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Watch the Peace Cycle film being shown to the European Parliament

 

Narrated by acclaimed British actress Julie Christie, this feature length film captures the first ever emotional and inspirational journey from London to Jerusalem in 2004...more
 

 

The Peace Cycle 2008

 

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  Latest News

 
Tony Blair’s niece begins epic cycle for peace
 
Cyclists from across the world will today arrive in Amman to take part in the 4th international Peace Cycle to Jerusalem.
 
Among the group are Lauren Booth, sister-in-law of Tony Blair, and her daughter Alexandra.
 
As ex-PM Blair becomes favourite for first President of Europe, his 8-year old niece will take a fortnight off school to cycle through the occupied Palestinian territories.
 
She will stay with Palestinian families and learn what life is like under Israeli occupation.
 
Mr Blair has not publically commented on his niece’s planned trip, which will take her to a refugee camp in Amman, home to Palestinian families made homeless in 1948, and unrecognised Arab villages within Israel.
 
Then, together with her mother and people from six countries, Alex will cycle the length of the West Bank where travel is severely restricted due to Israeli checkpoints, road blocks, curfews and closures.
 
Journalist Lauren Booth says the Peace Cycle is a chance for Alex to express her friendship and hopes for peace with her Arab, Palestinian peers.
 
She said: “The question I have always been asked on previous trips to Gaza and the West Bank is: when can we meet your children? I have no doubt that Alex's presence will lift morale both for those cycling and, more importantly, for the families cut off from the world’s children by walls and checkpoints.”
 
As well as hoping to raise awareness of the issues around the conflict in Israel and the Palestinian territories, and calling for a just peace in the region, the Peace Cyclists are raising funds to support the establishment of a mobile eye clinic in the occupied territories.
 
The project is called Oyooni, Arabic for “my eyes” and will enable Palestinians with diabetes and glaucoma to receive treatment they otherwise can not obtain because o f restricted movement in the Palestinian territories.
 
Lauren and Alexandra will be making daily reports of their journey for justice and peace. Their story can be followed at www.thepeacecycle.com

Tony Blair's niece joins Peace Cycle through Occupied Palestine

 
The niece of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is to brave checkpoints, soldiers and blistering sun to cycle across the Middle East from October 9.
 
Eight-year-old Alexandra Darby will be joined by her mother Lauren Booth and 15 other cyclists riding from Amman, Jordan, all the way to Jerusalem.
 
Her uncle Tony Blair, now Middle East Envoy for the Quartet, has so far made no comment on the planned trip.
 
Alexandra’s journey will be more than a brief sojourn in a comfortable Jerusalem hotel.
 
She will witness first-hand the devastating fallout of a 61-year conflict.
 
The Peace Envoy’s niece has taken 2 weeks off school to stay with families on unrecognised land whose homes are regularly threatened with demolition by the Israeli military.
 
She will visit refugee camps in Jordan, home to Palestinians forced from their land in 1948.
 
The group of cyclists will track the path of the eight-metre-high Separation Barrier as it snakes through the West Bank.
 
The fourteen-day cycle will take Alexandra through an historical and tragic landscape, finishing in Jerusalem, the epicentre of centuries-old conflicts.
 
The Peace Cycle needs help to fund this important event. Please see our donations page for how to make a contribution... Thank You!
 

Stand Up for Justice - Cycle for Peace!

Join the Peace Cycle this October from Amman to Jerusalem

Starting in Amman, the Peace Cycle will visit Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan before cycling to villages around Haifa and Nazareth and then riding as an international group through Jenin, Al-Fara, Qalqilya, Tulkarem, Nablus, Ramallah, Bil’in, Bethlehem, Hebron, and finally into the extraordinary city of Jerusalem. 

Get On Your Bike and Join Us!

  • Learn about Palestinian culture and stay with Palestinian families
  • See the land and the current situation with your own eyes
  • Show solidarity and raise awareness about life under occupation
  • Meet and support the people and groups working for justice and peace in Israel and Palestine.

 9th - 23rd October 2009

All accommodation, meals, trained guides and cycling support provided.


"The Peace Cycle was most amazing experience, it has opened my eyes..."
2008 Peace Cyclist.

The Peace Cycle is a British non-profit organisation that has organised successful cycle rides from London to Jerusalem in 2004 and 2006, and from Amman to Jerusalem in 2008 raising funds for humanitarian charities.

This year, Peace Cyclists will be raising funds for Oyooni Mobile Eye Clinic, an initiative that aims to deliver specialised eye care to diabetes & glaucoma patients in Palestine, the West Bank and Gaza. See www.oyooni.org


For more details and an information pack email: thepeacecycle@aol.com

The Peace Cycle works with partner organisations in Palestine, principally the Siraj Center for Holy Land Studies: www.sirajcenter.org

The International Middle East Media Centre (IMEMC) will be issuing daily reports on the Peace Cycle 2009: www.imemc.org


Many people have talked about standing up against injustice, but how many people have got on their bikes for it?
 
On 31st March, The Peace Cycle rode from the International Courts of Justice in The Hague to the European Parliament for a presentation to Parliamentarians, hosted by Jean Lambert of the Green Party.
 
The Peace Cycle is a British non-profit and voluntary organisation that has twice cycled over 2000km from London to Jerusalem and has also organised rides from Amman to Jerusalem. The Peace Cycle aims to ‘End the cycle of violence and promote a cycle for peace’ in the Middle East. During this trip cycling through Holland and Belgium, many local cyclists joined the group, making it very much a European event.
 
