How the cat got its whiskers

Ok. so I am now back in Britain after an extended period away. Who on earth do I think i'm talking to? anyway. I'm unemployed and have a lot of time on my hands. Miaow!

West Bank Settlement Expansion

For more information on the Olive Tree Campaign go to www.jai-pal.org

Three Legged Dog

Okay.

Last night I watched 'Bil'in Habibti' at a film screening in my local political cafe. It is a fine film, made by Israeli activist Shai Pollack, who attended the screening.

This morning, while walking to work, I was thinking about the film and especially about the role that Israeli activists play in opposing the occupation. I really believe that any genuine progress, in what is rightly being modelled as a civil rights movement, can only be made with the input of the (largely marginalised) left-wing within Israel. Just as in South Africa there were whites who could see the horror of Apartheid, just as in the United States groups like the Freedom Riders did much to show the way in the South, the change must at least in part come from inside Israel if any kind of sense is to prevail.

I'm not talking about normalisation. I'm talking about joint struggle against something that is palpably wrong.

At the moment though, examples of joint Israeli-Palestinian non-violent resistance to the occupation are few and far between. I have Palestinian friends who (very reasonably) will refuse to have anything to do with Israeli organisations, while the oppressor maintains its grip. Likewise, since it's apparently illegal for Israelis to enter the West Bank, not to mention the fear that is whipped up regarding any such visit (Arabs waiting to stab you etc...), it seems very unlikely that any popular anti-occupation campaign will really get off the ground any time soon.

Which is shit.

Internationals might know what's going on, but most people don't care. Israelis are already unequal partners with Palestinians in the continuing occupation. Hopefully more from both sides can become equal partners in trying to end it.

Just as I was thinking about this kind of thing, I saw a three legged dog running along, in the incredible way three legged dogs have of doing what you might think would be rendered next to impossible after the loss of a limb, on the other side of the road. Lost in admiration for the dog, I was watching it and not looking where I was going, when suddenly I had a shock, like waking from a dream. I hadn't actually walked into a street-sign, but rather passed exactly between the two vertical posts that were in my path. Then I carried on going.

Frubious pie machine

Alice makes a pie.

Bil’in, Second anniversary demonstration. 23rd February 2007

This isn’t by any means a documentary, nor is it an account of the valiant efforts of those who protest the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and the bad tempered wall that is being built.
Rather it is a narrative of the day, and an attempt to represent what I felt as a both a protester and witness to the demonstration.
Bil’in is a phenomenon of a sort, in that it is the only anti-wall demo that has built up any kind of momentum. It has built a reputation as a success story of the non-violent resistance movement in Palestine, despite controversy regarding the motives of some of the activists that attend the weekly protest (so-called “violence tourists”), the regular stone-throwing of local kids and even the extent to which local villagers would like to see these protests continue.
This was the second time I’d attended the protest, and both times I have been overwhelmed, not only by the ridiculously heavy-handed methods of the Israeli military (which is self-evident in the video), but also by the intangible atmosphere amongst the protesters.
Bil’in is unique in that it is no longer simply an anti-wall demonstration; it has become something of a public relations animal. A symbol of non-violent resistance to show to the world, regardless of the ground-level intentions and goals of the local people who essentially want to get rid of the illegal wall (or, if you will, security fence, blah blah blah), so that they can access their farmland.
I have a friend who is convinced (and I am persuaded) that Israel only permits “Bil’in” to continue, firstly as an excellent training arena for their vast amounts of inexperienced young soldier-boys, and secondly to give sheen to the illusion of permissive Israeli democracy. Although it is slightly self defeating to be smug about allowing non-violent protest when you violently dismantle it.
It is a weird event, made all the more weird by the hundreds of people that attended the second anniversary. I would guess that there was at least three cameras to every person.

A thank you to James by the way…

Dignity

Click to enlarge the image. There are three pages. Sorry I'm not bright enough to put it in a swankier format.

Have a listen.

Extracted Audio 01.aiff

Cheesey Video

Hallo. I haven't done this for a while...

Yesterday afternoon I had many things to do, so instead if doing them I made this cheesey offering. The truth tastes like cheese.



Soon (maybe even later this afternoon) I will get round to writing about what I've been up to, including a bonkers day in Hebron nearly two weeks ago...

A whimsical stencil I did

Hello. Strange week for me, it began with the Olive Planting day with the JAI, which I really should have posted a report on, but I didn't.

