Khan Younis, Gaza
Spending the day in Khan Younis inside the Palestinian side of Gaza is not everyone’s idea of having a fun day in the sun. In the lead up to the disengagement next week, it was like a last chance to go into Gaza and experience the desperation that the locals must endure everyday whilst the Israelis are still there.
The population of Gaza is so young that more than an estimated 60% of the people there have never lived without the Israelis controlling every aspect of there lives there.
To put Gaza into perspective, it is only 40 km long and 5 km wide, the 8,000 Israeli settlers have 40% of the land (the best land) and the remaining 1.2 million, read that number again 1,200,000 live in the other 60%. The only way to enter Gaza, is through the Erez Checkpoint at the Northern end, there you come straight into Gaza City and all the
Refugee Camps like “Jabaliya and Beach Camps”, here squalor and life live in hand in hand. Whilst they are called camps they are just suburbs of Gaza City.
There is one and only one road down thru Gaza to the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah, which borders onto Egypt with the Israeli buffer zone known as Phildelphi road. This is where the tunnels for smuggling are and have been flashpoints for clashes for years.
Now the problem is that this road is only two lanes wide and passes thru Israeli settlements, so the IDF controls the road that is the main and only road to commute on in Gaza. The Israeli checkpoints that control this road are full-scale military options, no soldiers are seen, they sit in Concrete turrets and can close the road at any time for any reason.
Yesterday was no exception, we had wrapped filming in Khan Younis and wanted to get back to Gaza City and out through Erez. But the IDF had closed the road and we were in a traffic jam that stretched back a couple of km. There was nothing anyone could do we just had to sit and wait. Looking around at the Palestinians sitting in the heat of summer in the taxis and the frustrations of truck drivers you could sense that they know there is nothing they could do. When the Israelis would open the road no one could tell, it could of been in two minutes two hours or two days, there is nothing you can do but wait.
Somehow Niall our local fixer/producer managed to convince the Palestinian soldiers who were trying to maintain a semblance of order in this road closure, that as foreign press we were important and should go to the front of the line. Now I am not ashamed to say that we did get the green light to go ahead towards the front of the line and we took off only to sit in the heat further up the line. You just sit and wait, we probably spent an hour all told waiting there.
Which was only a precursor to the frustrations of trying to get out of Erez, we got to the first Palestinian checkpoint where they co-ordinate with the IDF to allow you to re enter back into Israel. Only to find out that no one was going out, you must wait how long no one could tell, my record is having to wait 8 hours. I just hoped that it was not going to be that long, it was 6:15 pm when we arrived and the border closes at 9pm.
The reason for the delay we found out was that Palestinian workers were coming back into Gaza after working the day in Israel, and with the disengagement the soldiers at the Erez Crossing were short staffed, so we had to wait.
Hot tired and sweaty we sat in the car, tried to sleep, tried to pass time, tried phone calls to anyone who could help us and tried not to look at our watches. It was getting darker and darker; this is no place to get caught after nightfall.
Two and half hours later we finally got out of Gaza and back into Israel, the whole experience can only be likened to escaping from prison, yet another blog subject on another day.
Perhaps the telling moment of the day, and the title of this blog belong to Mohammed Mouser aged thirteen. We were filming the final sequence for the story looking into the Gush Katif Settlements from the Palestinian side and I noticed Mohammed standing on a wall looking into the Settlements. After I had shot the sequence we were talking to him asking if he had ever gone into the Settlements, no he replied, but he had once got close to the fence and was watching life in there, his only line back to us was “They have nice dogs in there”.
Strange what people admire on the other side of the fence.
Friday, August 12, 2005
Monday, August 08, 2005
Seeking Asylum In Gaza
Seeking Asylum in Gaza
When I think of people seeking Asylum, you have images of crowded old fishing boats jammed with desperate people or men jumping fences to try and jump on a train, but here in Israel we have the classic opposite. There are people who believe that it is their mission in life to seek Asylum in Gaza.