Peace Cyclists from all backgrounds, ages, faiths and nationalities, brought with them a petition for a call on the EU to suspend its Association Agreement with Israel, a contract which allows Israel privileged trading terms with EU countries conditional upon respect for human rights. Article 2 states ‘Relations between the parties, as well as all the provisions of the Agreement itself, shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles, which guides their internal and international policy and constitutes an essential element of this Agreement.’  The petition, signed by over 17,000 people, was presented to Mr Leonidas Tezopsidis, Head of the Middle East and Southern Mediterranean Unit at the European Commission.
 
Peace Cyclists presented to Parliamentarians eye-witness accounts of human rights abuses and a film of their experiences in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel. Speakers included the youngest rider, now 17 but aged just 12 years at the time of his ride, and the oldest rider, aged 70 years. Both talked of their shock at seeing illegal Israeli settlement building, Israeli-only roads reminiscent of Apartheid South Africa, and being held for hours at some of the five hundred checkpoints that litter the Occupied Territories. They described how they were personally appalled by the often offensive and rough treatment by young Israeli soldiers to local Palestinian people, including women and children. Another speaker, a young Palestinian who had accompanied the Peace Cycle in 2004 and 2006, personally asked for justice after years of deteriorating life conditions affecting not only his family, but his whole community. He described how his father has to leave home at 3am each morning for the three hour journey to work, which before the separation wall was built would have taken just twenty minutes. Another speaker, a keen cyclist who admitted he had joined the ride across Europe to the Middle East as a cycling adventure, said he returned home with a changed mind after meeting a man whose home had been demolished. The European Coordinator of the Peace Cycle talked of the hope to cycle to Gaza in the near future to witness conditions there.  A Peace Cyclist is at present in Gaza and sent pictures drawn by local school children depicting harrowing scenes from the recent war. It is hoped that these illustrations will be exhibited internationally to show the effects of imprisoning children in a war zone.
 
Finally, the Parliamentarians were asked to think carefully before any further voting on the upgrade of the EU-Israel Action Plan which at present has been put on hold. There was a plea for MEP’s to find out more about the reality in Israel and Palestine by visiting the area and speaking to all communities so that informed decisions could be made. The Peace Cycle stressed that Parliamentarians must not be afraid to speak out against injustice, however difficult for party politics, as the EU has a duty and responsibility to defend human rights and International Law.
 
 
The Peace Cycle is now organising its fourth cycle ride to Jerusalem in October 2009 and welcomes cyclists and offers of help to organise, promote, raise funds.
For further details email: thepeacecycle@aol.com

 


 
See the attached flyers below for more information and feel free to disseminate widely:
ENGLISH FRENCH SPANISH ITALIAN
   
  German Dutch  
 

Day 25 – Gaza Update

The bombs have stopped, the shooting ceased but the plight of the people of Gaza continues unabated. The pictures and testimony of those who have lived through the last three weeks of the Israeli onslaught are horrific. Over 21,000 homes are now uninhabitable, 400,000 people are living without water. 30 mosques have been destroyed, all of the main hospitals have been damaged – Israel has subjected the people of Gaza to one of the largest military assaults in recent history and their utter disregard for innocent women and children can be calculated in the latest death toll – over 1400 killed nearly 6,000 injured.

 
PLEASE SIGN THE PEACE CYCLE PETITION!
The EU-Israel Association Agreement allows Israel preferential trading terms with EU countries.
However, article 2 of the terms of this agreement states that all parties must respect human rights.
Israel is clearly in breach of these terms and our petition calls for an immediate suspension of the agreement.
We will be presenting the petition to MEPs at the European Parliament in Brussels at an event hosted by the Green Party on Tuesday 31st March.
So please sign this petition and forward it to all your contacts in the UK and across Europe, and let's make this something the EU has to take notice of!

Follow link to petition at:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Suspend-EU-Israel-Trade-Agreement

PLEASE SIGN AND PASS ON!
 

The realities of Israel’s occupation of Palestine?

Mass detentions, indiscriminate killings, denial of food, water and fuel supplies, roadblocks, checkpoints, destruction of schools, roads and infrastructure, imprisonment behind an illegal wall, theft of land and the demolition of 18,000 Palestinian homes.

Before the eyes of the world, the Palestinian civilian population is scrambling to survive

The UN Special Co-ordinator on the Middle East Peace Process

 

Join the Cycle for Justice

To register your interest in taking part or to help us plan and organise Peace Cycle 2009 email: thepeacecycle@aol.com

* U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 calls for an immediate withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the 1967 conflict (the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem), and for achieving a just settlement of the Palestinian refugee problem.

 

"Patrons of the Peace Cycle".

Mordechai Vanunu spent 18 years in an Israeli jail for exposing Israel’s secret nuclear weapons programme, 12 years of these in solitary confinement. Despite serving his sentence in full, Vanunu is still being held in Israel against his will. He describes the Peace Cycle as “a movement of compassion and hope”.


Alexei Sayle is one of Britain’s best loved comedians and is an established actor and writer. He has written several novels and television series and has made many television and film appearances.
 

 
Gush Shalom - the Israeli Peace Bloc, says about The Peace Cycle:
"With the inaction of the official organs of the international community towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Gush Shalom sees The Peace Cycle initiative as filling a
vacuum, encouraging us not to give up the struggle for a peace based on the Green Line as the border between Israel and Palestine - in order to start living side by side -
as good neighbours."
 

Read the Weblogs of 2006 Peace Cyclistsmore

Read about the Peace Cycle in the mediamore

"Israel has deprived millions of Palestinians of their liberty and property. It has perpetuated a system of gross racial discrimination and inequality. It has systematically incarcerated and tortured thousands of Palestinians, contrary to the rules of international law. It has, in particular, waged a war against a civilian population, in particular children.....Palestine is one of the great moral causes of our time.

"Nelson Mandela, 2001

Nick Pretzlik

 1945 - 2004

 

Support the Jenin Freedom Theatre