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.

Martyr poster of Samer in the Yarmouk camp, who died fighting for Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Will Smith in ‘I am Legend’

“Would you ever blow yourself up?” 24-year-old Ibrahim asked me over the bubbles of his water-pipe.

I had just stepped off the plane back to Damascus, having spent the flight watching Will Smith’s heroic role as suicide bomber in the Hollywood blockbuster ‘I am Legend’. At the end of the film, Smith hurls himself and a grenade at a wave of salivating zombies, enabling the other two humans to escape with the cure that will save humanity. A pretty noble act in my opinion; a view probably shared by the millions of Americans who helped it smash box-office records.

But this isn’t a deserted Los Angeles, this is a Palestinian refugee camp, and those zombies are Israeli, American and to a lesser extent, British soldiers. Ibrahim is not talking on my hypothetical level; he’s talking about Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I don’t think I’d do it,” said Muhammad, another English Literature student who had come to me for some help reading Wuthering Heights. “What good is it going to do? Put a dent in a Hummer?”

Muhammad’s cynicism is not shared by the powers that be. My free pullout from this month’s ‘Muslim Palestine’, the Hamas mouthpiece I receive as one of the many perks of my gym membership, is a picture of an AK-47, the gun covered in the kind of flower combination you only see in the Greenfields at Glastonbury. It now covers a rusty crack on my fridge.

“Our life is jihad, our martyrdom is victory”, runs the poster’s slogan, under the smaller title: “Week of the Martyrs 2008”.

The slogans at the gym are more poetic, albeit the accompanying scenes more graphic. Alongside the omnipresent faces of the assassinated Hamas leaders Sheikh Ahmad Yassin and Abd-al-Aziz al-Rantisi are peeling posters extolling the gory glory of ‘martyrdom’. Next to the bench press is a picture of an imaginary battlefield, the bloodied heroes stepping over their dismembered foes.

However, despite the propaganda, few of the gym members pay much attention; they spend more time concentrating on the dog-eared photos above the free weights.

“He’s British like you. Incredible. Look at him”, says Ali, pointing at one of the orange bundles of muscle, bursting out of steroid-shrunken Speedos. Before I can comment, he’s off to the storeroom in the corner to inject himself towards his idea of a perfect body.

Although stories of ‘martyrdom’ don’t permeate gym-chat – at least not while I’m there – there are plenty of tales out there.

Ahmad, a 28-year-old perfume seller with a passion for Ingmar Bergman films, tells me about his neighbour and friend Samer who went to fight in Iraq.

“His parents thought he was on holiday in Saudi Arabia, and then the news came that the Americans had killed him. He was quite senior, you know, apparently he carried a holdall full of dollars and even had a sat phone”.

Samer had become more religious a few years previously, so much so that he moved out of his parent’s flat – he couldn’t live with a TV in the house. When you climb the stairs to his brother’s flat, there’s a fading poster of his face on every landing, accompanied by a fresh rose.

For most in the west, we think of people like Samer when we hear terms like ‘terrorist’ or ‘martyrdom operations’. A faceless, bearded Muslim, young and angry. It fits well with the idea of virgins in heaven as a reward for self-sacrifice. A frustrated male in a conservative society. A simple sexual urge, not a political act. I asked my friends what they thought.

“You think they do this to get laid?” asks Muhammad, laughing hard. “Why not pay $20 dollars and go to Jeramana [an Iraqi refugee district]?”

Hadi, a university student and member of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, is not smiling. He’s frustrated with the way Islamist groups try to monopolise the concept of martyrdom.

“Martyrdom is not Islamic, no matter what the Islamists will try and tell you,” he says, frustrated. “What about the operations of the PFLP? Do we not have our martyrs?”

During the Al-Aqsa Intifada in Israel and Palestine, the PFLP carried out a series of suicide bombings, despite being a secular organisation. The party’s founder and leader until 2000 was the late George Habash, a Palestinian Christian.

Posters following the death of George Habash; the first in the Christian quarter of Damascus, the second from Yarmouk.

“Hamas and others are taking advantage of the Muslim society, and using that to boost their support. This is not about religion, it’s about land.”

Muhammad disagreed. “It’s a religious issue because we live in the Muslim world. I accept that certain groups exploit that for their own propaganda, to get more recruits.”

Turning to me, he added: “but the political issues are real. The occupations in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan are not an illusion and of course we will resist. Sunni, Shia, Christian or Communist, we will continue to have our martyrs.”