The IDF has declared the area around here as a closed Military Zone, without the correct papers there is no access to the Settlements inside Gaza Strip. The right wing hard core settlers who are planning to make a stand and refuse to leave are getting more supporters coming in, they are truly “Guerrillas in the Dark”
Once night descends protestors in small groups start trying to walk into the Gaza Settlements through the fields, trying to avoid being caught by the IDF.
It is not exactly scientific well planned; most of them get caught, taken into Police custody and released at some time, by all accounts very peaceful.
So last night we set out to try and find some of these Israeli Asylum Seekers, by all accounts you must smile when you think that what they are trying to do is to smuggle themselves into Gaza. Gaza is not exactly the land of milk and honey, on the other hand you have a million plus Palestinians trapped inside Gaza, if they try to walk out they are shot without questions.
There was no moon and it was pitch black, and we had driven not more than one kilometre around the Kissifim Kibbutz, before we came across an IDF Checkpoint. Much scrambling by young soldiers who thought that the best thing to do would be to detain us, in fact Mike and I did not even know that we had been detained, Gaby the Producer did not seem fazed so we were not.
After a few minutes a slightly older soldier (here read about 20 years old) turned up, Gaby and him chatted and the end result was that there were no reports of people walking thru the fields that surrounded us, they even said we were free to go further down the road, but he warned us that only a km further down we would come to the fence that separates Israel and Gaza and that the locals do not always play nice.
With that warning we turned back and Mike had one of those secret squirrel type phone conversations and then pointed to a road junction twenty minutes on the map. Along dark roads, through the checkpoints. Mikes contact gave the impression that it would be like a sea of lemmings jumping out of cars and striding out into the fields, once we got to the junction.
We found a lookout spot on top of a hill overlooking the fields, and turning on night scope lens of the camera, I panned and zoomed, scanned and tilted. The end result nothing not one Gaza Asylum Seeker.
You get used to boasts of people with agenda’s in our business, all part of the spin and sometimes just sometimes they are telling the truth.
When I think of people seeking Asylum, you have images of crowded old fishing boats jammed with desperate people or men jumping fences to try and jump on a train, but here in Israel we have the classic opposite. There are people who believe that it is their mission in life to seek Asylum in Gaza.
The IDF has declared the area around here as a closed Military Zone, without the correct papers there is no access to the Settlements inside Gaza Strip. The right wing hard core settlers who are planning to make a stand and refuse to leave are getting more supporters coming in, they are truly “Guerrillas in the Dark”
Once night descends protestors in small groups start trying to walk into the Gaza Settlements through the fields, trying to avoid being caught by the IDF.
It is not exactly scientific well planned; most of them get caught, taken into Police custody and released at some time, by all accounts very peaceful.
So last night we set out to try and find some of these Israeli Asylum Seekers, by all accounts you must smile when you think that what they are trying to do is to smuggle themselves into Gaza. Gaza is not exactly the land of milk and honey, on the other hand you have a million plus Palestinians trapped inside Gaza, if they try to walk out they are shot without questions.
There was no moon and it was pitch black, and we had driven not more than one kilometre around the Kissifim Kibbutz, before we came across an IDF Checkpoint. Much scrambling by young soldiers who thought that the best thing to do would be to detain us, in fact Mike and I did not even know that we had been detained, Gaby the Producer did not seem fazed so we were not.
After a few minutes a slightly older soldier (here read about 20 years old) turned up, Gaby and him chatted and the end result was that there were no reports of people walking thru the fields that surrounded us, they even said we were free to go further down the road, but he warned us that only a km further down we would come to the fence that separates Israel and Gaza and that the locals do not always play nice.
With that warning we turned back and Mike had one of those secret squirrel type phone conversations and then pointed to a road junction twenty minutes on the map. Along dark roads, through the checkpoints. Mikes contact gave the impression that it would be like a sea of lemmings jumping out of cars and striding out into the fields, once we got to the junction.
We found a lookout spot on top of a hill overlooking the fields, and turning on night scope lens of the camera, I panned and zoomed, scanned and tilted. The end result nothing not one Gaza Asylum Seeker.
You get used to boasts of people with agenda’s in our business, all part of the spin and sometimes just sometimes they are telling the truth.
