The Inaugural General Meeting of the Edina-Gaza Twinning Association EGTA will be held by Zoom at 10:00am (UK time), 12:00 midday (Gaza time) on 10 April to approve the draft constitution (available here), elect a chairperson, secretary and other officers. You need to join EGTA to actively participate.

Pete Gregson, the petitioner behind the bid to get his city, Edinburgh (the birthplace of Arthur James Balfour, author of the Balfour Declaration, the foundation stone of what became Israel), twinned with Gaza, whose population has suffered the most from this colonial disaster. Commenting, Mr Gregson said:

Everybody should join the Edina-Gaza Twinning Association in time for the inaugural meeting on Sunday 10 April. You don’t need to be an active member, but if in the future you feel like contacting people in Gaza who share an interest with you, whatever that may be, you will be extending the hand of friendship to those who have suffered in isolation for too many years. We need people who live not just in Edinburgh and Gaza to join, but everybody around the world who wants Gaza to escape its terrible isolation.

The more the merrier! By joining, we would be sending the world the message that we are many, that we care for Gaza and that Israel is wrong. We would also be saying that UK Lawyers for Israel have no case, that they are peddling fear and nonsense because, by seeking to twin Edinburgh with Gaza, we are supporting the people of Gaza, because the occupation is illegal, and not because we are supporting Hamas, so we are breaking no laws.

See more about EGTA and how to join here. 

Those joining will also need to sign off on the following statement (as presented on the joining form):

I note that UK Lawyers For Israel (UKLFI) may come after us collectively with this legislation,claiming that by showing friendly relations with any community organisation or business in Gaza City, we are “showing support for Hamas”. In that event, I will accept Michael Mansfield QC to represent me in court, in the highly unlikely event that UKLFI persuade the Crown to be so foolish as to bring charges against EGTA.

(Note the above-mentioned legislation could only ever apply to groups and individuals based in the UK.)

The UKLFI threat can be seen on their website here.

Mr Gregson notes:

The 29 March threat by the UKLFI and the Israeli authorities to Edinburgh City Council, claiming that our 62 councillors could be heading to jail for up to 14 years (if they even discussed Gaza in a negative manner) has led to the council shelving the twinning bid until it has taken detailed legal advice. Hopefully, it will review the bid at its next Policy Committee meeting in June. This means we do not have a twinning agreement in place between Edinburgh and Gaza City at present. Nonetheless, we can start the twinning work now.

The rationale

Mr Gregson says:

By setting up EGTA now, we will be able to:

1. Present a working body to the Council Policy Committee meeting when next it meets in June- ie a working group that simply seeks official blessing;

2. Have a model we can promote to candidates at the forthcoming elections on 5 May, seeking their support;

3. Show that the threats of UK Lawyers for Israel are without foundation; if they dare to try to take us to court, claiming we are supporting Hamas, we shall fight back with the support of Michael Mansfield QC – the best lawyer in the UK – who, we believe, will make mincemeat of them. He will defend us against all legal attacks.

4. By so doing we shall make it impossible for UKLFI to bring the same charges against the councillors, should they go for twinning at the next meeting of their Policy Committee. In essence, it will put some steel into their backs;

5. Even if the council refuses to twin with Gaza, we shall carry on the work of EGTA. We note that of the 35 groups in the UK who undertake twinning-type activities with Palestinian towns, many are not officially “twinned” but merely working towards full civic twinning status.

Obviously, it would be good to have Edinburgh City Council’s stamp of approval, but even without it we can undertake twinning activities.@@

Working over the internet

Mr Gregson goes on to say:

We have Zoom and Microsoft Teams video conferencing facilities to enable communications – many of Gaza’s Palestinians speak English. Furthermore, web browsers will now do instant translation of websites from Arabic to English and vice-versa (for an example, see the Gaza Municipality website here – the translator works well with the Microsoft Edge and the Google Chrome browsers). 

For more information on using the internet to beat the blockade, click here.

Programme of work

Mr Gregson adds:

We can start thinking of opportunities – working with Edinburgh’s universities to open up links with Gaza’s universities as a start. Tommy Sheppard MP tells me he has already spoken to the university’s principal and they are interested. Ideally, we can move to something like the STEPS programme run by St Andrew’s University, just 80 miles from here.

But then hospitals too – some of us are medical people and those of us in Edinburgh or Gaza can identify medical personnel that could be drawn to interact and share knowledge (Gaza is a world leader in prosthetics (sadly, for obvious reasons) and working with traumatised children.

But what is most important is trying to build trading links – trading over the internet to help Gazans earn money by selling their skills, unrestricted by any Israel blockade, For example, there are 15,000 Muslims in Edinburgh, including many from Bangladesh and some 3,000 Turks, many with their own businesses and many support Gaza. We in Edinburgh will work to persuade them to consider getting some software for their businesses or accountancy work done, involving Gaza Sky Geeks and G-Gateway. So, we can start exploring linkages and creating employment straight away. Both Gaza Sky Geeks and G-Gateway are very excited at the prospect of gaining work for their graduates (see this and this).

See more on our “Why Twin?” page here.

Beyond that, others in Edinburgh we can approach include: Rockstar North (gaming software), Red Kite (animation/graphics), Standard Life (finance and customer-facing solutions), Scottish Widows, Tesco Bank and City of Edinburgh Council.

For more info, contact Pete Gregson at info@twingaza.com