Why Nationwide Building Society is an anti-Palestinian Bank
Children at the Al Tafawk Children's Centre Sitting Down to their first proper meal for weeks - no thanks to Nationwide
Monday 15 July 2024
Debbie Crosbie
Chief Executive Officer
Nationwide Building Society
Pipers Way,
Swindon SN38 1NW
By email to debbie.crosbie@nationwide.co.uk,
Dear Ms Crosbie,
On February 2 and 12 I attempted to transfer £2000 and £1,500 to the Al Tafawk Children’s Centre [AFCC] in Jenin, Palestine via Nationwide. These payments were blocked by your Account Review Team [ART]. No reason was ever given. Despite answering all their questions, to the satisfaction of ART’s Hannah Cardrick, the payments weren’t released.
The ART refused to answer my question as to whether future payments would also be blocked. They merely asserted their right to do so. A subsequent complaint by me about their behaviour was upheld and I was awarded £250.
Clearly this angered the ART. I was first sent a ‘Final Letter’ warning me that if I questioned their judgement and asked questions such as whether a payment to an Israeli children’s centre would have been blocked, my accounts would be closed down.
On June 24 I was informed by the ART that my accounts were being closed. No reason was given but it is clear what the real reason was.
Jenin is a city under occupation by the Israeli army. As the article below and the Ha'aretz article to which it refers shows, Palestinians in Jenin are suffering extreme repression by the Israeli army including the murder of civilians, including children.
The ethnic cleansing and genocide that Palestinians in Gaza are experiencing is now being carried out in the West Bank too. Jenin is known as ‘little Gaza’
Despite your Mission Statement ‘We're building a Society where the diversity of our people reflects the communities we work in.’ it is clear that Nationwide is fundamentally amoral and complicit in the West’s support for Israel’s genocide and war crimes in Gaza.
Although you failed to provide me with any reason for your actions you did send a letter to another customer, Duncan Taylor, [see attached] saying that the Palestinian territories were sanctioned by the British Government. This was a lie.
It is clear that one or more members of the ART are Zionist supporters and harbour prejudices against the Palestinians which have resulted in these decisions.
Notwithstanding this I was able to transfer £3,000 to the ATCC last week via Santander Bank. Strangely enough they had no problems with the sanctions that your anonymous correspondent mentioned.
Because the ART are shielded from the impact of their decisions they make, such as preventing us pay for hungry and thirsty children being able to have food, I decided to send you the response I received from the ATCC when my payment reached them as well as some photographs of them eating the food that we helped pay for.
I realise that this is likely to have little effect on the actions of the ART but I thought others might be interested in your actions and I hope that others will make you aware of their feelings about support for Israel's occupation and the resulting war crimes that they commit daily.
I also include two articles which I've written for Al Jazeera on the attacks on the Al Tafawk Centre by Israel's military over the past two years - attacks which you by your actions you are helping to contribute to.
Why did Israel raid and wreck a children’s centre in Jenin? and
Palestinian children in the West Bank are also under attack
Yours sincerely,
Tony Greenstein
Reaction from the Al Tafawk Children's Centre
The most amazing news i can't stop crying i received the money nowwwwww! The children will eat oh Tony i feel i am dreaming
Thank you thank you thank you
Thanks for each person donate one £ to survive us
Huge love
News from Jenin Refugee Camp (15/06/2024)
This morning I received a telephone call from a friend who lives in Jenin Refugee Camp situated in the north of the West Bank.
“There isn't a street (in Jenin) that hasn't been razed by IDF bulldozers, not a public square that hasn't been reduced to rubble, along with many stores that have been destroyed... The IDF has raided the camp and the city in which the camp is situated multiple times recently; every incursion leaves behind dozens more killed or wounded. It looks as though the soldiers would rather be in the Gaza Strip and are compensating themselves by behaving in Jenin as though that's where they were. In "Little Gaza," as the Jenin refugee camp is known these days, the images speak for themselves.”
(Extract from an article published in Israel's Haaretz || June 14, 2024, written by Gideon Levy & Alex Levac.)
Maisa (not her real name) has asked me to share our conversation and what follows is her account of what is happening in Jenin Camp now. Maisa is not OK. Several times whilst we were talking she broke down in tears, repeating…
“I am not OK.”
She knows she is suffering trauma, her hands and legs shake.
There is currently no electricity in the camp, roads are dug up, homes destroyed.
Yesterday she witnessed a student of hers bleeding to death in front of her eyes – killed by Israeli soldiers. Soldiers Maisa tells me, pose for selfies with those they have injured or killed, laughing with others and sharing the photos on their phones.
Her brother Mohammed is in prison, though no charges have yet been brought. The prisons are overcrowded and infections are rife, passed on easily in insanitary conditions. In the last few days the family have learnt that Mohammed has had one of his legs amputated as a result of an infection, resulting from an injury.
Maisa and another brother Hamza, have suffered from the most degrading acts. Soldiers have pushed their heads down the toilet and urinated in their mouths.
Soldiers wanted to arrest Mahmoud, Maisa’s young nephew (Mahmoud is 8 years old), for having a toy gun. In spite of being told that Mahmoud is a haemophiliac the soldiers beat him around the face.
Families are ordered to leave their homes which the soldiers then enter for parties and sleep. When returning the families are shocked to find used condoms left behind.
“How can they do this when outside people are dying?”
Maisa asks.
People in the camp are existing on bread and water. When the market does open, soldiers eat or destroy the food, drinking and taking selfies. The people want clean water to drink, they understand the dangers of dirty water.
Congregating together at night fifty or so women and children feel there is safety in numbers. If alone the soldiers can enter and do whatever they wish and nothing would be reported. But doing that to a large number would be more difficult to hide.
The old and young are dying through disease and the sick because of a lack of medical intervention and medicines. Maisa’s mum, who so kindly cooked and made me feel so welcome when I stayed with the family, had breast cancer some years ago which was treated, but now the cancer is back and she is very sick.
Tiny babies and little children are left vulnerable as vaccination programmes have stopped.
Pictures from around the world of demonstrations shown on Al Jazeera are seen in the camp, but still the people feel that no one listens.
Maisa asks...
“What do they want from us?”
“We don’t want them to leave their land, why can’t we live side by side?”
“We can’t leave, who will take us?”
“Who are we?” she asks, “Why does no one come to help us?”
Our phone call draws to a close with Maisa asking me if I think she will survive this war. I tell her she must. I tell her she is strong and beautiful and that one day she will teach the children of the camp again instead of shielding them from bullets and watching them die. I really do hope she does.
Karen Whyte