Rutie Atsmon
59
You had planned to hold your annual meeting for Windows members today. What happened?
We are a joint organization, not only members from both sides of the conflict, but also in terms of the management board. It's very important for us that the process of decision-making, of developing the programs, of making Windows what it is, be done by all members. It's not easy to meet. We not only have the psychological barriers, the fears and the suspicion. We also have the fence, the limitation that the army sets on crossing the green line. And we cannot always meet to sit together in the same room to discuss things.This year we have decided that we are going to do everything we can to have the yearly assembly meeting of the organization together. We planned to do it in a village near Tulkarm, close to the checkpoint, so Israelis who are afraid to enter the Territories would not have to walk more than two minutes to get to the place, and Palestinians from different places could come-- unfortunately not from Gaza, but from most places in the West Bank. And we prepared everything, and worked very hard, and we arranged for people to come from different places. And as has happened sometimes before when we organized such meetings, the night before something happened, and in this case there was a pigua,1 an attack, in Israel not far from Tel Aviv. Following that, the army immediately announced a full closure on the Territories. So we checked and we found out that there is no way Israelis would be able to enter the Palestinian village, and also Palestinians from different places in the West Bank would not be able to reach Tulkarm. We talked to friends in different villages and they said that some of the villages were already full of soldiers and tanks which meant that they will probably not be able to leave the villages, so we just decided to postpone it to next week, hoping that next week we will be able to do it, and if not, a few days later. This meeting will take place; we will do it together. We will make the decisions we need to make, we will elect a new board. It may take time, but we will find a way to do it.- 1Hebrew for attack. Generally used to refer to a suicide bombing attack.