“The people of Britain and America support the Iraq war. That’s why they re-elected Blair and Bush.” (near-daily comment I hear)

“Well not really. It’s just they prioritise their own issues. Like the domestic economy or opposing abortion. You can’t expect citizens of one country to care about those somewhere else. Everyone votes for self-interest. The war in Iraq affects Iraqis; they are the ones who need a vote.” (my tortured response)

So why not? And this is the plan: to give Iraqis a vote in the forthcoming US election.

Ok, so it’ll be a publicity stunt, but it will also be real.

The idea is to connect Iraqis with Americans who either don’t want their vote, or actively wish to give a voice to those in Iraq who will be directly affected by the election outcome.

One of the main issues of the Republican vs. Democrat battle will be whether US troops should stay in Iraq.

Don’t you think it’s time we asked Iraqis?

Realistically, I can only imagine a handful of people would participate, but I’m hoping that maybe some accompanying media coverage will make people think about how national democracies are not the answer to global problems.

If you know of anyone who might give some seed funding to a crazy idea like this, let me know

I’ve been in Syria for the past six weeks so haven’t been reading the Guardian (or writing on this blog).

However, I just came across a May 22nd copy of the Guardian on Indymedia, which to be frank, was shocking.

The headline of the article reads: Iran’s secret plan for summer offensive to force US out of Iraq.

At this point, you might think: interesting story. However, at the end of the first paragraph, Simon Tisdall reveals his sources, writing “US officials say”.

Wow. How terrible is that journalism? The headline is not even in quotation marks. You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to understand the skewed interests of ‘US officials’ and the likelihood of media manipulation.

Imagine if the Guardian broke a ’story’ on its front page about US plans to carpet bomb Damascus, only to find out further down that their source was Iranian officials.

I must say I’m quite disappointed because I generally read the Guardian, although the Independent does have better Middle East coverage.

***
ps went to the Iranian Cultural Institute in Damascus the other day and was invited to a recital of Khomeini’s poetry. Would have been comedy. Happy 100th birthday AK.

Today I had lunch with two colleagues, Samir and Farid.

“He asked what caste we are - I don’t know that!” complained Birmingham-born Samir, as he nudged his battered cod with a fork.

Samir is about to get married. Or at least he hopes so. He’s lined up a girl (a friend of his sister) and he’s trying to persuade her dad that he’s good enough for her. Last weekend, Samir and his parents went round to Aysha’s house to meet her family and get to know each other.

“Usually, at these things, you’re meant to talk about everything but the marriage. But her dad got stuck in, asking me dozens of questions and saying I wasn’t good enough. Then my dad lost it and said they weren’t good enough”, said Samir in his Brum accent.

“But Aysha’s been great, really fighting our corner”, he continued, smiling. “She’s been pleading with her dad and crying all the time”.

At this point Farid planted the pepper grinder in the middle of the table, as if staking his claim in the conversation.

“Samir, you need to take control of this situation. Who cares about what her dad says. You know what you should do? You should call the police, they’ll help sort him out. They’ll show her dad how important his opinion is”, he advised in his Urdu-accented English.

“That sounds a bit heavy”, I commented, “Samir probably wants to stay on good terms with his in-laws.”

This time Farid brought the salt shaker to join the pepper grinder, as if calling reinforcements.

“You know, in the past 50 years, us Pakistanis have progressed, whereas everyone who came to Britain back then seems to have frozen in time. When I went back to Pakistan last year, all of my married cousins – except one – were in love marriages. I went to a dinner party where three of my male cousins were there with their girlfriends. If that was fifty years ago, they’d have been shot”, commented Farid, as he flicked part of a chip from his pin-striped suit.

Samir evidently wasn’t listening. “It’s all because of her older sister, he wants to marry her off first.”

“This is ridiculous,” interjected Farid, “why do you pay attention to any of this religious crap?”

“It’s nothing to do with Islam - it’s rubbish tradition”, replied Samir, a little slighted by the remark.

Ultra-friendly and softly spoken, Samir is the most religious person I work with. He goes to mosque regularly and fasts quietly during Ramadan.

Farid, on the other hand, is almost anti-religious. Like Samir, he has Pakistani roots. Unlike Samir, he was born in Pakistan and lived there for thirty years.

