Familiarisation Visit

Apologies for not writing for so long - I have been away from London on my 'familiarisation visit' to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This was an amazing week that I have been looking forward to for some time. Myself, and several colleagues, travelled first to Jerusalem for a few days of meetings and tours, and subsequently to Tel Aviv for the same. It was a fantastic chance to meet with a variety of interlocutors, including other diplomats, academics, NGOs, and representatives from the Palestinian and Israeli authorities. For me, the trip was hugely beneficial – a perspective from London can be very different to your perspectives when you are actually there. It was a great chance to really get my head round a lot of the issues, as well as the chance to meet with my colleagues at the Embassy in Tel Aviv and the Consulate-General in Jerusalem. These are people that I work with on a day-to-day basis, and the chance to meet with them in person will, I hope, have a really positive impact on our working practices – the relationship you develop with someone after a face-to-face meeting can be very different to one where you rely on email and telephone communication.

Overall, a very sobering trip that really brought home the realities of life for both Israelis and Palestinians and the very difficult issues that still remain to be dealt with. There were positives – you could see how the work that we are doing in London contributes towards improving life for both sides as much as we can – both through our work on the wider political process that will take both sides to a solution, but also through the work the British government does through funding local projects and initiatives. We even got to watch Palestinian young boys and girls doing football training – their training was organised by a club that the FCO fund, and it was great to see relatively small projects making such a difference to people’s day-to-day lives.

Posted at 17:51 05 March 2008 by Sarah Russell  |  Comments[9]