Sunday, August 07, 2005
The Kibbutz Breakfast
Sunday August 7th 2005
The Kibbutz Breakfast
“Breakfast” The most important meal of day, everyone says so, books tell you “do not miss breakfast”. They have not had to eat a kibbutz breakfast.
Kibbutz’s are a uniquely Israeli aspect of life. In other parts of the world, you would call them Commune’s, conjuring up images of hippy’s wandering around preaching love and peace. Here though they have always been the backbone of the country, almost every Israeli you meet, who has grown up here, has a one time lived on a kibbutz.
Kibbutz’s are like small farms, complete with an Industrial zone and housing community. Everyone has the own small house but no real kitchen, meals are served in a communal dining room. Most of the people, who live on the kibbutz, have jobs within the community whether it is on the farm or in factory/business that the kibbutz runs. Where I am staying the kibbutz has one of the largest paint factories in the country. Commerce is developed and the community runs them as a collective. In short some of these Kibbutz’s are multi million dollar operations.
As Israel has grown, the children of the kibbutz’s have moved to the big cities, for work and the bright lights, (that is after serving three years national conscription). And now a lot of the rooms have been turned into Bed and BREAKFAST hotel style rooms. Note the word breakfast has cropped up again.
They are a unique chance to actually experience the pioneer challenge that developed Israel into the nation it is today.
I have always tried to eat breakfast whilst on the road. And over the years, breakfast has been in places like this. A roadside cafes in rural Afghanistan, a dark smoky mud brick house on the pot holed road between Herat and Kandahar, just before you start the dash across the Desert of Death.
Here we had fresh baked Naan bread and fried eggs complete with tea, an hour later four of us were really sick and everytime we had to stop, we risked the chance of stepping on landmines in culverts under the road we were using as toilets. Only later to be told by a de-mining engineer that culverts are the most dangerous places for landmines.
We were too sick at the time to even think of the risk as we clambered down into the culvert before your stomach exploded. That was a bad breakfast, in what must be one of the worst places in the world to get sick.
In Iraq on the US Bases, you can get “Grits” for breakfast, and I grew up believing that Grits was only on the TV show, “The Beverley Hillbillies”. But this semolina type stuff is hard to handle, even “Cheese Grits” do not taste much better.
Breakfast in Vietnam, is a fantastic bowl of Pho soup, full of taste and every time you have one there is always a slight difference, so you can never get tired of ordering the same thing day after day.
The Kibbutz Breakfast must be the blandest repetitive meal that exists on the planet today. The communal dining halls are designed by Prison architects, functional, classless and depressing places. The meal is a self-service counter type with cucumbers and tomatoes sitting there, tubs of cream cheeses and yoghurt, hard-boiled eggs, and stale bread, hummus is naturally available.
It is just such a depressing meal to have to face everyday. Hot water is from a tap in the wall, the cutlery and plates are functional, and it is like walking into a bad prison movie dining room, at the end of your meal you take your plate out the back and put it on the conveyor belt Industrial dishwasher.
And like the movie “Groundhog Day” every morning you walk into the same scene, the food is exactly the same, the decor and ambience just the same. You probably read the menu items I listed and think that they sound good, BUT trust me every day it is the same. The same items in the same places.
In closing, I look out of my bungalow window and see a truly beautiful rural community lifestyle; the grounds are immaculate with glorious shade trees. I think I will close and go for a ride on my bike. They are a unique community lifestyle that you can stay in, but remember my words about “The Kibbutz Breakfast”, you too can experience what I have eaten it will be the same.
The Kibbutz Breakfast
“Breakfast” The most important meal of day, everyone says so, books tell you “do not miss breakfast”. They have not had to eat a kibbutz breakfast.
Kibbutz’s are a uniquely Israeli aspect of life. In other parts of the world, you would call them Commune’s, conjuring up images of hippy’s wandering around preaching love and peace. Here though they have always been the backbone of the country, almost every Israeli you meet, who has grown up here, has a one time lived on a kibbutz.