“Well, at least you don’t have my problem,” mused Farid. “My mother won’t stop going on about me getting married. At first she was picky, saying ‘Farid, please don’t marry a Shi’a girl. If you do, I’ll kill myself’. Then she was like ‘I don’t mind if you marry a Shi’a, any Muslim’s ok’. Now she says ‘marry anything, I just want grandchildren’”.

Samir flipped his cod over and started picking at the greasy batter, I think he was getting bored of the wedding conversation. Either that or he was getting depressed.

“So why do you want to learn Arabic in Damascus?” he asked me, sending the conversation off on a new path.

“Well, you know, I’m interested in Middle East politics and I’ve spent a lot of time in the region. I want to improve my Arabic and Syria’s the place to do it. Besides, it’ll help my job prospects,” I conceded.

“Arabic and Farsi,” Farid pondered, “you could probably get a job at the Foreign Office with those skills.”

“But that would mean working for the government”, I replied, “and that’s a bit of a red line for me.”

“Oh come on.” Farid dismissed my position with a shake of his spoon. “You’ve got to get involved with power if you want to do anything. Change it from within”.

“You’re not buying into the whole work-your-way-up-from-the-inside thing are you?” I asked. “I don’t want to be another chump spinning policy designed by the politicians on top. Besides, how much foreign policy is really driven by the UK anyway? Don’t we just follow the Americans?”

Samir smiled. We’d had a related conversation that morning with one of his Welsh colleagues, Daffyd, who’d interrupted our 10-minute coffee break by clanging his tray on the table and asking the immortal opener: “so what are the prospects for peace in the Middle East, then?”

Samir had tried to dodge the question but found himself at the end of his break, halfway through saying something about US power in the world. He is a firm believer that the US ‘empire’, like all others in history, is destined to collapse at some point.

Farid replied: “This whole chat about US this and that is rubbish. You know damn well that if Palestinians were in America’s position right now they’d be doing the same thing.”

“Completely agree”, I said, sensing it as an opportunity to chat about changing global institutions - a subject I have learned to talk softly about, since most people think I’m loopy at the first mention of the topic. “What we need to do is change the structure behind the power. I think we need some sort of assembly where we can be heard irrespective of where we live or what passport we hold.”

Farid’s eyes glazed over slightly and I rapidly became paranoid about sounding like a lunatic again.

“That’ll never happen. Think of the EU and Turkey. Europeans will never accept Turks as one of their own. No matter how much you want to, you can never persuade the richer countries to share their resources with the poorer ones”.

“I’m not talking about a world government,” I replied, “just an assembly, a parliament. Besides, the EU - like any country - is defined by a created identity, ‘European-ness’. So it’s always going to need ‘non-Europeans’ to define itself by. A democratic world assembly doesn’t suffer from the same constraints. All you need to be is human.”

Farid was unconvinced. “Not everybody wants to see themselves that way. Plenty of people are happy with their national identity”.

“I know, I know. But the whole point of a world assembly is that you could choose to put your national identity first. You could still vote as a Brit, or Pakistani, along with others who feel the same way. However, if you defined yourself in other ways - as a Muslim, a Catalan, a securlarist, a European, or indeed a Halfiranian, you’d have the freedom to do so, and your ‘group’ could make itself heard in an open and democratic way. At the moment that’s not the case. It’s be British or be quiet”.

Farid was looking pensive when Samir chimed in:

“Human. That’s how I see myself. Not British or Pakistani, but human”.

Hmm, I thought to myself. Maybe it’s us mongrels and migrants who will have to get this ball rolling.

Today’s truck bomb in Baghdad has killed well over a hundred people.

In our media, it becomes just another bomb attack in Iraq - a conflict that bores us these days. Well, to jog your memory, here’s a list of major bomb attacks in Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein:

