her land from Israeli settler diggers trying to force her, as a Palestinian, off her land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Trees behind the fence\" width=\"525\" height=\"295\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/OcwRVRokwN4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Trees behind the fence. Words are printed below<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Our Trees Behind the Fence<\/strong><br>On the day when our trees were cut<br>On the day when our land was fenced in<br>They gave me all sorts of excuses.<br>They said to me your trees are not legal<br>Your trees are not citizens<br>No religion forbids killing these trees.<br>I said, Oh God: Our Trees after today won\u2019t bloom behind the<br>fence. Our sky after<br>today won\u2019t rain behind the fence.<br>But there they are now; putting out new shoots,<br>coming to life again and I see the beautiful smile<br>tempting me<br>the almond trees calling me, saying \u201cGet angry, be<br>upset but don\u2019t stay crying for me.\u201d<br><br>There they are now. Sending me a fragrant greeting<br>every morning. Oh our trees behind the fence<br>I thought that being fenced in would suffocate the perfume of your blossom.<br>I thought that being cut would be the end of you. There you are now blossoming again and sending out new shoots. Your roots in the<br>depths of the earth are not destroyed by being fenced in or cut.<br>Your roots in the depths of the earth are strong enough to defy<br>hurricanes .<br><br>Peace to you a thousand times our trees behind the fence God<br>bless you and protect you from all evil and wickedness.<br><br><em><strong>Feryal Abu Haikal<\/strong><\/em><br>(translated by Arwa Abu Haikal)<br>Tel Rumeida\\ Hebron Palestine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As in all past years, we surround the run with events that we hope raise awareness about Palestine and give voice to Palestinians. This year was no exception with talks in the Palestinian Voices tent. Before these talks, on Saturday, we were joined by Mahmoud Zwahre, activist and academic who helped plant a solidarity tree &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/spbr.org.uk\/index.php\/2023\/06\/20\/trees-behind-the-fence-a-palestinian-voice\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Trees behind the fence &#8211; a Palestinian voice&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Trees behind the fence - a poem read in memory of our dear friend Arwa Abu Haikal, as we plant a tree in solidarity with Palestinian farmers.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spbr.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spbr.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spbr.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spbr.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spbr.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2314"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/spbr.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2319,"href":"https:\/\/spbr.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2314\/revisions\/2319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spbr.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spbr.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spbr.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}