Tonight was a mega-painful watch. I don’t know why I do it, but sometimes I’m a glutton for getting angry at the telly. I saw a few tweets from maydayblues which went a bit like this:

‘Impossible to fire a gun whilst absailing from a helicopter’. Tell that to Hollywood. #panorama about 3 hours ago via web

British Brainwashing Corporation #panorama #gaza #bbc #shills #janecorbin about 3 hours ago via web

oh! the cries of ‘allah akhbar’ were relentless on the boat. #panorama on gaza – thanks for that meaningless comment. about 3 hours ago via web

@HarpyMarx i know! straight in on the boat like it was some kind of warship… grrr… about 3 hours ago via web in reply to HarpyMarx

@KirenUK feel like the set up of ‘muslim -> islamist ->terrorist ->asking for it’ pretty narrow minded #panorama about 3 hours ago via web in reply to KirenUK

That should have been enough to make me realise I shouldn’t have watched it. But I did. Panorama’s “Death in the Med”.

Shocking load of balls. If you don’t believe me, watch it yourself.

I got so wound up that I had to write to the beeb. It’s a bit of a rambling rant – apologies – but I had to write something just to be able to get to sleep.

I encourage you all to send them your complaint emails too: panorama.reply@bbc.co.uk and also post them to the BBC trust https://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/forms/ and don’t forget OFCOM https://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/tell-us/specific-programme-epg

I’m shocked and disappointed with the extent of the bias in the Panorama documentary you aired tonight.

Both the ‘facts’ and the tone of the coverage were wildly biased and selective. I’d like to register the following complaints:

- why did you not mention the footage that had been confiscated by the Israelis and not returned? Cultures of Resistance provided you with some non-Israeli footage but there is much more that they chose not to release. Yet you use their footage (for example the video from the captain of the ship during questioning) without mentioning the lack of access to the rest.

- There is an emotive interview with a commando who is talking about the chairs, bottles etc that were being thrown from the ship. The BBC interviewer asks: how dangerous is it for a commando? Very, very dangerous, is the reply. And yet, why is there no corresponding interview about how dangerous it was for civilians to have Israeli commandos boarding the ship?

- What we get is the interviewer asking an israeli commando if he killed anyone and he replies he probably injured some people, but he shot them all in the legs. Clearly people weren’t just shot in the legs, so why does Panorama let the soldier get away with saying that?

- There is extensive coverage of the stabbing, along with emotive pictures of the knife used, and yet there is no discussion of the shots that killed nine people. None. There is no footage of the shooting, no pictures of people dead. Why is that? Presumably because Israel didn’t let the BBC have them. Is that not just playing along with the Israeli official media spin? This really is the fundamental question: why does the documentary cover NONE of the killing of the nine passengers. We don’t know their names, their backgrounds and more importantly the situation in which they were killed. Were they the nine people with these metal pipes? Where were they when they were shot? The programme covers extensively what happened to the Israeli soldiers (who survived) but nothing about those who died. Why is this?

- The programme mentions Israel airlifting the seriously wounded to hospital, suggesting a humanitarian gesture. There is no mention of the hours before they were airlifted that they were left without proper medical care in which some conditions worsened and people died. Why is that?

- There was an implicit assumption throughout the programme that violent resistance was not a reasonable response to being boarded in international waters. That these activists could not resist Israeli commandos boarding their ship with bars and sticks. Could you not see the tone of the programme was equating self defence with makeshift weapons with boarding a ship in international waters as trained military commandos. Why did the programme make that

- There is no contextualising of the situation in Gaza at all. If this was a film about apartheid South Africa do you not think it would be worth talking about the apartheid system? Why is the only background about Hamas and the fact that they fire rockets at civilians. Why – when you mention Hamas killing civilians – do you not mention Israel killing more than a thousand civilians in the recent war in Gaza?

These are all important questions that go to the heart of why many have lost faith in the BBC’s ability to cover the Middle East in anything approaching an impartial way.

I look forward to hearing your reply.

Grr.. I’m still mad.

It is almost a year since Iran detained my friends Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd (and their friend Josh).

It demonstrates just how empty the Iranian government’s claim to defend Palestinian rights really is.

Shane and Sarah – who were living in Yarmouk, a Palestinian refugee camp at the time – have done more for Palestinians and against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that pretty much every Arab and Iranian I know.

What is depressing is that the Iranians must know this, and yet still detain them.