Kibbutz’s are like small farms, complete with an Industrial zone and housing community. Everyone has the own small house but no real kitchen, meals are served in a communal dining room. Most of the people, who live on the kibbutz, have jobs within the community whether it is on the farm or in factory/business that the kibbutz runs. Where I am staying the kibbutz has one of the largest paint factories in the country. Commerce is developed and the community runs them as a collective. In short some of these Kibbutz’s are multi million dollar operations.
As Israel has grown, the children of the kibbutz’s have moved to the big cities, for work and the bright lights, (that is after serving three years national conscription). And now a lot of the rooms have been turned into Bed and BREAKFAST hotel style rooms. Note the word breakfast has cropped up again.
They are a unique chance to actually experience the pioneer challenge that developed Israel into the nation it is today.
I have always tried to eat breakfast whilst on the road. And over the years, breakfast has been in places like this. A roadside cafes in rural Afghanistan, a dark smoky mud brick house on the pot holed road between Herat and Kandahar, just before you start the dash across the Desert of Death.
Here we had fresh baked Naan bread and fried eggs complete with tea, an hour later four of us were really sick and everytime we had to stop, we risked the chance of stepping on landmines in culverts under the road we were using as toilets. Only later to be told by a de-mining engineer that culverts are the most dangerous places for landmines.
We were too sick at the time to even think of the risk as we clambered down into the culvert before your stomach exploded. That was a bad breakfast, in what must be one of the worst places in the world to get sick.
In Iraq on the US Bases, you can get “Grits” for breakfast, and I grew up believing that Grits was only on the TV show, “The Beverley Hillbillies”. But this semolina type stuff is hard to handle, even “Cheese Grits” do not taste much better.
Breakfast in Vietnam, is a fantastic bowl of Pho soup, full of taste and every time you have one there is always a slight difference, so you can never get tired of ordering the same thing day after day.
The Kibbutz Breakfast must be the blandest repetitive meal that exists on the planet today. The communal dining halls are designed by Prison architects, functional, classless and depressing places. The meal is a self-service counter type with cucumbers and tomatoes sitting there, tubs of cream cheeses and yoghurt, hard-boiled eggs, and stale bread, hummus is naturally available.
It is just such a depressing meal to have to face everyday. Hot water is from a tap in the wall, the cutlery and plates are functional, and it is like walking into a bad prison movie dining room, at the end of your meal you take your plate out the back and put it on the conveyor belt Industrial dishwasher.
And like the movie “Groundhog Day” every morning you walk into the same scene, the food is exactly the same, the decor and ambience just the same. You probably read the menu items I listed and think that they sound good, BUT trust me every day it is the same. The same items in the same places.
In closing, I look out of my bungalow window and see a truly beautiful rural community lifestyle; the grounds are immaculate with glorious shade trees. I think I will close and go for a ride on my bike. They are a unique community lifestyle that you can stay in, but remember my words about “The Kibbutz Breakfast”, you too can experience what I have eaten it will be the same.
Friday, August 05, 2005
Guns & Religion
Day 4
Guns and Religion
Over the last few years being based here in Israel, I have filmed at most of the settlements that are to be evacuated the week after next. Netzer Hazani has always been known as the home of “The Celery Lady”, I cannot remember her name but she has lived in the settlement for over thirty years, growing celery (Kosher Celery, yes there is such a thing as Kosher Celery). Whenever you film or interview her it is always in her greenhouse, with her holding a stalk of celery.
Today however, when we met her in the community square in the settlement, she was not holding her beloved celery. But she was there watching the men of the community handing over their guns to the IDF, (Israel Defence Forces). For the last three decades the locals have had a degree of responsibility for their own security, given that the Palestinian town of Khan Younnis is just over the sand hill a kilometre away, and both sides have not played nice on many occasions.
But as a collective the residents of Netzer Hazani do not want guns in their community when the soldiers come to evict them, that way their can be no risk of someone losing their temper and firing a gun against a fellow Jew, perhaps a ray of sanity amongst the insanity of the Middle East.
With their guns wrapped in orange ribbons the men stepped up to the table and saluted the IDF representative and placed their gun on the table and walked away. There was no tears or outward signs of losing their toys, but a bitter taste in their mouths.
