Asa Winstanley

“Security threat”: An attempt to visit family in Ramallah

Originally published in Electronic Intifada.

Asa Winstanley writing from the United Kingdom, Live from Palestine, 12 June 2009

Taking the first bus of the day, my wife and I arrived on the Israeli side of the King Hussein bridge crossing into the West Bank from Jordan. We explained that we were heading to Ramallah to visit my wife’s mother and brothers for three weeks. We performed the exact same procedure last year without incident. However, this year I was told to wait.

My wife is a Palestinian from Ramallah, where we met a few years ago. We got married there, and her closest family still live in Ramallah. We have moved to live and work in London, but try to return once a year. As Israel still controls all the border crossings into the West Bank, a trip intended as a May holiday to visit family quickly ran afoul of the continuing occupation.

Four hours after my passport was taken away, I had heard absolutely nothing. I started to make a fuss and was told that my passport was “with security.” Several hours later, I was taken in to a back room and questioned by a burly “security” agent. He asked several questions about the purpose of my trip while typing into a computer.

He wanted to know if I belong to any “groups that help the Palestinians,” and asked if, since I am a journalist I was going to work during this visit. I replied that, although I had worked with the Palestine Times in the past, this trip I was just to visit family. It tells you a lot about the nature of the Israeli occupation that they try to make it seem that “helping the Palestinians” is some sort of crime.

After the questions were finished, he told me to wait in the next room “for five minutes.” Two hours later I was still waiting.

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Liberal arrogance and some Palestinian non-violent martyrs

Guardian America editor Michael Tomasky thinks he’s being clever and original by asking: “why don’t the Palestinians just imitate Ghandi?“.

Self-satisfied liberals ask this from time to time. From Michael Moore in “Stupid White Men” to occasional Haaretz editorials. It seems every liberal who asks this thinks they are the first to ever do so. Apparently, the Palestinians are supposed to thank them for bringing them the enlightenment of non-violence resistance.

The answer to the question is: “actually, they do all the time: idiot. But you’re too busy kissing Barack Obama’s behind to notice. Too busy to report on the Palestinian victims of Israeli soldiers’ frequent attacks against unarmed demonstrations.” Hell: an American was shot in the head by Israeli soldiers last month just after such a demonstration (he was not even protesting at the time). Did you even report on that Tomasky? That says a lot: you won’t even report on unarmed victims in Palestine when they are the privileged White Man.

Here is a list of 17 names (10 of whom minors). It is a list of unarmed Palestinians murdered by Israeli terrorist soldiers during popular demonstrations against Israel’s apartheid wall in the West Bank in the last 5 years.

Take note that this list does not even include the hundred of civilians (926 according to Palestinian hospital sources) murdered by Israel during their latest massacre in Gaza — they were mostly sitting at home, in hospitals or UN schools acting as makeshift shelters or trying to flee the Israeli onslaught. It does not include other unarmed Palestinian demonstrators murdered by Israeli terrorist soldiers during the second intifada, those who were demonstrating about things other than the wall. It does not include the victims of the ruthless Israeli repression of the first intifada: which on the Palestinian side was almost entirely a popular non-violent struggle. It does not include the 3000 victims of Sabra and Shatila, murdered by Israel’s sectarian rightist death squad allies in Lebanon, brought into the Palestinian refugee camps by Israeli soldiers in 1982. It does not include the many returning Palestinian farmers shot dead by Israeli soldiers for checking on their farms between 1948 and 1967. It does not include many many thousands of Palestinian and other Arab civilians murdered by Israel for far less than demonstrating non-violently over the last 100 years of Zionist colonialism in Palestine.

Nevertheless, here is the list. Remember these names before you start preaching to the Palestinians, Tomasky. They know far more about non-violent resistance than you ever will.

February 26th, 2004
Muhammad Fadel Hashem Rian, age 25 and Zakaria Mahmoud ‘Eid Salem, age 28
Shot dead during a demonstration against the wall in Biddu.

Abdal Rahman Abu ‘Eid, age 17
Died of a heart attack after teargas projectiles were shot into his home during a demonstration against the wall in Biddu.