Part of the blame must also lie with the official “Free The Hikers” campaign, that for whatever reasons has chosen not to highlight Sarah and Shane’s politics. Despite doing fantastic work in drumming up domestic US support, it has taken too long to start trickling in information about their work.

Portraying them as hikers lost in the wrong part of the Middle East does not help anyone understand who they are. When I first saw the story in The Times last year, I instantly assumed they were spies. Who wouldn’t?

However, that same afternoon I got a call from a friend in Syria who said it was Shane and Sarah. After my initial panic I thought that as soon as it became clear to the public who these guys were they would be released.

But nobody was talking about their work. I’m still not sure why, but their families wanted to take their politics out of the equation. Unfortunately when it comes to the Middle East that doesn’t work. Politics is paramount and people fall on either side of the line: pro-Palestinian or pro-Israeli. Sure, there are more nuanced ways of saying it, but that’s the fundamental distinction. If you’re American and don’t have the evidence to prove it, the assumption is you’re of the latter category. Fair enough, I say, Americans (and Brits) have done enough to shaft the Middle East many times over to warrant immediate suspicion.

The difference was that in this case, there was – and still is – the evidence to demonstrate very clearly that these guys are not US/Israeli spies and have spent their lives campaigning for justice in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and many other places besides.

It has been a frustrating year for many of Sarah and Shane’s friends (well, at least the ones that I know) who have felt that they haven’t been able to talk about their politics for fear of jeopardising the official campaign. However, following a visit by the mothers of Sarah, Shane and Josh to Iran in May, Shane asked explicitly that we focus on their work for justice in the Middle East.

So that’s what we’re doing now. Along with a bunch of their friends, we’ve released a website with quotes and links to their work. Please visit it and pass it on.

Iran needs to realise that if it really cares about the rights of Palestinians it should release Shane, Sarah and Josh.

www.FreeOurFriends.eu

Take two of the nastiest things around and you’re bound to get grim results. Nationalism and oil make for an unhappy world.

When the Deepwater Horizon oil spill kicked off, everyone was happy to get stuck into BP. Fair enough. It was their obscene negligence in a relentless search for fossil fuel exploitation that caused the disaster in the first place.

But then the tone from the UK changed.

As soon as people realised that it might be their pension fund money that is tied up in BP, or their national economy affected, suddenly it was no longer an environmental disaster. The real disaster was these cynical anti-British haters (like Obama) who wanted to bring down BP and damage our economy.

“Stand Up For Your Country”, squealed the Daily Mail, pleading for Cameron to come to BP’s defence.

US against the UK. Obama vs Cameron.

The incredible volte-face by the UK media (and parts of the public) indicates two things:

1. Environmentalism and a green conscience is easy when cheap. The British public was happy to join in the bashing of BP when it wasn’t costing them money. As soon as the spectre of economic repercussions was apparent, the tone changed and all pretense of caring about the environmental catastrophe evaporated.
2. Nationalism is the real opiate of the masses. Give people a national cause to believe in and they are happy to forget all their ills. Corruption, dictatorship, poverty, climate chaos, none of it matters if you can fly the flag and beat a drum (or blow a vuvuzela).

Time to go to watch the World Cup. I’m supporting Ghana..

Private Eye shows there’s one rule for politicians and another for the rest of us.

Refers to David Laws who resigned from government after fiddling expenses …

This blog has been dormant for a while – partly because I’ve been working flat out on Give Your Vote.

A few years back on this blog I floated the idea of Americans ‘giving their votes’ to Iraqis so that they could have a say in the decisions that affect them.

Well that never happened. But we did finally manage to do it in the UK. The idea was to challenge the way people ‘give’ charity to other parts of the world and ask: what if we gave power? What if we lived in a truly democratic world, where politicians were accountable to those they affect, regardless of what side of the border they live on.

We had over two thousand people give their votes to participants in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Ghana who decided which candidate was best for them.

Relaying the vote by text message, the UK partner then just ticked the box.

It was a great campaign and massively exceeded all of our expectations (media coverage here). But now we’ve got to get thinking … what next?

Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin, future Prime Minister Anthony Eden and Liberal leader Clement Davies all talk in Parliament about the need to rethink nationalism and introduce a democratic world assembly.

Labour, Conservative and Liberal leaders criticising everything from the UN Security Council veto to “the barriers that divide us”.

This the language of today’s anti-G8 protesters. Whereas 60 years ago it was the voice of our elected politicians.

Do we have to wait for another world war before we find that language in the mainstream again?

Here are a few quotes.