The celery lady has not given up hope and continues to farm in the belief that some divine intervention will come from above and the disengagement will not happen.
Down the road and on the beach is the settlement of Kefar Yam, a collection of tumbledown buildings and a growing community pf plastic tents and structures. But what is alarming is that these hard-core radicals are starting to turn their community, into a collective Orwellian “Animal farm”.
What made me realise how right wing and racist this community has become was when someone asked me if I was “Jewish”, remember the four legs good two legs bad from “Animal Farm”. Never ever in twenty-five years of covering news around the world has anyone asked my religion with the undertone that it mattered.
I did not respond to the question, I would not stoop to their level of racism.
In the media you get used to people not liking you, and placing silly caveats on you like, “ You can film here, but do not film any people “. It makes as much sense as saying you can write but you cannot use a pen or pencil.
The last time someone said to me “You can film, but you cannot film any people” was a Taliban Leader in Afghanistan when they were at the height of their power in early 2001.
Fundamentalism is alive and well down here.
Guns and Religion
Over the last few years being based here in Israel, I have filmed at most of the settlements that are to be evacuated the week after next. Netzer Hazani has always been known as the home of “The Celery Lady”, I cannot remember her name but she has lived in the settlement for over thirty years, growing celery (Kosher Celery, yes there is such a thing as Kosher Celery). Whenever you film or interview her it is always in her greenhouse, with her holding a stalk of celery.
Today however, when we met her in the community square in the settlement, she was not holding her beloved celery. But she was there watching the men of the community handing over their guns to the IDF, (Israel Defence Forces). For the last three decades the locals have had a degree of responsibility for their own security, given that the Palestinian town of Khan Younnis is just over the sand hill a kilometre away, and both sides have not played nice on many occasions.
But as a collective the residents of Netzer Hazani do not want guns in their community when the soldiers come to evict them, that way their can be no risk of someone losing their temper and firing a gun against a fellow Jew, perhaps a ray of sanity amongst the insanity of the Middle East.
With their guns wrapped in orange ribbons the men stepped up to the table and saluted the IDF representative and placed their gun on the table and walked away. There was no tears or outward signs of losing their toys, but a bitter taste in their mouths.
The celery lady has not given up hope and continues to farm in the belief that some divine intervention will come from above and the disengagement will not happen.
Down the road and on the beach is the settlement of Kefar Yam, a collection of tumbledown buildings and a growing community pf plastic tents and structures. But what is alarming is that these hard-core radicals are starting to turn their community, into a collective Orwellian “Animal farm”.
What made me realise how right wing and racist this community has become was when someone asked me if I was “Jewish”, remember the four legs good two legs bad from “Animal Farm”. Never ever in twenty-five years of covering news around the world has anyone asked my religion with the undertone that it mattered.
I did not respond to the question, I would not stoop to their level of racism.
In the media you get used to people not liking you, and placing silly caveats on you like, “ You can film here, but do not film any people “. It makes as much sense as saying you can write but you cannot use a pen or pencil.
The last time someone said to me “You can film, but you cannot film any people” was a Taliban Leader in Afghanistan when they were at the height of their power in early 2001.
Fundamentalism is alive and well down here.
Thursday, August 04, 2005
"Girls on the Left, Boys on the Right"
Day #3
August 3rd 2005
“Girls on the left, Boys on the right’
At the end of a long night, the Rabbi stands on top of the car and proclaims” Girls on the left, boys on the right” and Uri the Sat Truck Operator almost drops to the ground rolling in laughter along with Yonat our producer.
The location just outside Ofrakim on the edge of the Negev Desert, at 12.30am, it had been a long night. The anti disengagement protestors had been claiming that they did not want to clash with the police and army, and vice a versa. The remnants of the previous days protest in Sderot had staged a last rally in Ofrakim and were going to march into Gaza.
However 2,000 protestors mainly fanatics, were not going to get past 12,000 Army and Police, complete with three water cannons and mounted troops. Who had locked the area down tighter by sheer force.
