Blog – Page 5 – Asa Winstanley

I really need a job…

The web is a fantastic way to waste time. Today’s main diversion is one of them there blogger trends called The Fifth Sentence. It’s very simple:

Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

Don’t search around and look for the “coolest” book you can find. Do whats actually next to you.

Mine is from “Fateful Triangle” by Noam Chomsky (honestly it was the nearest book to me – I’m not trying to make myself cooler!):

Cases of attacks on Arabs are sometimes reported in the press – e.g., the beating of an Arab hospital worker in Gedera by two armed men who threatened “to do much worse if he does not leave Gedera.”

Completely unrelated, but equally time-wasting is this unintentionally hilarious parent’s guide to l33t sp33k by Microsoft of all people!

Oppression and Resistance in Idhna

After my first stint in Hebron over election day, I went back to Jerusalem to gather my thoughts, do some laundry and decide on my next move. After a few days, I decided that I would go back to Hebron for the last week of my trip as the limits of spending a day here and a day there had become clear to me. As luck would have it, the Hebron ISM group came to Jerusalem to spend the night because they had been to a nearby meeting in the afternoon, so we had a mini reunion. Far too early the next morning (the 14th of January) we headed back down to Hebron. We met one of the ISM coordinator’s downtown and headed off to Idhna – yet another area soon to be devastated by the Wall. A demonstration had been planned there and our coordinator had arranged for us to meet with some local families too.

Continue reading Oppression and Resistance in Idhna

Elections under occupation

The territories occupied by Israel that should constitute a future Palestinian state (the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem) are just that – under military occupation. It is currently the longest military occupation in the world, dating back to 1967. In the run up to this past 9th of January, the Palestinians here did everything they could to run an election as professionally as possible under harsh constraints from the Israeli state. Contrary to the racist picture painted every day in the western media, the Palestinian people understand what democracy is and how to get it. And they understand that the primary thing preventing democracy is the Israeli military occupation. Democracy under occupation is an oxymoron. Since the first intifada in the late 80’s it has been crystal clear that the vast majority of Palestinians recognise the fact that Israel exists and is not going to go away. Even before this, the “rejectionist Arabs” of Palestine had in reality been trying to find ways to live alongside Israel. At every turn, these moves are blocked by the US government, which – beyond the rhetoric – has been rejectionist in practice for a long time, supporting Israeli state terrorism no matter which political party is in government in either country.

Continue reading Elections under occupation

Resistance to the Wall in Biddu

The resistance to the Wall I saw in Jayyous was very encouraging and brave, but what I witnessed in Biddu was nothing less than inspiring. On the 7th of January an olive tree planting action was planned. Several ISM activists came to join in the event which was organised by Palestinians from the area and was also attended by other internationals and Israelis, including a group called Rabbis for Human Rights. Popular committees are very actively resisting the Wall in this area, and have had some successes. Mohammed Mansour (a local Palestinian activist whose court hearing I covered in my first report) told me that the reason for this was that they, the Israelis and the internationals had acted together “as one”. He reminded me that “we don’t hate the Israeli people, only the Israeli government”.

Continue reading Resistance to the Wall in Biddu

A Beautiful Occupation

On Tuesday the 4th of January about 30 ISM activists went up to Jayyus to join a local informational meeting and olive tree planting action against the devastating effects that the Apartheid Wall is having on the people there. Jayyus is a poor rural village of about 3200 Palestinians in the West of the Qalqilya region of the occupied West Bank. What is happening there is terrible. The State of Israel is building a so-called “security barrier” throughout the West Bank, supposedly to keep out suicide bombers. If you wanted to put up a fence between your garden and your neighbor’s you would have to put it on your side, right? Apparently the state of Israel thinks differently. Here, as in most of the West Bank, the so called “security barrier” (actually a fence in this section) was built well within the 1967 Green Line, so that yet more Palestinian land is confiscated and effectively annexed to Israel.

Continue reading A Beautiful Occupation

Arrival, first impressions and a sub-machine gun

After stupidly missing my morning flight to Tel Aviv on Thursday, I had to get the evening one instead. Arriving Friday morning after a comfortable flight (on which I had been upgraded to business class) I was lucky enough to happen upon another ISMer in the shared taxi to Jerusalem, although this only dawned on the both of us when we both ended up going to the same place where we were meant to make contact with the ISM.

