A record of my published work and a list of my online reading habits
We’re having some domain name troubles over at American Hummus. I am reliably informed that the site will be up again within the next few days. Apologies to anyone looking for the site. Hang on and we’ll be back soon.
Update, 10th August: And we’re back.
Today, I finally got round to upgrading to WordPress 2.2 — yay me. It was about time really, since this site was stuck in 1.5 for ages.
Now I’ll have less spam to deal with on this blog, which will be a big relief. Coming soon: a new look to the site (probably). For now, it looks the same on the outside, but the underlying software is a lot better.
Update, 1st August: trying a new theme. It’s only the WordPress default, but it allows me to experiment with the brilliant new widgets. Will probably try various other themes over the next week or so.
Update, 23rd August: I think I’m settled on this one now, BigBlue. It’s rather nice and has the all-important widgets — a feature that on its own makes upgrading to the 2.0 branch of WordPress worth it.
Another media commentary from me on American Hummus, this time on an Israeli government broadcast in which the spokesperson refers to the absolutist Saudi monarchy as “moderate”.
American Hummus is quite a new project and we need your help. If you have a Palestine, Middle East or media related website, please link to us!
The recent hostilities between Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah in Gaza and the West Bank have been presented in the media as a sort of small-scale Palestinian civil war, ending (for now) with a Hamas coup in the Gaza Strip.
It is far more accurate to understand it as a failed coup attempt against the elected government by US-sponsored gangs in Gaza — “the Palestinian Contras” as Ali Abunimah puts it. Chief among their leaders was Gaza warlord Mohammed Dahlan, who earned the contempt of Hamas during the Oslo years with round-ups and torture of their activists.
Furthermore, it’s not only Hamas who sees things this way. Hani al-Hassan, one of the founders of the Fatah movement recently supported this view during an interview with al-Jazeera TV. In the current Al-Ahram weekly, veteran Palestinian journalist Khaled Amayreh reports from Ramallah that: “He argued that the recent showdown in Gaza was not a confrontation between Fatah and Hamas but one between Hamas and the Dahlan faction. Referring to Dahlan’s supporters as ‘the Dayton group’, a reference to the American General Keith Dayton who was in charge of arming and financing the former Gaza strongman, Al-Hassan said that Hamas had to do what it did in order to protect the overall national cause”. After he spoke out, al-Hassan’s house was shot at by unknown gunmen.
US backing of Dahlan via General Dayton is a matter of record as reported in the New York Times on the 18th of May:
Israel has made no secret of backing Fatah and attacking only Hamas targets. When a Fatah leader, Muhammad Dahlan, needed to bring in reinforcements on Tuesday — a brigade of guards undergoing training in Egypt — Israel made sure in a widely publicized move that the Rafah bordere crossing would be open to admit them.
The training of the guards is being supervised under an American program devised by the American security coordinator, Lt. Gen. Keith W. Dayton, which is being financed by some $40 million from Congress and more from Western allies.
There is currently a theory popular those among Palestinian supporters of Fatah, who nevertheless recognise that Dahlan and his ilk are US stooges — those that Hamas refers to as “genuine Fatah” and that a Palestinian friend of mine calls “the Fatah of the first intifada”. The theory goes that Palestinian President, and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas actually conspired with Hamas to rid Gaza of Dahlan, since the violent chaos his armed gangs caused there was (presumably) becoming too much of an embarrassment. Once it succeeded, and Hamas by default ended up in control of the whole of Gaza, Abbas then turned on Hamas and used it as an excuse to dismiss the democratically elected government and install a government comprised of his and the US government’s favourites.
Whether or not this part is true (that Abbas wanted rid of Dahlan), the fact that Fatah-tending people in the West Bank believe it shows just how unrepresentative Dahlan and his gangs are. But a story published in Israel’s most popular paper Yedioth Ahronoth yesterday, that the PA emergency government has confiscated millions of dollars from Dahlan would seem to support the theory.
Also well worth reading is this op-ed on YA about Israel’s hypocrisy when it claims to want “Palestinian democracy” whilst saying it supports Abbas. It is worth remembering (as most media reports about the “new” government seem to forget or ignore) that this government is, according to Palestinian law, only supposed to be an “emergency government,” lasting one month.
Let’s see what anti-democratic steps are taken to extend it when this runs out…
Another From The Archive post to American Hummus by me. Have a look at the videos of Israel’s invasion of Nablus — it shows the Israeli government’s idea of the word “ceasefire”.
I’ve begun to post on the excellent American Hummus blog. There are quite a few old videos in the backlog still worth posting and commenting on, so I begun today. Have a look at today’s clip about Jimmy Carter.
Originally published in Palestine Times, April 5, 2007 (Health and Environment page).
by Asa Winstanley
“Our objective is to provide psychological and medical support to the victims of violence. To help people to survive — more psychologically than medically in Palestine — but to be able to survive and continue to have normal socioeconomic activities.”
Laura Brav is Head of Mission for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF — Doctors Without Borders) in Jerusalem. Originally from France, she has been based here for almost two years and has worked with MSF for more than nine years around the world in places like Southern Sudan, Congo, Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone.
Active in more than 80 countries, the MSF movement usually intervenes in countries suffering from conflicts, epidemics or natural disasters. “We have projects focusing on HIV/AIDS, for example, in countries like Kenya and Guatemala where there is no conflict. We consider the AIDS epidemic to be quite serious.”
UPDATE, April 4: The site statistics I’ve seen are very good indeed: over 22,000 unique page hits in April SO FAR! I’m no advertising expert but that sounds pretty good to me — Google AdSense ads will follow on the site soon…
Finally, my boss saw the light and made the Palestine Times website free! This may be just temporary in the hope people will pay in the future, but I hope not. This means my front page story is now available on the site. You can also view my excellent weekly page called Eyewitness Reports, an edited selection of reports on non-violent demonstrations from groups such as ISM, IWPS, CPT, AATW, IMEMC, PNN etc.
