Published: Thursday, 7th January, 2010 6:05am

Phil makes New Year journey to Bethlehem

by Alex Lawrie

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A FORMER county headmaster is to spend the first three months of the new year living with under-fire Palestinians.

Phil Lucas, who lives in Stenton, will be based in Bethlehem which has been cut off due to an Israeli separation barrier through which no Palestinian can pass without appropriate papers.

Phil, 70, is taking part in a programme sponsored by the World Council of Churches at the request of the main churches in Jerusalem, and will be supporting harassed families, monitoring and reporting human rights abuses and advocating the changes needed to end a system of oppression.

A member of East Lothian Quaker Meeting, the former Midlands head teacher left his county home for Bethlehem on New Year's Day, and will be working alongside Israeli, Palestinian and international human rights and peace activists for the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel.

He said: "It is hard for us in Scotland to imagine what it is like to live in occupied territory with basic human freedoms denied. Only by living for a time in this situation can I earn the right to speak with authority about it."

Many people who live in Bethlehem are dependent on jobs on the other side of the barrier and are subject to delays as they try to get to work, often queueing for more than six hours.