(thanks to the amazing guys at mySociety for getting this material online):

“We need a new study for the purpose of creating a world assembly elected directly from the people of the world, as a whole, to whom the Governments who form the United Nations are responsible and who, in fact, make the world law which they, the people, will then accept and be morally bound and willing to carry out. For it will be from their votes that the power will have been derived, and it will be for their direct representatives to carry it out. You may invent all sorts of devices to decide who is the aggressor but, after all the thought you can give to it, the only repository of faith I have been able to find to determine that is the common people.” (Foreign Minister Bevin)

or,

“Unfortunately, during the last 150 years too much emphasis has been laid upon antagonistic nationalism, which has led to disruption, jealousy and, ultimately, to war. Men ought to be able to appeal to the commonman everywhere to surrender this national sovereignty and to do away also with all the barriers which divide us. Do away with all those man-made difficulties of communicating with other men. Let us share the benefits that Nature has provided in the world. If this were done and if we could look upon the world, which is now getting smaller and smaller, as one world with one people, subject to one rule, we should have accomplished more in our time than all the generations which have preceded us.” (Head of Liberals, Davies)

or,

“We have got somehow to take the sting out of nationalism. We cannot hope to do so at once, but we ought to start working for it now… We should make up our minds where we want to go. In this respect I know where I want to go. I want to get a world in which the relations between the nations can be transformed in a given period of time—we cannot do it in a short period—as the relations between this country and Scotland and Wales have been transformed. At an early date, in my judgment, the United Nations ought to review their Charter in the light of the discoveries about atomic energy which were not before us when the Charter was drawn up. Nothing showed more clearly the hold that nationalism has upon us all than the decision of that Conference to retain the power of veto. Surely in the light of what has passed since San Francisco the United Nations ought to look at that again, and, having looked at it, I hope they will unanimously decide that the retention of such a provision in the Charter is an anachronism in the modern world.” (Future PM Eden)

Full(ish) text.

Use the links to access the full record:

Anthony Eden – 22 Nov 1945
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debate/?id=1945-11-22a.611.3

Let me come to what seem to me to be the fundamentals of this problem. The truth is that by the discovery of this atomic energy science has placed us several laps ahead of the present phase of international political development, and unless we can catch up politically to the point we have reached in science, and thus command the power which at present threatens us, we are all going to be blown to smithereens… I agree, too, that no safeguards by themselves will provide an effective guarantee. They have to be accompanied by the acceptance of the rule of law amongst the nations…

The truth is that all the inventions of recent years have tended the same way, to narrow the world, to bring us closer together and, therefore, to intensify the shock and sharpen the reactions before the shock absorbers are ready. Every succeeding scientific discovery makes greater nonsense of old-time conceptions of sovereignty, and yet it is not the least use our deluding ourselves … It is yet true that national sentiment is still as strong as ever, and here and there it is strengthened by this further complication, the different conceptions of forms of government and different conceptions of what words mean, words like “freedom” and “democracy.” So, despite some stirrings, the world has not, so far, been ready to abandon, or even really to modify, its old conceptions of sovereignty. But there have been some stirrings… I have thought much on this question of atomic energy both before and since that bomb burst on Nagasaki, and for the life of me I have been unable to see, and am still unable to see, any final solution which will make the world safe for atomic power, save that we all abate our present ideas of sovereignty.

I am not making a party point. We have got somehow to take the sting out of nationalism. We cannot hope to do so at once, but we ought to start working for it now… We should make up our minds where we want to go. In this respect I know where I want to go. I want to get a world in which the relations between the nations can be transformed in a given period of time—we cannot do it in a short period—as the relations between this country and Scotland and Wales have been transformed. What are we going to do about that? What are the first steps that can be taken? One of the first steps has been described by the right hon. Gentleman in the communiqué which was issued from Washington, and I hope the further steps which I have traced will be followed up to get this United Nations Mission to work soon.

There is another possible step in connection with the San Francisco organisation. At an early date, in my judgment, the United Nations ought to review their Charter in the light of the discoveries about atomic energy which were not before us when the Charter was drawn up. Nothing showed more clearly the hold that nationalism has upon us all than the decision of that Conference to retain the power of veto. Surely in the light of what has passed since San Francisco the United Nations ought to look at that again, and, having looked at it, I hope they will unanimously decide that the retention of such a provision in the Charter is an anachronism in the modern world.