So here's a link to an excellent account of what happened.
http://bethlehemghetto.blogspot.com/

The fields we were planting are very near to the path of the wall, as shown in one of my you-tube videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxZEOKzUixQ

So, from a most excellent day of action, baffling soldiers by planting trees - what I think is a fantastic form of non-violent resistance, because nothing looks sillier than when a big chap with a massive gun is trying to stop a small lady planting a tree, from there my week got me in a conflicting pickle.

The pickle was this... I went to see a Bonnie 'Prince' Billy gig in West Jerusalem on Tuesday.
hmmm... I really wanted to, and I have wanted to see him (the enigmatic Will Oldham) for a very long time. The music is outstanding (see recommendations)!! You can Imagine my dismay when I realised he was about to tour Britain, as I left the country.

But what about my die-hard principles of doing my best not to support the very very wrongness of the Israeli State, by boycotting Israel in general (including arts events etc.) whenever I can??
http://www.bds-palestine.net/

It is a tricky one, and really I shouldn't have gone. I should have written Mr Oldham a letter explaining why he really shouldn't play Israel, and then invited him to Bethlehem for a gig. But I went and it was brilliant, I'd convinced myself that I would take some kind of bull by it's horns and corner the well-bearded musician, inviting him back to the West Bank for a legendary performance. That was never really going to happen.

One of these days I'll get round to putting into words why I feel so uncomfortable in Israel. I think there's a lot of guilt involved, because it really is Westernised, and I can't help but feel in some way more relaxed in an environment so similar to the one I'm from.

On the other, very big, hand, last Friday when I was drinking in a very excellent bar and feeling these vague notions of discomfort, knowing that I was on a bit of a jolly in Jerusalem and forgetting all the heinous shite that carries on only twenty minutes away, and also discovering that Bonnie 'Prince' Billy was in town. Here I am living like I would back home while my Palestinian friends have a boot pressing their face into the mud. There I was. Then off I went, to return some DVD's to a very well stocked, very cool place, which features high on my list of reasons to feel gulty about going in to Israel. On the way back to the bar, and for no apparent reason, I was stopped and searched by the Police. OH MY GOODNESS. I fear that as well as the guilty pleasures of swanky West Jerusalem, the overbearing and entirely fascistic police presence has some kind of allure for me...

No No. Had I been stopped in Britain, and more certain of my rights, I would have quite happily told the policeman to go and sit in a puddle. As it was, the weirdly tangible sense of fear that permeates Israel manifested in a stop and search episode which made me realise why I never intend to be apart of a society (like Britain is becoming) that sacrifices personal liberty for the sake of coffee shops with chrome facades.

Quite hilariously, right now this minute, a great deal of celebratory gunfire just broke out about twenty feet from my desk. Apparently someone has been released from jail. Hooray! This is one reason why I love Palestine. People value freedom, and will not give up the struggle for it.

Hello.

I wrote a very long and rambling post this week, about the state of the State of Israel, in which I spent a great deal of time analysing the mental condition of Israelis; living, as so many of them do, in a bubble. Floating on an atmosphere of stage-managed fear-from-the-smoke-machine, right next to belligerent occupation.

It sprawled off into what may one day be refined into intelligent comment, but i scrapped it for now...

So, here instead is another video, which i will try and embed, rather than simply include a link to...




It is a bit ropey, but you get the idea.

I think Donovan said it best, when he said...

The continent of Atlantis was an islandwhich lay before the great floodin the area we now call the Atlantic Ocean.So great an area of land, that from her western shoresthose beautiful sailors journeyedto the South and the North Americas with ease,in their ships with painted sails.To the East Africa was a neighbour, across a short strait of seamiles.The great Egyptian age is but a remnant of The Atlantianculture.The antediluvian kings colonised the worldAll the Gods who play in the mythological dramasIn all legends from all lands were from fair Atlantis.Knowing her fate, Atlantis sent out ships to all corners of theEarth.On board were the Twelve:The poet, the physician, the farmer, the scientist,The magician and the other so-called Gods of our legends.Though Gods they were -And as the elders of our time choose to remain blindLet us rejoice and let us sing and dance and ring in the newHail Atlantis!Way down below the ocean where I wanna be she may be,Way down below the ocean where I wanna be she may be,Way down below the ocean where I wanna be she may be.Way down below the ocean where I wanna be she may be,Way down below the ocean where I wanna be she may be.My antediluvian baby, oh yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah,I wanna see you some dayMy antediluvian baby, oh yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah,My antediluvian baby,My antediluvian baby, I love you, girl,Girl, I wanna see you some day.My antediluvian baby, oh yeahI wanna see you some day, ohMy antediluvian baby.My antediluvian baby, I wanna see youMy antediluvian baby, gotta tell me where she goneI wanna see you some dayWake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, oh yeahOh glub glub, down down, yeah

