The Mayor of Gaza, Dr Yahya Sarraj, will address Edinburgh Council Leader Cllr Adam McVey, Depute Leader Cllr Cammy Day and the other 15 Councillors who sit on the Policy Committee when they meet to discuss the proposal to twin Edinburgh with Gaza City at their virtual meeting, on Tuesday 29th March at 10:00am.
The proceedings will be webcast and the public can view what should prove to be an interesting morning. by going to www.edinburgh.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/661754 (If you click on the link you can register for updates on the webcast).
Dr Sarraj holds a doctorate in civil engineering from a British University; he will speak for 10 minutes about what twinning would mean for his city. (learn more about Gaza Municipal Council here and on Facebook here)
He will be followed by Alan El-Kadhi, director of Gaza Sky Geeks (GSG) and a UK citizen, also speaking from Gaza. www.gazaskygeeks.com
GSG was started in 2011 by Mercy Corps www.mercycorps.org with support from Google, with the purpose of empowering young adult women and men in Gaza to earn an income online. GSG provides a suite of technical training programmes (coding, graphic design, and freelancing services such as online book-keeping, translations, voice overs) and supports employment connections for people to find remote work employment with overseas companies. Hence, they are extremely excited about the opportunity of building relationships between the communities in Gaza and the finance and IT houses of Edinburgh. This 3-minute video gives you a taste of what they do; please take a look: https://youtu.be/T4o4otsoN6g Entrepreneurship and Silicon Valley are themes. His community director will also be present in the deputation.
Alan will be followed by Mike Whitehead, secretary of the Dundee-Nablus Twinning Association (DNTA); Dundee has been twinned with Nablus since 1980. The twinning activities there are not carried out by Council officers, but by DNTA activist members, who actively seek out opportunities to link the cities. One year they took a fire engine to Nablus- and each year they train Palestinian fire fighters in Dundee. They are very active with schools and cultural connections. See the story of their twinning on their website here. They have been helpful in suggesting what we could do.
Indeed, the partnership we envisage with Gaza is different from how the Council presently manages twinning with other cities. We hope to model Edinburgh’s agreement on the successful one between Dundee and Nablus- to get, on Tuesday, an agreement for Lord Provost Frank Ross to sign a pledge with Dr Yahya Sarraj, Mayor of Gaza City, that would say the following:
“The Lord Provost of the City of Edinburgh and the Mayor of Gaza City wish to affirm a twinning treaty. By the affirmation of this treaty the cities of both Edinburgh and Gaza pledge that together,
- They will actively co-operate to ensure the continuing development of close relationships between citizens.
- They promise to facilitate the creation of direct links between institutions and organisations wishing to partake in twinning activity.
- They will encourage exchanges between young people to ensure succeeding generations learn the history of the relationship between the cities and the role that each has played in its own national history.
- They will take every opportunity to share skills and knowledge to the benefit of their respective citizens.
- They undertake to convene regular meetings between representatives in order to evaluate co-operation programmes.”
We’d also like Policy Committee to allow a new body, which we would set up, the Edina-Gaza Twinning Association (EGTA), to promote the twinning work. It would function exactly as the Dundee-Nablus Twinning Association does. This membership-based group, which has places reserved for Councillors on its Committee (though few ever attend), actively does the work of twinning; they contact groups and institutions in Nablus to build relationships. They fall under the aegis of the Britain Palestine Friendship and Twinning Network ( www.twinningwithpalestine.net ); there are 44 active groups across the UK, each working with partner cities in Palestine to provide support and promote peace, understanding and trade. (The petitioner has set up around a dozen charities and organisations over the past 30 years; he thinks he would be equal to the EGTA task. And we already have a queue of people who want to help.
“Edinburgh doesn’t Twin any More” is the refrain most frequently heard. We want to raise a point about the background paper submitted to Policy Committee by the Interim Executive Director of Corporate Services, at item 7.8 – Petition for Consideration – Twinning Edinburgh with Gaza City.pdf The Director makes reference to the Edinburgh International Framework, which set out a refreshed approach for international collaboration between Edinburgh partners, which Policy Committee adopted in June 2021. In the Framework, the Council declares it doesn’t do twinning any more.
We would like it noted that the petition was submitted in January 2019; it was scheduled to be discussed in June 2020, but due to COVID has been postponed until now. All things going well, and if not for COVID, we might have been twinned and trading with Gaza for two years now. We think that it is unfair for this document to be held against the petition; it was presented a full year after the proposal was due to be heard. It might even be possible that it was presented to Councillors as a mechanism to discourage any further twinning petitions from campaigners for Palestine. Are delays caused by COVID to be the reason the Council does not twin with Gaza? It’s most unfair to allow this bug to destroy possible future prospects of the 590,000 people living in Gaza City, who yearn to break free from international isolation and illegal collective punishment.
We understand that the Council plans to call for a report looking at options on Tuesday. We do not think that would be a good idea, for the reasons we have laid out in documentation sent to the Council. We believe the pledge laid out above should suffice; it would be a simple yes/no vote to decide on twinning.
To tarry would be to delay until mid-June, when the next meeting is due to be held. In between times, there will be the 4th May election, which will result in the loss of at least some of our Council supporters.
To read more – and to see messages of support from the Mayor, Tommy Sheppard MP and 13 others- go to www.twingaza.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Gaza-Mayor-to-Address-Edinburgh-City-Leader-in-bid-to-secure-Twinning-Status.pdf
The story has been covered on 26th March in Edinburgh Live – Mayor of Gaza to address Edinburgh council as part of twin city bid – Edinburgh Live