Clement Davies – 22 Nov 1945
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debate/?id=1945-11-22a.631.1

The cost of war is, as we all know, illimitable and immeasurable, in the agony, sorrow and misery that it causes not only for one generation but for many generations. Peace also has its price, but the price is not heavy. It would be a small premium to pay for the abolition of war. It would merely be the surrender of national sovereignty. Unfortunately, during the last 150 years too much emphasis has been laid upon antagonistic nationalism, which has led to disruption, jealousy and, ultimately, to war. Men ought to be able to appeal to the commonman everywhere to surrender this national sovereignty and to do away also with all the barriers which divide us. Do away with all those man-made difficulties of communicating with other men. Let us share the benefits that Nature has provided in the world. If this were done and if we could look upon the world, which is now getting smaller and smaller, as one world with one people, subject to one rule, we should have accomplished more in our time than all the generations which have preceded us.

Ernest Bevin – 23 Nov 1945
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debate/?id=1945-11-23a.783.1

[Eden] said there must be established a rule of law, but law must derive its power and observance from a definite source, and in studying this problem I am driven to ask: Will law be observed, if it is arrived at only by treaty and promises and decisions by governments as at present arranged? In all the years this has broken down so often. I trust it will not break down again but, if it is not to break down again, I think it must lead us still further on. In other words, will the people feel that the law is their law if it is derived and enforced by the adoption of past methods, whether League of Nations, concert of Europe, or anything of that kind? The illustration was drawn of the constitution of the United Kingdom, which took many years to establish. Where does the power to make law actually rest? It is not even in this House, it is certainly not in the Executive, it is in the votes of the people. They are sovereign authority.

It may be interesting to call attention to the development of the United States of America. Originally, when the States came together, they met as States with separate Governments, but they soon discovered that they had little or no power to enforce their decisions, and it is the enforcement of the decision, the sanction, that is the real difficulty in world law or any law. They then decided, for the purpose of conducting foreign affairs, taxation, defence and the regulation of commerce, that they would create a federal body and in that body there would be direct representation of the people, not through the 13 States, but direct from the people to the federal Parliament of the country. So, from the outset, the United States drew its power to make laws directly from the people. That is the growth of the United States to the great State which it is today.

… I think it right to let the country see exactly where the surrender of sovereignty leads us. The fact is, no one ever surrenders sovereignty; they merge it into a greater sovereignty.

A portion, for specific limited purposes… It can only deal with the specific objective that the people feel is necessary for their security.

[Eden:

Might I interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, because he keeps saying that I referred to the surrender of sovereignty, and I never said anything like that. The point I was trying to make, which I think he is trying to make, is that these modern developments make nonsense of certain old-fashioned conceptions of sovereignty.]

Bevin:

Well, I am trying to put a new one anyway.

I am asked to restudy San Franscisco [where it was agreed to form the UN]. I have not only restudied it but, when it was being developed, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, I was gravely concerned, with him, as to whether we were really finding the right solution. There was no conflict between us. We were all trying to do our best, and what worried me, and the right hon. Gentleman and others on the Committee of the then Cabinet, going through all these meticulous documents, was whether again the people would be disappointed. That was his worry, I know, as it was ours. Now that is added to, and accentuated, by the coming of the atomic bomb and many other devastating weapons. In 1940, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford [Churchill] offered France joint citizen ship—

Mr Winston Churchill (Woodford)

We were all in it.

Mr Ernest Bevin (Wandsworth Central)

Yes, that is quite right. Often after that I tried to study how we could have given effect to it, and it seemed to me that joint citizenship involved joint Parliament and joint responsibility. It involved an acceptance of this for certain limited purposes in order to derive the powers of law. Therefore, when we turn from all the things you have built up the League of Nations or your constitution—I feel we are driven relentlessly along this road: we need a new study for the purpose of creating a world assembly elected directly from the people of the world, as a whole, to whom the Governments who form the United Nations are responsible and who, in fact, make the world law which they, the people, will then accept and be morally bound and willing to carry out. For it will be from their votes that the power will have been derived, and it will be for their direct representatives to carry it out. You may invent all sorts of devices to decide who is the aggressor but, after all the thought you can give to it, the only repository of faith I have been able to find to determine that is the common people.