Entering Israel

Okie doke, here's my first blog post. I only really did this because I thought I needed the registration for something else; clearly I am not an internet aficionado, but I will do my best. Friends of mine may notice more than a passing similarity to the e-mail I sent last week...

First of all, very sorry to everyone that I didn't get the chance to say hello or goodbye to during the past three weeks, I am terrible at such things so please remember that it's because I'm lazy. Which makes it alright doesn't it?

Just in case I'm so slack not to have told you yet, I was back in Britain for three weeks after three months in Palestine. Now I'm back out here, in Beit Sahour, which is a relatively small town near Bethlehem, in the South of the West Bank.

I arrived safe and sound on Sunday afternoon, after a long flight sat next to a fat man. Mainly because of the fat man, and the way he spilled over on to my seat, I didn't get any sleep on the flight, so on arrival I was more tired than I'd have preferred, bearing in mind what lay in store. Landing in Ben Gurion airport (near Tel Aviv, which is pretty much half way up Israel's Mediterranean coast) can make the nerves jangle a wee bit, not due to any sense of shoddy flight procedures, or cobbled runways you understand; you won't find a more state of the art or safety conscious airport on the planet. It's just that each time I've passed through the gleaming new terminal 3 I've felt incredibly intimidated. This is because, despite posing no threat to Israeli security in any way shape or form (perhaps with the exception of my dress-sense), in order to oil past the Border Control Officers and other looming security mechanisms, I have to lie.

I know of many internationals that have made the mistake of letting slip the fact that they intend to visit Israel's occupied territories. As a result they have been denied entry into the country, for no other reason than they wish to visit an area that a fair and democratic state happens to hold in the grip of military occupation. Let me add that I have many friends who have been interrogated at length (hours) concerning their reasons for visiting the country, and these friends of mine have been made to feel quite criminal as they avoid the fact that they plan to visit Palestine, despite their intentions (like mine) being only concerned with helping to bring about non-violent and just solutions to the problems facing the region. One naturally wonders why the State of Israel doesn't want people to go to Palestine…

I recently heard that there are currently only eight foreign journalists working in Gaza. Granted, it's not an ideal holiday destination, but surely a democratic state would support the efforts of the free media?

So anyway, it is within this arena of suspicion that I shuffle along the moving walkways to the pass-port control booths, and I wait with clammy-hands for my turn at the Perspex shield. At last it's my turn, and to my great relief (and later to the amused bafflement of my friend James, who last week spent seven hours held at gunpoint by the Israeli Military when trying to enter the country), it was a breeze. The young girl behind the counter quizzed me briefly about my recent movements in and out of Israel, I fed her my story, and she let me pass with a cheery smile and "good to have you back."

So I'm in, and in case you're wondering, the story I fed her is not so far from the truth. I said I was volunteering in Jerusalem with the East Jerusalem YMCA, a Christian organization which works towards building a tolerant society based on equality for all. What I'm actually doing is volunteering in Beit Sahour for The Joint Advocacy Initiative (as in jointly between the EJ YMCA and the YWCA of Palestine).

http://www.jai-pal.org/

I have been shamefully slack in relating to all my friends exactly what I'm doing here and what is going on. Essentially I'm here because of a civil rights issue which, for whatever reason, is going largely unreported in the Western media. I hope to contribute to the swelling non-violent civil-rights movement in Palestine and spread some information where currently misinformation prevails. I plan to do this while sitting on a very high horse.

But really, hopefully I'll be more proactive about sending home news.

In the meantime, to get the ball rolling, here are a few videos I made over the past few months (sorry to everyone I've already sent these to). This is the kind of thing I want to do more of now I'm back here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxZEOKzUixQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEKKpiegnwk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYWHUQUx81Y (part one)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzG-WBP_PkM (part two)

These all have their flaws, but with luck I'll be sending you better ones soon.