Muhammad Da’ud Saleh Badwan, age 21
Shot during a demonstration against the wall in Biddu. Muhammad died of his wounds on March 3rd 2004.

April 16th, 2004
Hussein Mahmoud ‘Awad ‘Alian, age 17
Shot dead during a demonstration against the wall in Betunya.

April 18th, 2004
Diaa’ A-Din ‘Abd al-Karim Ibrahim Abu ‘Eid, age 23
Shot dead during a demonstration against the wall in Biddu.

Islam Hashem Rizik Zhahran, age 14
Shot during a demonstration against the wall in Deir Abu Mash’al. Islam died of his wounds April 28th.

February 15th, 2005
‘Alaa’ Muhammad ‘Abd a-Rahman Khalil, age 14
Shot dead while throwing stones at an Israeli vehicle driven by private security guards near the wall in Betunya.

May 4th, 2005
Jamal Jaber Ibrahim ‘Asi, age 15 and U’dai Mufid Mahmoud ‘Asi, age 14
Shot dead during a demonstration against the wall in Beit Liqya.

February 2nd, 2007
Taha Muhammad Subhi al-Quljawi, age 16
Shot dead when he and two friends tried to cut the razor wire portion of the wall in the Qalandiya Refugee Camp. He was wounded in the thigh and died from loss of blood after remaining a long time in the field without being treated.

March 28th, 2007
Muhammad Elias Mahmoud ‘Aweideh, age 15
Shot dead during a demonstration against the wall in Um a-Sharayet – Samiramis.

March 2nd, 2008
Mahmoud Muhammad Ahmad Masalmeh, age 15
Shot when trying to cut the razor wire portion of the wall in Beit Awwa.

July 29th, 2008
Ahmed Husan Youssef Mousa, age 10
Killed while he and several friends tried to remove coils of razor wire from land belonging to the village.

July 30th, 2008
Youssef Ahmed Younes Amirah, age 17
Shot in the head with rubber coated bullets during a demonstration against the wall in Ni’lin. Youssef died of his wounds August 4th 2008.

December 28th, 2008
Arafat Khawaja, age 22
Shot in the back with live ammunition in Ni lin during a demonstration against Israel’s assault on Gaza.

Mohammad Khawaja, age 20
Shot in the head with live ammunition during a demonstration in Ni lin against Israel’s assault on Gaza. Mohammad died in the hospital on December 31st 2008.

This list, based on eyewitness accounts, is maintained in English by the ISM and the AATW. A slightly older version has been published on the ISM website, since when there have been two more murdered.

UPDATE: On 17th April 2009, this grily list became 18 when Basem Abu Rahme was murderd by Zionist terrorist soldiers in Bil’in.

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Review: “Dreams from My Father” by Barack Obama

I went into this book looking for the “old” Obama, who one gets the impression was perhaps more radical before he started to compromise in order to win elections. It seems, though, that this is an illusion, and he was never really on the left in the first place. Obama has a good knack for making everyone think he agrees with them. In reality, when you re-read what he actually said, you find he avoids taking non-conventional positions (1). Ultimately this book is a long series of avoidance.No doubt it is an enjoyable read. It is thoughtful, accessible and interesting. He avoids giving easy answers to the many questions he poses on race, identity and society in general. For the most part, it is also quite humbly written. The middle section of the book recounting his time working in Chicago’s South Side leaves you with the sneaking suspicion that he actually achieved more than he recounts. This could be false modesty on Obama’s part, but the focus on the shortcomings and disappointments of his work as a community organiser makes a refreshing change from the self-glorification of most political memoirs.

However, all is not what it seems. The book was written before be became a politician, and he mentions in the new forward to the 2004 edition that there were a few things he would not have written now, but that he decided to leave the book basically as it was, even though they are politically inconvenient (p. ix — incidentally it would be interesting to get hold of an original 1995 edition of the book to see what changes were made). This is presumably a reference to things that Republican opponents could theoretically use for campaign ammunition, like his college drug use and his Black Nationalist acquaintances (horror of all horrors, he even admits while in Chicago to buying Louis Farrakhan’s newspaper “occasionally” (p. 201)). Look at things from another perspective though, and it seems pretty obvious that Obama decided to “come clean” about these things early on so as to sidestep such attacks. This was a smart move, as it mostly seems to have worked — for example, past drug use was never an issue in the presidential election.