• Aug. 19, 2003 - A truck bomb wrecks U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, killing 22 people, including U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello.
• Aug. 29, 2003 - A car bomb kills at least 83 people, including top Shi’ite Muslim leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim, at the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf.
• Feb. 1, 2004 - 117 people are killed when two suicide bombers blow themselves up in Arbil at the offices of the two main Kurdish factions in northern Iraq.
• Feb. 10, 2004 - Suicide car bomb rips through a police station in Iskandariya, south of Baghdad, killing 53.
• Feb. 11, 2004 - Suicide car bomb explodes at an Iraqi army recruitment centre in Baghdad, killing 47.
• March 2, 2004 - 171 people are killed in twin attacks in Baghdad and Kerbala.
• Dec. 19, 2004 - A suicide car bomb blast in Najaf, 300 metres from the Imam Ali shrine, kills 52 and wounds 140.
• Feb. 28, 2005 - A suicide car bomb attack in Hilla, south of Baghdad, kills 125 people and wounds 130. It was postwar Iraq’s worst single blast.
• July 16, 2005 - A suicide bomber in a fuel truck near a Shi’ite mosque in the town of Mussayib, near Kerbala, kills 98.
• Sept. 14, 2005 - A suicide bomber kills 114 people and wounds 156 in a Shi’ite district of Baghdad.
• Sept. 29, 2005 - 98 people are killed in three coordinated car bomb attacks in the mixed Shi’ite and Sunni town of Balad.
• Nov. 18, 2005 - At least 74 people are killed and 150 wounded when suicide bombers blow themselves up inside two Shi’ite mosques in Khanaqin.
• Jan. 5, 2006 - Two suicide bombers kill over 120 people and wound more than 200 in the cities of Kerbala and Ramadi. Fifty-three were killed and 148 wounded in Kerbala and 70 killed and 65 wounded in Ramadi.
• July 1, 2006 - A car bomb attack at a crowded market in Sadr city, a Shi’ite district of eastern Baghdad, kills 62 and wounds 114. The Supporters of the Sunni People, a previously unknown Iraqi Sunni Muslim group claim responsibility.
• July 18, 2006 - Fifty-nine people are killed by a suicide bomb in Kufa, near Najaf, in an attack claimed by al Qaeda.
• Aug. 10, 2006 - Thirty-five people are killed and 90 injured by bomb blasts near the Imam Ali shrine in southern city of Najaf. The Jamaat Jund al-Sahaba (Soldiers of the Prophet’s Companions) group claims responsibility.
• Nov. 23, 2006 - Six car bombs in different parts of the Sadr City neighbourhood of Baghdad kill 202 people and wound 250.
• Dec. 12, 2006 - A suicide bomber kills 70 people and wounds at least 236 in Tayran Square, in central Baghdad after luring a crowd of labourers to his vehicle with promises of work.
• Jan. 16, 2007 - A car bomb and suicide bomber strike the Mustansiriya University in central Baghdad killing at least 70 people and wounding 180.
• Jan. 22, 2007 - A double car bombing at a second-hand goods market in Bab al-Sharji, a busy commercial area in central Baghdad, kills 88 people and wounds 160.
• Feb. 1, 2007 - Two suicide bombers blow themselves up at a crowded market in Shi’ite town of Hilla, killing 61 people and wounding 150.
• Feb. 3, 2007 - Truck bomb kills 105 people and wounds 225 in a busy market in central Baghdad.

Farmer Hasan Turkmen and his son Ahmad sit outside their demolished house just north of Jenin in the West Bank, September 2003. Israeli forces had arrived that very morning giving them ten minutes to clear out the house. There are no militants in the Turkmen family, their crime was to have built the house without a permit over a decade ago.

Anyone who spends any time in the occupied Palestinian territories - as I did in September 2003 and 2004 - will tell you that Israel is running an apartheid system there. Roadblocks, checkpoints, 24-hour curfews, house occupations, detention without trial are some elements of the system that never make it to our newspapers. Separate paved roads, control of water supplies, and license to carry arms are only some of the priviledges that the Israeli Settlers enjoy.

According to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, Jenin was under curfew for 3,466 hours between July 2002 and December 2004. That means about 150 days of complete shutdown; no work, no school, no leaving the house.

Curfew in the usually bustling centre of town, Jenin, September 2003:

***

One man who recognises the apartheid is former US President Jimmy Carter. He’s drawn the ire of the Israel Lobby in the US by publishing “Palestine: Peace not Apartheid” which documents his involvement in peace efforts in the ‘holy land’. It’s not a fantastic book, but what’s important is Carter’s stance, he’s obviously decided that someone needs to speak out.

Although his views are seen as toxic in the US, Carter’s standpoint has been endorsed by former Israeli minister Shulamit Aloni writing in Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s most widely circulated Hebrew daily (English Translation / Hebew Original).

Talking of speaking out, “Breaking the Silence” is a group of Israeli soldiers - past and present - who want to speak about what’s going on in the occupied Palestinian territories, particularly what they’re seeing in the Second Intifada.