The trip from the airport to Jerusalem and then the taxi to the training in Ramallah was an enlightening experience in itself. We had no trouble at the Qalandiya checkpoint outside of Ramallah this time. The contrast between the sights on the road trip to Jerusalem and the road trip to Ramallah is striking. The poverty in the West bank compared to (for example) the conservative religious Jewish communities in West Jerusalem is self-evident. There are buildings that are modern and wealthy looking, though these seemed to be mostly government buildings. By and large though, even the relatively prosperous (in West Bank terms) city of Ramallah is very run down – the lack of investment and the presence of poverty was clear even on first impressions.

Continue reading Arrival, first impressions and a sub-machine gun

Chinese language survey

A language survey in China under development for six year was recently published. Interesting reading. It found that 53% of the population speaks the official standard Chinese dialect (Mandarin). This may not sound much for an official language, but when you consider the vast population of China and the huge number of dialects spoken, it is quite a lot. One of the findings of the survey was that many Mandarin speakers use it as their main language in public or at work, but stick to their regional dialect with friends and family.

Iraq predictions in retrospect

Here is one of many articles that demonstrates the hypocrisy of apologists for the invasion of Iraq who claim that it was all about how evil Saddam was/is. Seeing as the US and UK supported and enabled his worst crimes and all.

An even more specious argument made by Bush and cronies was the supposed “al-Qa’eda” link to Saddam. Note the retrospective concession that this justification was always a complete fallacy. Of course we also knew this in advance of the attack. By now we even know that they knew there was no link before the attack.

Predictibly, the reaction of the Islamists to the invasion was, and still is, to use it as an effective recruitment tool to their destructive cause. Meanwhile, the solutions to the private terrorism of bin Laden and the like were obvious .

“The anti-war status quo”

That old Trot, Christopher Hitchens switched allegence to the Right at some point in the last few years. He was one of the most prominent of the “left” advocates of the glorious plans of the American ‘neo-conservatives’ who were so highly regarded in the liberal press a year ago. Now they are left looking rather sheepish and silly. Some have kind-of repented of their evil ways. Hitchens, though still goes to the most bizzare lengths to defend Bush and co. An early example is an article in which he appears to be arguing that, because the war criminal Henry Kissenger was against the invasion of Iraq, he was right to be in favour of it. School playground logic or what. All comment on his article aside, I’m not so sure Kissenger was against the invasion per se [free registration required] – perhaps he thought its planning was not up to scratch.

Comic relief and a common sense view point on all this madness came from Python Terry Jones, whose occasional satirical pieces in the Guardian have been great.

15th February 2003

In the weeks before the the 15th of February, the scale of world opposition to the impending invasion of Iraq started to become clear. Even the majority of the Western ruling elite were against it and proposed alternatives.

In the run up to the London demo, much of the liberal press derided the movement, although there was plenty of sort-of favourable coverage too. It was also predicted around this time, that there would be mass walkouts in workplaces around the country on the the event of war (in the event, if this did happen to any extent, the media made sure it did not spread by simply not reporting it). The government at one stage tried to ban the march to Hyde park, though it ultimately relented to pressure (as if it had much choice anyway). Meanwhile, the US continuted to make up pretty pictures in a vain attempt to convince the UN that it had a good reason to invade.

The final count for the day was up to 30 million around the world, including 2 million in the UK. Notable is the fact that the largest protests were seen in the countries whose governments supported the US most. As Chomsky pointed out, the scale of the anti-war movement was unprecedented. Never before have the populations of the imperialist nations agitated against one of its government’s wars before it even started.

More articles on this: Anti-war protesters rally to cause. ‘I’ve never known anything like it. Everyone’s saying they will march’

Belgium to try Israeli war cimes?

Almost as interesting as the Belgium initiative to introduce laws to prosecute Israeli war cimes is the outraged response that came from the politicians. As I recall, Belgium later dropped, or watered down this decision.

Meanwhile, the nightmare continuted for the Palestinians.

Young British Muslims against the war

Back in February 2003 there was quite a lot of coverage of the anti-war movement in the liberal press. One decent article was about the politicisation of young British Muslims in reaction to the increasingly agressive stance of western governments against Muslim countries since 9/11.

At the same time, there was a huge upsurge throughout the whole of the media in warnings about imminent terrorist attacks supposed to happen any minute now. Hmmm… Nothing to do with keeping us pliant and scaring us into not making a fuss about the war I suppose…