There has never been a war yet which, if the facts had been put calmly before the ordinary folk, could not have been prevented. The fact is they are kept separated from one another. How did Hitler do that? He enslaved Germany with a law as bad as our Vagabond Act of centuries ago, and did not allow anybody to move hither or thither. I knew a South African professor who went into Germany for 12 months as an experiment and read nothing but Nazi papers. He was hard put to it to resist the mental influence as a result—a strong-minded man who made up his mind to try the effect of it upon himself. The common man, I think, is the great protection against war. The supreme act of Government is the horrible duty of deciding matters which affect the life or death of the people. That power rests in this House as far as this country is concerned. I would merge that power into the greater power of a directly elected world assembly in order that the great repositories of destruction and science, on the one hand, may be their property, against the misuse of which it is their duty to protect us and, on the other hand, that they may determine in the ordinary sense whether a country is acting as an aggressor or not.

I am willing to sit with anybody, of any party, of any nation, to try to devise a franchise or a constitution—just as other great countries have done—for a world assembly, as the right hon. Gentleman said, with a limited objective—the objective of peace. Once we can get to that stage I believe we shall have taken a great progressive step. In the meantime, there must be no weakening of the institution which my right hon. Friends built in San Francisco. It must be the prelude to further development. This must not be considered a substitute for it, but rather a completion or a development of it, so that the benefit of the experience and administration derived in that institution may be carried to its final end. From the moment you accept that, one phrase goes, and that is “international law.” That phrase presupposes conflict between nations. It would be replaced by “world law,” with a moral world force behind it, rather than a law built upon case made law and on agreements. It would be a world law with a world judiciary to interpret it, with a world police to enforce it, with the decision of the people with their own votes resting in their own hands, irrespective of race or creed, as the great world sovereign elected authority which would hold in its care the destinies of the people of the world.

While the UK news is full of stories about John Bercow and his role as Speaker of the House of Commons, spare a thought for his opposite number in the Palestinian parliament: Aziz Duwek (pic above).

Duwek was released today after nearly three years in Israeli prison. He was seized along with 40 others six months after Hamas won the 2006 legislative elections in the Palestinian Authority.

Duwek is lucky today, but what of the other Palestinian MPs that are part of the 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli prisons?

Highly Improbable Numbers

The numbers. Official figures claim Ahmadinejad won 63% of the vote or 24.5M ballots cast. An extra 7M people are supposed to have voted for him since the second round of the last election when there was only one other candidate, Rafsanjani, another conservative.

What has changed since the last election:

• In 2005, following two-terms of popular reformist president Khatami, Iranians had to choose a new president, but reformists fielded several candidates. Through a combination of disatisfaction over reformist achievements during Khatami's rule,  candidates disqualified from standing, and a split in the reformist candidates that were eventually allowed to run, many voters stayed away from the ballot
• In 2005, Ahmadinejad was running in the second round against Rafsanjani, a regime stalwart, who twice served as president of Iran (during the Iran-Iraq war). The choice between the two conservatives (albeit to varying degrees) led to a relatively low turnout, and many choosing Ahmadinejad as the unknown non-cleric, non-Rafsanjani candidate
• In 2009, voters were motivated (massive turnout) and reformists solidly backed one candidate, Mousavi

There is strong evidence linking turnout with reformist victories:

• In 1997, Khatami took 70% of the vote with a 88% turnout in a reformist vs conservative election
• In 2001, Khatami was re-elected with 78% of the vote with a similarly high turnout
• In 2005, in initial turnout of 63% (already relatively quite low) dropped to 48% when the second round run-off made it a conservative vs conservative election, resulting in Ahmadinejad's election
• In 2009, a huge turnout with voting extended by four hours results in a 63% win for the conservatives?

Conclusive?

While none of this is conclusive proof that the results of the elections were rigged at the final stage, we know the dice were loaded from the outset.

Personally, I like the analogy of democracy as pregnancy; you can't be half-pregnant and you can't be semi-democratic.

The screening of candidates by the guardian council and the absence of free domestic media means that there is no democracy in Iran and that is what people are in the streets protesting about.

When they shout 'death to the dictator', it's not directed against Ahmadinejad, it's against the ‘supreme leader‘ himself.

Let's hope the protesters are victorious.

Have a look at this UN map (2 Megs) to see the area (south of Hebron). The map also gives a good idea of the current restrictions and closures in the West Bank.

The crossing from Jerusalem into the West Bank (towards Bethlehem). You have to go through two rotating gates, put your bags through an unmanned x-ray machine, scan your hand, and show your documents through the bombproof glass to the Israeli soldiers on duty. The colourful poster on the wall is from the Israeli Ministry of Tourism, and it says: “Peace be with you”.

Welcome to Hebron, West Bank. Home to several hundred ideological Israeli settlers who frequently attack Palestinians in the area (who number 30,000). These settlers are protected by approx 1,500 Israeli soldiers.