Security is something that the Israelis take seriously, very seriously. Now the area around Gaza were the disengagement is to take place in a couple of week’s time is a closed military area. Without the correct accreditation you simply cannot go anywhere, it seems that every road has checkpoints every few kilometres, where we have to show our Government Press Cards after which we are allowed to pass through.
Mike Tobin, the correspondent that I am working with, somehow managed to lose his card the night before last at the demonstration in Sderot, and we have at least six checkpoints to clear before we get back to the Kibbutz where we are based for the month.
Traffic is naturally totally and completely chaotic as it can only be in Israel, It is late at night and we want to get home for a cold beer and something to eat.
We approach the first checkpoint and I say to Mike, “Pretend you are asleep”.
Mike closes the eyes and I wind down the 5cm that my window opens on my armoured car.
Soldier looks in, and Yanot and I show our Press Cards, he looks across at Mike and I shrug my shoulders tell the soldier “shhhh he’s asleep, very tired, he is a correspondent and has been working very hard”
Soldier nods OK and we are through, now it has worked once will it work again and again and again ....
Well it does six checkpoints later we arrive at the Kibbutz complete with Mike, one of those silly security things that late at night can work, even in the most security aware country in the world, just ell them “ sorry he’s a asleep”. Planning on trying this next time at the airport.
Back to the rally last night, after five hours of sitting in the dust of the desert, around two thousand tired bedraggled and listless protestors who after a couple of days in the heat and great outdoors are no match for the Police and Army. Finally clash well clash is to hard a word to use, they face each other off. There is no way the protest is progressing, New York expresses no interest in opening a satellite to show nothing happening but want us to stay around for a couple of more hours, ‘just in case’
I knew we were in trouble when the rabbi was hoisted up on a truck roof and after forty minutes asked for a box to sit on, sometimes it is good not to understand what is being said, ignorant bliss.
Rabbi after rabbi addresses the crowd and the clock keeps ticking, that is until Uri bursts out laughing.
What did he say I ask my interest peaked, he just said that they are going to spend the night sleeping on the road and the rabbi has requested that, Girls sleep on the left hand side of the road and Boys are to sleep on the right hand side of the road.
Lets face it in these tumultuous times of struggle it is important to remember “no hanky panky before marriage”
We packed up and left them in singing songs of struggle, and any aspirations of love under the stars (and eyes of 12,000 Police and Army) was not going to happen.
Ofrakim is not Woodstock
August 3rd 2005
“Girls on the left, Boys on the right’
At the end of a long night, the Rabbi stands on top of the car and proclaims” Girls on the left, boys on the right” and Uri the Sat Truck Operator almost drops to the ground rolling in laughter along with Yonat our producer.
The location just outside Ofrakim on the edge of the Negev Desert, at 12.30am, it had been a long night. The anti disengagement protestors had been claiming that they did not want to clash with the police and army, and vice a versa. The remnants of the previous days protest in Sderot had staged a last rally in Ofrakim and were going to march into Gaza.
However 2,000 protestors mainly fanatics, were not going to get past 12,000 Army and Police, complete with three water cannons and mounted troops. Who had locked the area down tighter by sheer force.
Security is something that the Israelis take seriously, very seriously. Now the area around Gaza were the disengagement is to take place in a couple of week’s time is a closed military area. Without the correct accreditation you simply cannot go anywhere, it seems that every road has checkpoints every few kilometres, where we have to show our Government Press Cards after which we are allowed to pass through.
Mike Tobin, the correspondent that I am working with, somehow managed to lose his card the night before last at the demonstration in Sderot, and we have at least six checkpoints to clear before we get back to the Kibbutz where we are based for the month.
Traffic is naturally totally and completely chaotic as it can only be in Israel, It is late at night and we want to get home for a cold beer and something to eat.
We approach the first checkpoint and I say to Mike, “Pretend you are asleep”.
Mike closes the eyes and I wind down the 5cm that my window opens on my armoured car.
