Seeing the Occupation Firsthand

Event Date: 22nd April 2026
Location: Online, 7pm

Seeing the Occupation Firsthand – our speakers

Ali - “is a semi-retired farm environment specialist and writer. She is a Quaker and lives in Frome, Somerset. At university in the early 1980’s, she came under the influence of evangelical Christianity and what she later recognised as Christian Zionism mixed with a good dose of Islamophobia. Winning a postgraduate travel scholarship to study agriculture overseas, she chose to visit Israel, living with Israeli families and working with Israeli agricultural research institutions. Although the situation was less extreme than today, the experience left her deeply confused and disturbed, intending never to return. But the experience began a slow niggling process of questioning and research until eventually she returned in 2011, to pick olives with Palestinian families in the West Bank and experience something of their lives under occupation. Since then she has returned to the West Bank several times in protective presence roles including with EAPPI. She was a founding member of the UK Friends of HIRN (Hebron International Resources) network. Her last visit to the West Bank was in November 2025 when she spent time in the South Hebron Hills.  

Marina - is General Manager of Al Harah Theatre in Beit Jala. She spoke at a SCIP meeting about her work and joined us later, with her sister at the Saturday vigil. The theatre works with children, women, young people and others, using drama to alleviate trauma caused by the occupation.

Marina will be telling stories of resilience under occupation; daily stories of oppression.

Miranda - I am the daughter of a secular Jewish refugee from the Sudetenland who was very opposed to the action of Israel against the Palestinians, in her name as a Jew. Because of her I spent 3 months in Hebron as an Ecumenical Accompanier in 2009 and have returned most years since. I am a member of The Holocaust Survivors and Decendants against the Gaza genocide network and of Jews For Justice for Palestine.

I am currently on the executive of Lib Dem Friends of Palestine and a director of CAMPAIN,  as well as being an active member of the British Palestine Project, Sabeel-Kairos and I was the producer of a film in 2019 ‘Balfour to Banksy’, www.balfourtobanksy.com .

My aim is to educate and inform and speak truth to power in order to counteract the misinformation and bias when it comes to Palestinian human rights. Advocating for the human rights of one group of people should never be about denying the rights of any other group.

The greatest antisemitism is to equate Judaism with the behaviour of Israel.

Victoria - the most local to Salisbury, she stumbled on us at a vigil earlier this year and explained that she is a regular visitor to the OPT, offering healthcare.

Wednesday April 22 at 7pm

The zoom will open at 6.50pm UK time. Click the link to join.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84048817803?pwd=Q0RKb2k2ankwQ0k5NmNMN3FBYXNuUT09

Meeting ID: 840 4881 7803

Passcode: 435393