He gives little indication that he wanted to be become a politician. He says he wanted to bring a new legal expertise from Harvard “like Promethean fire” (p. 276) back to the South Side to continue to fight on behalf of local communities. To be fair, he did return to Chicago after law school.

Evidence abounds, though, that Obama was thinking of becoming a politician as early on as the late 1980s, and certainly before Dreams From My Father was published. Writing in the New Yorker, Ryan Lizza says “Obama was writing ‘Dreams’ at the moment that he was preparing for a life in politics, and he launched his book and his first political campaign simultaneously, in the summer of 1995″ (2). This seems credible, and for all its honesty, Dreams should still be read with a proverbial pinch of salt, perhaps not so much in what it claims as what it omits. For example in recounting the part of his childhood spent in Indonesia, he mentions the huge massacres orchestrated by the dictator Suharto as he came to power in a military coup in 1965-66 (pp. 43-44:”The death toll was anybody’s guess: a few hundred thousand, maybe; half a million. Even the smart guys at the Agency had lost count” ). But he underplays the extent of CIA involvement: and more glaringly fails to mention that Suharto was supported by every US president from Nixon to Clinton (3).

The more I read this book, the more it became clear it is empty of conclusions. A memoir need not take political positions, but he poses so many questions and offers no answers. By the end of the book, you just find yourself wishing he would take a stand on something. Obama was clearly thinking more like a politician than a lawyer and wanted to avoid offending the wrong people. This fits well with his later “Change” and “Hope” slogans, which proved so popular precisely because they can pretty much mean what you want them to mean.

In summary then: a good read, and in fairness it raises some good points about about Black consciousness, Black Nationalism and race. But I can’t help but feel it is ultimately hollow, a politician building up his “narrative”.

(1) For example, his alleged past support for the Palestinians. While it does seem that he previously took a more balanced approach than his more recent conversion to the church of AIPAC, willing to hear from both Israelis and Palestinians, it is also true that he never made any concrete promises. See Ali Abunimah, “How Barack Obama learned to love Israel“, Electronic Intifada, 4 March 2007.

(2) Ryan Lizza, “Making It: How Chicago shaped Obama“, The New Yorker, 21 July 2008.

(3) See, for example, John Pilger, “Our model dictator“, The Guardian, 28 January 2008.

Reviewed 7 December 2008.

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Review: “US policy towards Jerusalem and the Occupied Arab Territories, 1948 and 1967″ by Candace Karp

A pretty dry, academic account of (surprise surprise) US policy towards the Israeli occupation of Palestinian and other Arab lands in 1948 and 1967 (with a focus on the status of Jerusalem in 1948). It’s a sound summary of the official US documentary record, supported by various memoirs etc. Its main problem is that its key conclusion is simply not supported by its own evidence.The main example of this is how Karp states in several places that US support for Israel was ultimately detrimental to “its own cold war interests” and that it was “largely instrumental in its own undoing”. But the very evidence she cites proves exactly the opposite. In 1948, the US did not want to send its own troops to Palestine, since it was concerned that the USSR would react by doing the same. Karp argues that the US failing to do so undermined it’s own strategic goal of “stability” in the region — yet none of the internal documentation she cites demonstrates this was a genuine regional goal. What is clear from what is cited here is that a central US goal in 1948 was to keep Soviet troops out of the region. By actively undermining the internationalization of Jerusalem (as called for in the November 1947 UN plan), they achieved this.

Keeping to what is revealed by the account of the documentary record, this is a pretty useful summary. One of the most interesting points that comes out is the fact that Israel’s supposed wish for peace with it’s neighbors was always clearly a lie. Something I learned was that Jordan and Egypt offered full recognition of Israel (in return for withdrawal the the 1949 ceasefire lines) as early as November 1967 (p 95) — with nothing for the Palestinians. Also Israel demanded control of Gaza and possibly the West Bank before it would even negotiate over withdrawal. There are other interesting such facts that come out.