Soldier looks in, and Yanot and I show our Press Cards, he looks across at Mike and I shrug my shoulders tell the soldier “shhhh he’s asleep, very tired, he is a correspondent and has been working very hard”
Soldier nods OK and we are through, now it has worked once will it work again and again and again ....
Well it does six checkpoints later we arrive at the Kibbutz complete with Mike, one of those silly security things that late at night can work, even in the most security aware country in the world, just ell them “ sorry he’s a asleep”. Planning on trying this next time at the airport.
Back to the rally last night, after five hours of sitting in the dust of the desert, around two thousand tired bedraggled and listless protestors who after a couple of days in the heat and great outdoors are no match for the Police and Army. Finally clash well clash is to hard a word to use, they face each other off. There is no way the protest is progressing, New York expresses no interest in opening a satellite to show nothing happening but want us to stay around for a couple of more hours, ‘just in case’
I knew we were in trouble when the rabbi was hoisted up on a truck roof and after forty minutes asked for a box to sit on, sometimes it is good not to understand what is being said, ignorant bliss.
Rabbi after rabbi addresses the crowd and the clock keeps ticking, that is until Uri bursts out laughing.
What did he say I ask my interest peaked, he just said that they are going to spend the night sleeping on the road and the rabbi has requested that, Girls sleep on the left hand side of the road and Boys are to sleep on the right hand side of the road.
Lets face it in these tumultuous times of struggle it is important to remember “no hanky panky before marriage”
We packed up and left them in singing songs of struggle, and any aspirations of love under the stars (and eyes of 12,000 Police and Army) was not going to happen.
Ofrakim is not Woodstock
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Rallying for the Cause
Day #2 “ Rallying for the cause”
Tuesday August 2nd 2005
One favourite game that we like to play whilst on the road is to try and estimate the size of crowds at demonstrations, meaningless and a way to try a pass time whilst standing around doing nothing.
If anything epitomises the boredom of my job then last night was one of those nights, the anti disengagement movement had called for the Jews of Israel to come together and oppose the pullout from Gaza less than two weeks away now.
Claiming that they could get a crowd of one hundred thousand, five hundred buses and the nation to support them. The only fly in the ointment in this scenario was that they had called the rally for sunset in the town of Sderot. Now I am sure that none of you know of the vast metropolis that Sderot is, it’s only claim to fame is that it is the closest town to the edge of the Gaza Strip, and over the last few years of the Intifada it has been the favourite target for the Kassam missiles fired by the Palestinians to annoy and terrorise the Israelis.
These rockets are home made pipe bombs with no guidance or science involved, but have claimed many lives. So imagine a large crowd tightly packed into the park of Sdereot will naturally be a target that Hamas would find hard to resist.
Back to the crowd, the hundred thousand did not turn up, only a hundred or so buses arrived and the TV Networks of Israel gave the demo no major coverage. I stood there for four hours not understanding a word and trying to avoid conversations with racist right-wingers.
We estimated around ten thousand turned up, enough to cause total traffic chaos on the small streets of Sderot, and the Police and Army outnumbered the protestors.
One of the Palestinian cells did fire three rockets, two landed inside Gaza killing one Palestinian child and injuring others, and the third in a field miles away from Sderot.
No one will ever know the name of the Palestinian child who was killed by his or her own, it will be put down as a statistic in the struggle.
Tuesday August 2nd 2005
One favourite game that we like to play whilst on the road is to try and estimate the size of crowds at demonstrations, meaningless and a way to try a pass time whilst standing around doing nothing.
If anything epitomises the boredom of my job then last night was one of those nights, the anti disengagement movement had called for the Jews of Israel to come together and oppose the pullout from Gaza less than two weeks away now.
Claiming that they could get a crowd of one hundred thousand, five hundred buses and the nation to support them. The only fly in the ointment in this scenario was that they had called the rally for sunset in the town of Sderot. Now I am sure that none of you know of the vast metropolis that Sderot is, it’s only claim to fame is that it is the closest town to the edge of the Gaza Strip, and over the last few years of the Intifada it has been the favourite target for the Kassam missiles fired by the Palestinians to annoy and terrorise the Israelis.