The site has room for improvement:
But all in all it’s pleasing to the eye and not that hard to navigate. This paper is too important to lock the website down with paid-for only areas. Please click on the site’s ads to convince management they will make more money that way than through paid subs.
UPDATE: The excellent American Hummus video blog reposted this clip. It’s a good job too, since the CNN version seems to no longer be available.
A TV crew from CNN International recently visited our office. Most stuff about this country I’ve seen on seen on CNN international has been unbelievably pro-Israel. But this report is brilliant! Not least because I wrote the headline of the edition that that draw attention to in the paper: Tony Blair: ‘East Jerusalem is occupied territory.’
They visit West Jerusalem and ask Israelis what they think about the paper, newly available in Israel. Although one guy is nice, most of them hurl off-camera insults such as “who would pay to read what Arabs think” and “the Palestinians can take their papers and go to Jordan.”
Lovely.
One says on camera: “I’m not sure if I’m 100% comfortable with this idea of a Palestinian paper in Jerusalem.” Note that none of them express reservations, or even interest, over any of the actual content of the paper, merely the idea of a Palestinian paper.
Israeli newspapers such as Ha’aretz and the right-wing Jerusalem Post have been daily sold in Palestinian cities such as Ramallah for years.
To view the video, either click on this direct link, or go to www.cnn.com/video , click “search video” and search for “Palestine Times.”
This article originally appeared as the lead headline on the front page of Palestine Times, March 21.
Tony Blair: ‘East Jerusalem is occupied territory’
by Asa Winstanley
RAMALLAH — In a private letter to Morocco’s King Muhammad VI, British Prime Minister Tony Blair says his government “considers East Jerusalem to be occupied territory,” the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding (CAABU) said yesterday.
Working as chair of the Organization of the Islamic Conference’s committee on Jerusalem, King Muhammad had sent letters to various heads of state asking them to clarify their position on the status of Jerusalem. In his March 12 reply, Blair stated explicitly that Britain does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over any part of the city.
Leaked to CAABU, and passed on to Palestine Times, the letter represents the Prime Minister’s clearest ever statement on the occupied status of Jerusalem.
Chris Doyle, the Director of CAABU told Palestine Times over the phone, that it has been “a challenge to get any senior government minister to make such an official explicit statement” and that “to get Mr. Blair to say it has been impossible.”
Ramallah seems quite tense. The Israelis only left Nablus yesterday, after two days of raids and curfews on the city. And I just heard on al-Jazeera they were back in there today. It’s the first time in ages I’ve heard about them enforcing a curfew. I read they killed one, injuring and arresting many others. On way home from work today I wondered if they were gearing up to do something similar in Ramallah. They killed another three in an invasion in Jenin today — they were reportedly fighters. Seems like the new Israeli “defence” minister wants to make an impression already.
Disconcertingly, an Israeli helicopter was hovering over Ramallah today. People I spoke to said it was interfering with their TV reception. And sure enough, when I got home the satellite reception was very dodgy indeed for a few hours. Honestly — they cant even leave us alone to watch TV in peace.
Saw Mustafa Barghouti on al-Arabya news channel up in Nablus helping the PRCS ambulance teams on the scene a couple days ago. Not sure how much actual medical work he was doing (am I’m sure it won’t hurt his poll ratings) but I couldn’t help but be impressed — you’d never see Mahmoud Abbas or any such politicians doing anything on the ground like that.
Working at Palestine Times is weird. It’s great in some ways but frustrating in others. We get some genuinely unique articles that I know for a fact you can see no where else in the world in English. It’s within the reach of the Israeli English-language media to have such articles, but their overwhelmingly Zionist bias precludes that possibility. Yes — we get some great stuff but it’s frustrating that almost no one is seeing it. Our circulation is still low and the website is paid-subscription only. I’m going to push for the website to be free (all the paper’s competitors have free websites) but we’ll see how far I get (probably not very).
This news feature was published in Palestine Times on December 18, 2006. I now work for the paper as head copy editor. Since their website was not operational at the time, I’m publishing it here.
by Asa Winstanley
BIL’IN, West Bank — The demonstration is small, but feisty. Accompanied by around 15 international supporters and a few Israeli stalwarts, the inhabitants of Bil’in, a village in the West Bank near Ramallah, voice their protest against the Israeli Wall and settlements that threaten their village. Chanting Arabic slogans, and demanding in Hebrew the soldiers go home, the demonstrators are prevented from passing through a gate in the Wall by a unit of Israeli soldiers and their jeeps. The soldiers wave their clubs menacingly — not today, they seem to say.
After about 15 minutes, Abdullah Abu Rahme, the co-ordinator of the village’s Popular Committee against the Wall and settlements, calls for the crowd to follow him. They try to find another way through the large coils of razor wire on the near side of the Wall. Some of the demonstrators pull at the wire with thick gloves. These attempts are soon stopped by Israeli soldiers.
The village has been involved in resistance and weekly demonstrations against the Wall for nearly two years beginning in February 2005. The Wall in this area consists of large coils of razor wire, a steep bank, a high fence, a dirt path, another fence and finally a tarmac road, which the soldiers patrol with their jeeps and humvees. Despite the initial claims of the Israeli government that the Wall is only for “security purposes,” in Bil’in, as along some 80 percent of its route, the Wall does not follow the route of the 1967 Green Line. Israeli ministers are now openly saying that the route will determine final borders.
What I’m reading Angry Arab ISM news