But it is a bit of a missed opportunity in that it does not discuss how the Israeli aggression of 1967 led the US to start a massive military aid program to Israel. However it does quote the NSC Planning Board from August 1958: “if we choose to combat radical Arab nationalism and to hold Persian Gulf oil by force if necessary, a logical corollary would be to support Israel as the only strong pro-West power left in the Near East” (p 57). Beyond delusions, this is the key to understanding the last 40 years plus of extreme pro-Israel US foreign policy.

Reviewed 1 July 2008.

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Review: “The Road Map to Nowhere: Israel/Palestine Since 2003″ by Tanya Reinhart

An excellent sequel to “Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948″. Here Reinhart argues that the correct way to understand the 2005 Israeli redeployment from Gaza (the much vaunted “disengagement”) is in the context of massive US pressure behind the scenes, even rising to the level of military sanctions. The sancations (minor in relative terms, but huge in effect) were not explicitly linked to the Gaza pullout (which the Bush administration needed for PR purposes in the Arab world), instead they were triggered by attempted Israeli military technology sales to China. With the reality of the sanctions in the background, Sharon had little choice but to go through with the announced plan. Although he had been hoping all along for a chance to back out of the plan at the last minute, Hamas adhered to a one-sided ceasefire, and the US insisted that the pull out go ahead.She puts the case well and I was convinced by the end of the book, having initially been sceptical. Reinhart is much missed.

Reviewed 22 May 2008.

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Review: “Batman: The Dark Knight Returns” by Frank Miller

Philosophic pretence can not disguise what is essentially yet another very stupid story about a masked vigilante in tights who goes around beating criminals within an inch of their lives (as if police brutality has never been tried — and ever solved society’s problems). Making matters worse is the way Frank Miller thrusts his misanthropic ideology down the reader’s collective throat. This would be forgiveable if it was not at the expense of the plot and characters — who are essentially poorly developed stooges. On first glance, you could be forgiven for thinking the story is a critical reassessment of the American “superhero” as essentially a vigilante, little removed from the criminals he pursues. It soon becomes clear that, yes, Miller sees Batman in this way: but he approves of it. Witness his transformation of the mutant gangs into a sort of brown shirted “Batman Youth”. Look below the surface and you start to find an almost fascist world-view.

This book is extremely over-rated and was critically acclaimed at the time, probably because it was seen as something “new” and “gritty”. Spare me. You could forgive the ideology if the book worked as art unto itself. But once you remove that, little remains.

Compare this to the work of Alan Moore at the time. “V For Vendetta” stars a protagonist who is essentially sympathetic to the writer’s political views, but Moore wisely makes him a genuinely ambiguous figure, whose actions are often morally questionable. Compare this to Miller’s two-dimensional Batman. To the original dimension of the Batman character (”heroic”), Miller’s oh so great achievement was to add a second dimension: “gritty”. Oh, well done.

You get the feeling this book wishes it were Moore’s “Watchmen”. A masterful work, “Watchmen” is a complete and successful deconstruction of the superhero genre. “The Dark Knight Returns” on the other hand, is another desperate attempt to shock life into the long-since rotted corpse of yet another ridiculous superhero character.

Reviewed 4 April 2008.

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Review: “Israel/Palestine: How To End The War Of 1948″ by Tanya Reinhart

The late and much missed Tanya Reinhart wrote this 2002 analysis at height of the second intifada during the darkest days of the violence. It is extremely solid and many of her arguments here have been borne out by more recent events. Although one should always be wary of making predictions, many of her warnings have — unfortunately — come to pass. First of all, her deconstruction of Israeli war crimes, quoting almost entirely from Israeli media sources is devastating. She proves here how — contrary to the Israeli propaganda line, accepted in the western media — at its outset, the second intifada was in fact an unarmed, spontaneous, civilian uprising. The reaction of the Israeli army — systematically firing on unarmed demonstrators, killing dozens before the Palestinians fired a single shot — escalated the situation into an armed confrontation. Critically, she points out that the first suicide bombing inside Israel did not take place until over a month into the intifada: November 2nd, 2000. On October 4th (a mere week into the intifada), the Palestinian death toll already stood at 60. Another of her key points is that, far from being the “spontaneous defence against terrorism” of the Israeli propaganda line, the re-invasion of the Palestinian Authority areas had been long planned by Israel. Again, she convincingly backs this up with evidence from the Israeli media.

