The film Fahrenheit 9-11 is overlong and lacks narrative drive in parts but it does contain some devastating passages of anti-Bush vitriol. One example is the series of clips showing how the US president tricked his country into war with a web of deception about Iraqi WMDs and links to Bin Laden. In a brilliantly edited section, Bush is shown on the stump in 2002 using the words “Saddam” and “al-Qaida” over and over again. The staccato finally ends and the editor allows the US president...
I very rarely do these link based-blogs but I wanted to share this video with as many people as possible. This is American fundamentalist Pat Robertson calling for the murder of Venezualan president Hugo Chavez: Link Where does one even start with this extraordianry call to jihad against Chavez? Well, I suppose one could reflect on Robertson's breathtaking hypocrisy, that he, supposedly a man of God, is calling for the murder (and let's not use euphemisms) the murder of another human b...
Gerry Adams is fond of predicting that Ireland will be reunited by the year 2016, in time for the centenary celebrations of the Easter Rising. One should be cautious of his words, since he uses the alleged imminence of the end of partition as justification for abandoning so much of his ideological baggage. In any case, the Provos have a rather poor record when it comes to prediction. It was the IRA after all which claimed that Ireland would be “free in 1973” and which proclaimed 1975 to be “t...
The English press critic Roy Greenslade once coined the term “hierarchy of death” to describe the huge difference between British media coverage of different types of violence associated with the Troubles. There were he asserted four groups of victims as far as the media was concerned. Group 1 was made up of English people killed in England, i.e. victims of the IRA’s British bombing campaign. These victims dominated TV news bulletins for days and put a great strain on the Brazilian rainforest...
There is no conflict in the world which generates as much verbal diarrhoea as the Israel/Palestinian one. Biased, blatantly pro-Zionist phrases such as "period of calm", "no partner", and "window of opportunity" masquerade as neutral discourse. In fact these cliches serve to reinforce an Israel-centric view of the conflict. For example, there is a "period of calm" when Palestinians are being killed but when there are casualties on both sides it is a "cycle of violence". Dead Arabs makes f...
When the Israelis offered the PLO control of Gaza during peace negotiations in the early nineties, it is reported that one of the Palestinian delegation quiped: "Great, now what do we get in return?" Even for the Palestinians, Gaza - with its apocalyptic overcrowding, its suicidal birthrate and its epic poverty - is a problem rather than a prize. This is even more so for Israel. Successive governments in Tel Aviv have viewed the Strip as a burden rather than an opportunity. For a state o...
"A lot of it's got to do with age" said Paul Bew during a tutorial on Irish politics some years ago. "Running around shooting people and spending the night in a hedgerow - it's a young man's game. Adams, McGuinness, the lot of them: they're middle-aged now. If nothing else, the peace process is a great advert for the male menopause." As ever Bew was exaggerating slightly for effect, but his words had more than a little truth to them. A quarter century of constant physical danger takes it toll...
"It's only words, and words are all I have" as Ronan Keating once sang. If only real life was as simple as cheesy ballads would suggest. Yesterday's "historic" declaration by the IRA that it is abandoning violence after 35 years of bloodshed is very welcome. As were all those other "historic" declarations about a "total cessation" and "the war" being "over". Fine words indeed, but only words. Given the Provisional movement's long record of duplicity, words mean nothing. Only action, or in...
We arrive back in Bir Zeit with little to do for the last few days of the camp. Violence is raging elsewhere in the West Bank, but Bir Zeit is an oasis of calm. In this mainly Christian town shopkeepers sit outside their shops on those ubiquitous white plastic chairs, trying to manage the tedium of their lives. The sun shines brightly and the town is quiet in a sleepy Mediterranean way, the peace only punctured by the thud of a tank shell a few valleys over. The next day I wake early and ...
After a week and a half of the most stifling heat, Jenin comes as a relief. Or rather, the Arab-American University of Jenin, comes as a relief. This brand new campus is situated, Third World style, well outside the city itself, in the cooler hills above. The drop in temperature is a respite for this northern European but the condition of my feet is of some concern to our hosts. Ironically, my feet are much better than they were in Tel Aviv but, thanks to all the dead skin, they look much...
Checkpoints permitting, it’s a short taxi drive from Jerusalem to Ramallah, from the first world to the third. On the way I half expect some notice, a sign of some sort announcing: “You are now entering the Occupied Territories. Have a nice day.” Of course there is nothing of the sort. Travelling from the capital to Ramallah, the road gradually deteriorates and the surrounding houses become more dilapidated until you realise that you are in the West Bank. We arrive in the centre of Ramall...
“You couldn’t hear that behind a bus ticket!” 1989, Strandtown Primary School, Belfast. It’s assembly and our slightly demotic teacher, Miss Ireland (emphatically not a beauty queen) is urging us on to ever greater efforts in the performance of the anthem Jerusalem . For Miss Ireland volume is all, if they can’t hear us in the next postal district, we’re not singing loudly enough. The soaring melody is magnificent (even the fiftieth time round) but the lyrics are more than a little si...
Oh shit. We should have sorted out our lies beforehand. Meghan and I joined the line at passport control at Ben-Gurion airport together. The vigilant, stern-faced young woman at the counter may well have noted this. But as Meghan passes through, having explained her travel plans, I realise that she must have lied. I will also lie, of course. I just hope it’s the same lie. “Where do you intend visiting?” the dour lady asks. “Oh, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem” I reply as nonchalantly as I can. T...
"Is increasing aid the solution to poverty in Africa" asks this week's online poll in the New Statesman (a sort of Islington chatter sheet). The result: 93%no, 7% yes; suprised me, given that NS readers tend to be of the hand-wringing "oh, isn't it terrible?" tendency. But what struck me more was the paucity of options on offer, with "yes" and "no" being the only alternatives. This is "opinion" polling of the crudest kind. My prefered answer: "I don't know" was not available, as if som...
I arrive in Heathrow from Seoul, my home for the last fifteen months, on my way to Belfast, my home for the next two. It's my first time in Europe for over a year. Even in the artificial atmosphere of an international airport, the culture shock hits me. No more signs in Hangeul, no-one speaking Korean. Most people around me as I dash between terminals are the same colour as me. Most of them speak English, or at least Cockney, a close relative of my native tongue. I pass through securi...