This really is a fantastic interview because it describes first-hand what sorts of operations are being carried out by the Israeli forces in the West Bank and Gaza. Watch it to understand what’s going on.

And then ask yourself why you have to watch it on YouTube.

A student at Amir Kabir University in Tehran holds up a piece of paper during a visit by President Ahmadinejad that says: “Fascist president, the Polytechnic is not your place”

Fingerprinting my Taser

In November 2006, the Majles (parliament) passed a bill requiring all US visitors to Iran to be fingerprinted on entry.

It was a controversial bill, not likely to pass at all. Ahmadinejad and his government opposed it, as did many members of the Majles.

However, when footage taken on a mobile phone of an Iranian student being tasered by police at UCLA in California was released on the internet, it didn’t take long for Iranians to disseminate it to the community outside and inside Iran. The attack was denounced in the Iranian media and debated in parliament.

On November 19, over two-hundred Majles deputies condemned the beating of the Iranian student. On the same day they passed the US fingerprinting bill - despite the government’s objections.

The irony of the incident is that the student, Mostafa Tabatabainejad, is Baha’i, a persecuted minority in the Islamic Republic.

Still, it does strike me as quite crazy that a mobile phone video in LA can affect parliamentary proceedings in Tehran.

See the film below:

“Death to the Dictator”

In December, Ahmadinejad addressed students at Amir Kabir University in Tehran, where he was confronted by angry protests.

Although the hall where he gave his televised speech was largely packed-out with the government’s Basij faithful, there was a group of students at the back of the hall who burned pictures of Ahmadinejad and chanted “death to the dictator”.

Pro-government media has tried to say that the dissenting group was a tiny minority of the student body. However, in a repressive state where the price of protest is high, such demonstrations are taken seriously by everyone.

I like the way Ahmadinejad’s response was similar to what Blair says every time he’s confronted with a protest:

“I am not surprised, because there is such a free atmosphere in the university environment that these incidents can happen.”

As the students later wrote in an open letter, December 12 2006 will be remembered as “a day in which the university loudly proclaimed that it was alive”

Official TV footage:

Mobile video from the back of the hall:

Demonstration outside the gates (chanting “death to the dictator”):

Dirty Dancing

Finally, on a more humorous note, a Vice-President of Iran, Rahim Moshai, has been busted for watching women sing and dance.

On a visit to Turkey to an Organisation of the Islamic Conference event, he was invited to watch a display of dancing which included women with their hair uncovered.

While this wouldn’t be a problem is most other parts of the world, Rahim Moshai’s government is responsible for forcing men and women to celebrate separately at events such as weddings, lest the men catch a racy glimpse of a dancing lady, or indeed hear her sing.

So when a video of the incident hit the internet it sparked outrage in parts of the Iranian media and even precipitated calls for Rahim Moshai’s resignation. The Iran News website, which originally posted the video, had its managing director detained and its site blocked.

Mr Vice-President, shame on your loose morals!

See extremely explicit video below:

Here’s him arriving at the conference

And here’s the “unislamic” dancing

The Assembly of Experts is important for one reason: it selects the Supreme Leader, for life, from among its members.

This election won’t be very interesting, since competition has been eliminated by the vetting of candidates by the Guardian Council (the un-elected 12-member supreme legislative body).

Public participation in the ballot has historically been very low - last time under 10%. With the decision to hold both this election and the local council elections concurrently, the government hopes to boost voter-turnout.

The local council election is different. Those elected have access to real money, and in the case of the Tehran City Council, significant amounts of it.

It should be remembered that Ahmadinejad and friends emerged onto the political scene in 2003 after winning the Tehran municipal elections. It was from that influential position that Ahmadinejad launched his successful bid for the presidency in 2005.

The Political Landscape

Political parties and groups abound in Iran, and trying to understand them can be a real headache.

It’s easier to think of politics in Iran in terms of movements and personalities. Parties have very little grassroots support and therefore tell us little .

The two main movements or political camps in Iran are the Conservatives (part of who now refer to themselves as Principlists) and the Reformists.

The divide, ultimately, is about democratic representation in Iranian politics. The Reformists want more - through greater parliamentary power and a freer press, while the Conservatives fear that these things will lead to greater foreign influence in Iran and the dissolution of the ideals of the Revolution.