She also demolishes the myth of Camp David, showing that it was Barak that effectively destroyed the mainstream Israeli peace consensus, not Sharon. The best section of the book is the part in chapter 9 titled The Two Poles in Israel’s Politics. Here, she irrefutably shows how mainstream Israeli politics is in fact divided not between “hawks” and “doves” but between the road of apartheid under the guise of endless negotiations (the Alon-Oslo road) and outright ethnic cleansing (often with the slogan “Jordan is Palestine” — Sharon).

Here, she quotes from an article she wrote in 1994, which seems amazingly prescient in light of the recent rise of Hamas: “From the start, it has been possible to identify two Israeli conceptions that underline the Oslo process. One is that it will reduce the cost of the occupation, using a Palestinian patronage regime, with Arafat as the senior cop responsible for the security of Israel. The other is that the process should lead to the collapse of Arafat and the PLO. The humiliation of Arafat, and the amplification of his surrender, will gradually lead to loss of popular support. Consequently, the PLO will collapse, or enter power conflicts. Thus, the Palestinian society will loose its secular leaderships and institutions.”

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Review: “Reporting from Ramallah” by Amria Hass

This is really disappointing. I’ve long respected Amira Hass’ reporting from the occupied West Bank and Gaza. And there’s is no question that, as the only Israeli reporting regularly from Palestine these are historically important news reports, taking us through some of the darkest moments of the second intifada.However, in retrospect, Hass frankly supports her “own side” too much here. The worst example of this is when she describes the second intifada as “the war the Palestinians have declared on us” and “Israel’s defensive war”, while her own reporting of events shows that it was the Israeli army who began shooting at unarmed demonstrators at the beginning of the intifada, escalating it into an armed conflict. Worse, there are moments that betray a frankly colonist mindset, the most egregious example of this being her description of Palestinians in a Hebrew class as having “lapsed” back into Arabic during discussions with her (a fluent Arabic speaker herself). It is possible that this is a bad choice of words by the translator, but somehow I doubt it. Instead of implicitly criticising the Palestinians for daring to speak their own native tongue, she should take a look at how many Israelis outside of the secret police take the time to learn Arabic. Again, she unambiguously describes the execution of Palestinian collaborators by Palestinian fighters as “murder” while at the same time describing in very neutral language “the shooting of children” by the Israeli army.

No doubt this is all typical Israeli terminology, but I thought Amira Hass was supposed to be “radical”? Maybe the selection of articles is bad (the editing of the volume is frankly pathetic with several amateurish typographical errors). But this still does not excuse the problems such as those described above.

On the plus side, her reporting has some very good moments. The best article here is probably the one in which she famously grills an Israeli sniper, extracting the news that they are told to shoot dead 12-year-old Palestinian children since they are considered adults: “he’s already had his bar mizvah”. Her reports on internal Palestinian issues are also very good, such as the interviews with unemployed workers and the families of those detained by the PA. Her report from Jenin is very good too. For moments such as these, the book gets three stars.

Reviewed 22 March 2008.

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Review: “Hamas: A Beginner’s Guide” by Khaled Hroub

Hm. I’m in two minds about this one. Reading it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was rushed out in the wake of the January 2006 Hamas election victory — an attempt by Pluto Press to make a quick buck. It reads somewhat like a first draft in places, as if it were barely copy edited (there are several grammatical errors). However, in Pluto’s defence, they regularly publish extremely important books whose commercial value is probably less than “best seller”, so one can’t really blame them for wanting to make a bit of cash.All this is not to say that Hroub does not know what he talking about. Quite the contrary. It is clear he is extremely knowledgeable about the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement. But the book is frustratingly short on detail and, often, named sources. It is true that this is only meant to be a basic introduction, and insofar as that was the goal of the book it certainly succeeds. And if you are new to the conflict, it does a good job of dispelling the main Western myths about Hamas.

