Mary Baxter, a former mathematics lecturer at RMIT University of Melbourne, decided that retirement in Australia was not the way she wanted to live her life, so she went to Palestine and found a way to make a difference in the lives of others.  At the age of 75, she spends much of the year ferrying young Palestinian children to and from school in order to protect them from stone-throwing Israeli settler children in Tel Rumeida, a suburb of the Palestinian city of Hebron.  Mary pays her own way, working with International Solidarity, a Palestinian-led non-violent organization.  Her work also involves collaboration with Machsom Watch (Israeli mothers and grandmothers), Christian Peace Teams and the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel.

Mary will talk about her experiences with the Jewish settlers who have built their modern apartments right up against the ancient stone homes of the Palestinians and make life as miserable as possible for the Palestinians living there.  They ambush Palestinian children on the way to school, throw stones at them and taunt them and then throw their household rubbish and rocks from the Tel Rumeida settlement down into the streets of Hebron.  It got so bad that nets had to be erected overhead to catch the rubbish.  The Israeli soldiers rarely intervene to help the Palestinians.  “The settlers, no matter how badly they behave or how unreasonable their demands, are always put first.  The Palestinians, no matter how conciliatory they are, always come last.”