JDL = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Defense_League

World’s Worst Football Pitch? Downtown Hebron. The Israeli flag is flying over Shohada street, which is out of bounds for Palestinian vehicles (and effectively people, unless you want to get attacked).

Two Palestinian schoolgirls stand at the top-end of Shohada street, in front of concrete blocks to stop vehicles entering.

Smashed windows of a Palestinian building and an Israeli army post watches over the end of the street.

An armed settler takes a stroll in Hebron.

Leaving Hebron to the village of At-Tuwani. Behind our van you can see the Palestinian road (dirt) crossing the settler road (tarmac). Palestinian cars with green number plates are not allowed on settler roads. You need a yellow Israeli numberplate to drive on them.

The view from At-Tuwani. You can see the Ma’on settlement in the distance. An ‘illegal’ settler outpost (they’re all illegal under international law) is hidden at the top of the green hill on the right.

Playing football with the boys and girls in At-Tuwani village.

Waiting with the schoolkids from Tuba who have to walk between the settlement and the outpost to get home. Since CPT activists were attacked while accompanying the children to school, Israel has said that only the Israeli army can now accompany them, the international presence is considered ‘provocative’.

Soldiers finally show up to escort the kids up the path between the settlement and the outpost.

off they go.. (outpost up the green hill on the right). Settlers frequently attack the kids, verbally and physically, and the army is often of little help to the kids.

The mosque in At-Tuwani. It was bulldozed by the Israelis for being built without a permit. After praying in a tent for nearly a year, they rebuilt it, only to have a demolition order reissued on the mosque.

Walking with Josh to the village of Tuba where the schoolkids live. We have to take a lengthy detour (1 hour) to avoid walking straight past the settlement (which only talkes 15 minutes).

Meet Omar, a farmer who lives with his 10 kids in a cave in Tuba. He obsessively listens to BBC Arabic from the radio on the right. Omar has to keep the white sacks of animal feed in the cave because settlers have set fire to it in the past.

Omar’s son Ahmad in the cave in front of the animal feed. Three of his sisters are sleeping in the background.

Waking up (too early). The view from outside their cave.

The view across the valley to the settlements.

Breeding birds. [The hamam above the hammam - one for the Arabists]

Omar keeps (terrifying) dogs to warn when settlers are approaching. The sheep don’t seem to mind them (unlike me).

Accompanying Omar on the long route to At-Tuwani so he can go for Friday prayers.

At least the settlers force us to take the scenic route

Behind Omar is a ridge that Palestinian drivers without permits for Israel can take to go find work. So when you hear arguments about The Wall stopping bombers, it’s rubbish; there are plenty of ways to get into Israel for ‘illegal’ Palestinians.

At least Omar hasn’t lost his smile..

Helping farmers harvest their barley in the valley below the settlement. The presence of foreigners and their cameras deters settlers from some of their more blatant attacks, according to the Palestinians.

Palestinian donkeys get a rough ride too..

A couple of settlers assessing the situation of Palestinian farmers in the valley.

The Israeli army and settler security arrives to watch over the settlers as they walk provocatively through the farmers and their flocks, asserting their right to be there. Fortunately, no violence ensues.

Welcome to Umm Al-Kheir, where Bedouins live literally a stone’s throw away from settlers. The roof in the background is the settlement.

It’s unbelievably close. Not only is the settlement built on the bedouin land, but settlers often throw projectiles at their Bedouin neighbours.

A Bedouin house next to a new extension to the settlement.

Bilal points out how the settlement houses have no windows on this side, despite a fantastic view of the valley. “They want to pretend we don’t exist, that they’re not stealing our land”, he said.

Bilal points to one of his family’s houses which has been marked for demolition because according to Israel it was built without a permit (like the mosque in At-Tuwani). In case you’re wondering, Israel never issues permits for these properties.

Two of the other houses scheduled for demolition. In the background you can see the settlement houses.

The fourth house marked for demolition, with more settler houses in the background. Bilal’s grandfather talks of when the settlement started in November 1981. “We’ve tried to reach agreement on sharing the well water. On sharing the land. We want a peaceful agreement but they don’t want any agreement”.

This apparently used to be a volleyball court… We found out during our visit that the Israeli settlement had sent round a vet who shot two of the bedouins’ dogs. He is threatening to shoot the rest unless they pay for vaccination. The Israeli group I was with (Tayyush) said they might be able to get an animal rights group to help the Bedouin. Animal Rights, not Human Rights.