All, in all good, but it left me wanting to read Hroub’s more detailed book on Hamas.

Reviewed 3 March 2008.

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Review: “V for Vendetta” by Alan Moore

It takes a little while to get going, and is a bit slow at the beginning, but it pays off in the end. The vision of home-grown British fascism (as opposed to a “what if” scenario where in the Nazi won WII) is all too convincing. Also, I love the way that the “surveillance society” aspects of the story just seem really tame to the Britain of 2008! Moore even got the propaganda on the CCTV cameras right: “for your protection”!The best aspect of “V for Vendetta”, though, is the well developed characters. It would have been all too easy for a lesser writer to make V an unambiguous super hero (and indeed, that’s apparently what the idiot Wachowski brothers set out to do in the Hollywood film — which I have no intention of watching and Alan Moore had his name removed from) and the fascists into Evil Nazi Baddies. But Moore is far too good an artist for that. That said, he still makes no apologies for fascism, and is obviously a supporter of V’s brand of philosophical “anarchy” (in contrast to the the socialism of the historical Anarchist movement). V’s actions and motivations are ambiguous at times, though — a fact that does credit to Moore and leads to a far more rounded and satisfying work.

Lloyd’s artwork is great, but the only thing stopping me giving this volume 5 stars is the colour work. To my mind, the whole thing would have worked 100% better in black and white, in which the original serialization of the first two books was apparently published in Warrior. The whole art style is made up of shadows and light. This may be just DC’s fault (and indeed, their reproduction here is pathetic — the pages are far too small as they are trying to squeeze the larger page size of British comics into the US format), but the authors apparently colourized it for the final volume when DC picked it up, allowing them to finish the story.

All in all, a political, noir classic, but I wish DC would issue a black and white version in the Absolute format. Because this work does indeed deserve the Absolute treatment. Read it, but I advise hold off buying it since they may well release an Absolute version (probably in colour though — bah).

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God’s Warriors: Jewish

I seem to be somehow attractive to CNN. The producers of this three-part CNN documentary currently airing in the US bought the above photo of mine for use in the “Jewish Warriors” part which was on last night. I took the photo in Hebron back in 2005. You can read one of my reports from Hebron here. I wrote it back during the January 2005 Palestinian presidential elections.The documentary itself is not bad. It has certain problems, not least of which is the typical inclination to portray Israeli violence as by definition a response to Palestinian violence, when the reverse has historically been the case. I may do an AH commentary on it soon.The whole thing is on YouTube, first part here. The other ten parts are linked to from that part. My picture is wards the end (it’s a detail of the Kach logo graffiti). Also look out for my name in the credits at the end of the last part.

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Ramallah posters article

UPDATE, August 14: Apparently, the August issue of NOX magazine finally published my article, so I’m publishing the full original text below, as well as changing the timestamp on this post to bump it up to the top. I have yet to see the finished version (with photos) since it’s not in the online version and my copies seem to have got lost in the mail. Have asked my editor for more. Anyway, enjoy the whole thing.

UPDATE, January 20, 2008: Yazan, my photographic collaborator on this project posted the photos that go with this article a while back. Check them out here.

The struggle to keep the martyrs alive

by Asa Winstanley

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Walk along any street in the occupied Palestinian territories and you will see the walls covered with fly-posters. The type of free advertising that in, say, London would be used to promote the latest indie music CD or to drum-up custom for night clubs is most commonly used here for more political purposes.

During the legislative council elections back in January 2006, the streets were absolutely plastered with a multitude of posters advertising the many different candidates contesting the elections. The different faction’s activists all seemed to respect each other’s right to this form of free speech and mostly refrained from pasting over or tearing down each other’s promos. The streets were so saturated with images of the suited parliamentary candidates that even now, more than a year later, you can still see their faded visages grinning down at you all over town.

However, the most common purpose for this type of fly-poster is to commemorate martyrs in the struggle for Palestinian independence from Israeli occupation.

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