Image: Daily Echo, https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/24506338.bournemouth-thousands-spent-replace-stolen-israeli-signs/
Palestinians search for casualties at the site of Israeli strikes on houses in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip on October 31, 2023, Al Jazeera, photo linked to source (https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2023/12/25/photos-israel-palestine-war)
The twinning of Bournemouth with Netanya, Israel, is now a reprehensible association with a state accused of genocide by the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. Many of us have been working to ‘un-do’ this relationship and the issue will be considered at the upcoming full BCP council meeting. It turns out that the Council did not do the twinning in the first place back in 1995, but only ‘gave it it’s blessing’—and signage. So let’s do what we can. Let’s get rid of these signs.
The ongoing genocide in Gaza is the abject horror of our time. A clear majority of the British public supports an arms embargo, sanctions and suspension of the existing trade deal with Israel. The most recent grotesque act is the ongoing killing by Israeli soldiers of hundreds and hundreds of starving Palestinians as they gather for the designed-to-be-inadequate rations. This sadism is just the latest in the exponentially disproportionate response to the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023, killing 1,200 Israelis and taking 250 hostages. The Hamas attacks were dreadful and inhumane. No one is denying that. But as António Guterres, Secretary General of the UN, said, “this did not happen in a vacuum, but amid the 56 years or suffocating occupation”. I’m a Jew brought up in the shadow of the Holocaust. I get how Israel and the automatic citizenship and acceptance of Jews worldwide (unless, of course, we are Arabic or African Jews) was a safety ring we all clutched onto after the horrors of the Holocaust. But we must face the truth about Zionism and the Israeli state.
Of course, getting rid of these twinning signs is not the only thing we should, or are doing. However, these signs, under the Bournemouth Crest, give the impression that Bournemouth has an official, democratically sanctioned relationship with a town in a genocidal state. They are salt in the wounds of us living here who have lost people in Palestine, and to the rest of us who have not lost our humanity.
Other British towns have been untwinned for humanitarian reasons. Newcastle untwinned from a Chinese city over the human rights abuses of Uyghurs in 2022. Exeter City Council untwinned from Yaroslavl, Russia, due to the Ukrainian invasion in 2022. Untwinning Bournemouth from Netanya is overdue.
This is what we know so far.
Twinning – What is it?
Twinning started after WWI and gained popularity after WWII as a means of fostering friendship and solidarity across Europe after the devastation of these wars. It is a symbolic relationship that celebrates shared values and promotes cultural exchanges.
So what do you know about this Israeli seaside town and its values?
Netanya was built on land acquired by razing the village of Umm Khalid, one of the 531 Palestinian towns and villages destroyed in 1948 by Israelis to build a new nation. The Palestinians living in these destroyed towns and villages were often executed, even if they’d surrendered. Any survivors were expelled from their land where their ancestors had lived for generations or millennia.
Okay, but maybe it’s not so bad now? Councillor Anne Filer, a proponent of the twinning, and wife of the head of the ‘Bournemouth and Netanya Twinning Association’, has visited Netanya and said that she had “quickly come to realise that the word apartheid doesn’t apply at all”. Well… Netanya’s population is 99.9% Jewish and other non-Arabs. So, when only 0.01% of the population is of the group around which Israel has built walls, created numerous checkpoints, limited food and all supplies, and denied citizenship since 1967, you very well wouldn’t see the reality of apartheid and oppression.
Twinning – how is it done?
As mentioned above, the BCP Council and any affiliated committee or group doesn’t have the power to untwin Bournemouth from Netanya, because it didn’t do the twinning in the first place.
These partnerships are typically initiated by local authorities and developed and maintained by Town Twinning Associations (TTAs). They are usually formalised by the local authorities of both towns and involve a “Deed of Jumelage” or Twinning Oath. There is a Dorset twinning association, but Bournemouth does not twin through them, and there is no evidence of these twinning documents for Netanya.
Unusually, the twinning between Bournemouth and Netanya was a private affair, done in 1995 by the Bournemouth Netanya Twinning Association, still chaired by Michael Filer, former Bournemouth Mayor and Alderman, and husband of Anne Filer, BCP councillor. This twinning association is not part of the BCP council, and it has no online presence. It is not listed in Companies House or as a community organisation. In this way, the twinning of Bournemouth to Netanya was done outside of any democratic process, input or oversight. This was confirmed by the Democratic Services, BCP.
Bournemouth council ‘Blesses’ the twinning
The Bournemouth Council went on to ‘give it its blessing’ of the twinning in 1995. This comes with no associated funds beyond the signs. However, those signs are important because they make it look official with the Bournemouth crest. At least I always assumed that the twinning between Bournemouth and Netanya (and with Lucerne) were organised by the council in some formal capacity. It looks like Bournemouth Council did it.
What’s happened so far
In June 2024, 1000 protesters here in Bournemouth demanded we untwin. The Bournemouth Charter Trustees then met in July of that year. This charter of trustees comprises Bournemouth councillors representing various wards. It was created to preserve the civic, historic, and ceremonial traditions of the former Borough of Bournemouth – to ensure the continuation of Bournemouth’s identity – after the formation of the BCP conurbation. They choose the mayor and deputy mayor each year, for example.
At this meeting, the Bournemouth Charter Trustees ruled that the motion to untwin would not be ‘heard’ (considered), as it fell outside the rules governing the meeting. The then Mayor George Farquhar, reiterated their official remit as ‘a non-political body… there to promote the historic and ceremonial duties of the town.’
So, there seem to be a few things to unpack here.
Politics in council work
As far as the trustees and the council at large remaining apolitical, this specifically refers to party-political. Actually, it’s the opposite. Maintaining official signs under the Bournemouth Crest proclaiming a sisterly relationship with a town in a state accused of genocide would be the political act – proclaiming our fellowship with this apartheid state. (And no one will be surprised when Israel is finally labelled as a terrorist state.)
This is horrible and ridiculous.
What you can do:
At the next full BCP Council meeting, they will consider a motion to cease support for the twinning with Netanya.
Tell your councillors how you want them to vote.
They work for you.
https://democracy.bcpcouncil.gov.uk/mgFindMember.aspx
Palestine Solidarity Movement