These rockets are home made pipe bombs with no guidance or science involved, but have claimed many lives. So imagine a large crowd tightly packed into the park of Sdereot will naturally be a target that Hamas would find hard to resist.
Back to the crowd, the hundred thousand did not turn up, only a hundred or so buses arrived and the TV Networks of Israel gave the demo no major coverage. I stood there for four hours not understanding a word and trying to avoid conversations with racist right-wingers.
We estimated around ten thousand turned up, enough to cause total traffic chaos on the small streets of Sderot, and the Police and Army outnumbered the protestors.
One of the Palestinian cells did fire three rockets, two landed inside Gaza killing one Palestinian child and injuring others, and the third in a field miles away from Sderot.
No one will ever know the name of the Palestinian child who was killed by his or her own, it will be put down as a statistic in the struggle.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Life is a Supermarket Shelf
Countdown to History
Day #1 “Life is a Supermarket”
Monday August 1, 2005
It is hot down in the Gaza at this time of year, so hot in fact that the woman at the check out counter in the settlement supermarket sat listlessly eating gherkins straight out of the can, not exactly the best of looks for customers. But then again when you know that in two weeks time your shop is going to close for good, what the hell eat gherkins whilst doing the check out.
In two weeks time all the Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip are going to be evacuated and the land given back to the Palestinians, also in this time a few of the settlements in the West Bank are also slated to be returned.
Supermarkets are a microcosm of life and societies, walking down the aisle you can see what people eat, clean with and purchase on impulse. What we are is represented in the aisles of the supermarket. Whether it is Safeway’s or Big W in Australia the alcohol department can be the same size as the fruit and veg department, or Tescos in England where a complete wall is dedicated to warm beer and crisps, In Hong Kong you just dread the Durian Season at Park n Shop.
So at the Nev Dekalim Settlement in Gaza, final closing down sale they are not stocking the shelves anymore, You can buy salt but not pepper, only dodgy brand children’s toothpaste is on the shelf, they have run out of diet coke and they don’t care, in less than two weeks they will have no customers, the settlement will be devoid of life just like the shelves.
This part of Israel reminds me of Kuwait in the build up to the Iraq War, every road is jammed with buses carrying soldiers and police into the region, as the nation prepares to go Jew against Jew. The nation is polarised with those against the pullout mounting demonstrations and those for the pullout declaring democracy is alive and well in the Unholy lands.
As we bought our meat for the bbq, the check out lady moved the half empty can of gherkins to the side, smiled and wished me a good day.
Day #1 “Life is a Supermarket”
Monday August 1, 2005
It is hot down in the Gaza at this time of year, so hot in fact that the woman at the check out counter in the settlement supermarket sat listlessly eating gherkins straight out of the can, not exactly the best of looks for customers. But then again when you know that in two weeks time your shop is going to close for good, what the hell eat gherkins whilst doing the check out.
In two weeks time all the Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip are going to be evacuated and the land given back to the Palestinians, also in this time a few of the settlements in the West Bank are also slated to be returned.
Supermarkets are a microcosm of life and societies, walking down the aisle you can see what people eat, clean with and purchase on impulse. What we are is represented in the aisles of the supermarket. Whether it is Safeway’s or Big W in Australia the alcohol department can be the same size as the fruit and veg department, or Tescos in England where a complete wall is dedicated to warm beer and crisps, In Hong Kong you just dread the Durian Season at Park n Shop.
So at the Nev Dekalim Settlement in Gaza, final closing down sale they are not stocking the shelves anymore, You can buy salt but not pepper, only dodgy brand children’s toothpaste is on the shelf, they have run out of diet coke and they don’t care, in less than two weeks they will have no customers, the settlement will be devoid of life just like the shelves.
This part of Israel reminds me of Kuwait in the build up to the Iraq War, every road is jammed with buses carrying soldiers and police into the region, as the nation prepares to go Jew against Jew. The nation is polarised with those against the pullout mounting demonstrations and those for the pullout declaring democracy is alive and well in the Unholy lands.
As we bought our meat for the bbq, the check out lady moved the half empty can of gherkins to the side, smiled and wished me a good day.
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