Politicians may also have other priorities, such as an inclination towards free-market economic models or support for social conservatism. However, there is no doubt that this overriding division - between Reformists and Conservatives - has shaped Iranian politics for the past decade.

1997 and the Reformists

Mohammad Khatami, Iran’s only Reformist president, was elected by a landslide in 1997. Despite short-term successes by the Reformists in liberalising the media and attempting to engage internationally, the Conservative elements in the regime, in particular the Supreme Leader Khamanei and the Guardian Council, blocked many of the reforms.

As the popular frustration at the lack of progress on reform combined with a perceived weakness in Khatami to really push for change, Reformists and the voters who supported them became disaffected with the political process.

July 1999 saw the largest public unrest since the Revolution, as thousands of students demonstrated for democratic reform. Following days of instability and tension, Khatami was under pressure from both the students pushing for democratisation and the regime’s Conservatives who threatened radical counter-measures to crush the dissent. Khatami’s ultimate decision to appeal for calm and stand against the students - who had been among his strongest supporters - was seen by many as a betrayal.

Khatami was re-elected in 2001 with a diminished mandate. The Reformists continued to shed supporters, as voters blamed them for their inability to push for real change. Khatami claimed that his hands were tied by the Conservative establishment; his critics charged that he could have done more, using his unique position as President.

Either way, the Reform movement was on its last legs in 2003 when many voters didn’t bother to turn up to the local elections and Ahmadinejad and his ideological allies were voted into the Tehran City Council. These Conservatives went on to make large gains in the parliamentary election a year later, and win the presidential election a year after that.

Ahmadinejad and the Principlists

The 2005 Presidential election marked the formal end to the Reformist administration.

Iran today is under the administration of a new political grouping. This branch of the Conservative movement, which count Ahmadinejad among their number, are young, radical and pious.

Referring to themselves as “Principlists”, in reference to their adherence to the ideals of both Islam and the Revolution, they see many problems in today’s Iran. However, their prescription for these ailments is a return to Revolutionary principles, not a reform away from them, as Khatami and the Reformists were advocating.

Ahmadinejad and his allies comprise what could be referred to as the ‘foot soldiers’ of the Revolution. Veterans of the Basij (the government’s youth militia) and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (the elite ideological wing of the military), these Principlists spent much of their adult life fighting in the Iran-Iraq war. They have invested a great deal in the “success” of the Revolution.

What makes these Principlists fundamentally different to other Conservatives is the class dimension of their discourse. Principlists in general are not members of the clerical establishment - Ahmadinejad was the first non-cleric to become President - rather they hail from the religious working class.

Although foreign media emphasise the elements of Ahmadinejad’s speeches that refer to Israel or the Iranian nuclear programme, it is his economic agenda that makes him popular among certain parts of Iranian society.

Ahmadinejad’s electoral pledge to “bring the oil revenue to the people’s tables” is not only a promise to the rural poor that they have not been forgotten; it is a promise to address the corruption responsible for Iran’s squandered natural resources. The Principlists are well aware that this corruption extends to parts of the traditional Conservative establishment.

So while the Principlists’ adherence to the ideals of the Revolution and the absolute rule of the Supreme Leader puts them at odds with the Reformists, it is their revulsion of economic corruption that pits them against members of their own Conservative movement.

Rafsanjani: a dangerous enemy to have

Nowhere is this loathing stronger than towards Rafsanjani, whom Principlists see as the epitome of clerical excess and corruption.

Rafsanjani’s wealth is a source of much political discussion in Iran, and in many shared taxis or bread queues you can hear people talking about his dubious wealth.

Whether any of it is true is hard to say in the opaque Iranian economic system; however, it is hard to find any Iranian who is not convinced of Rafsanjani’s shady millions (or indeed billions).

A former president of Iran (1989-1997), Rafsanjani is the current deputy chairman of the Assembly of Experts and the head of the powerful Expediency Council, a body that both mediates between the Guardian Council and Parliament and also advises the Supreme Leader. He is close to the current Supreme Leader Khamanei and was a trusted aide to Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, who appointed him commander-in-chief of the armed forces in the last year of the Iran-Iraq war. Many observers believe he is a strong candidate to succeed Khamanei as the Supreme Leader.

In short, Rafsanjani is an extremely powerful man.

As such, these hostile Principlist sentiments would have meant little to Rafsanjani before August 2005. However, when Ahmadinejad defeated him in a head-to-head runoff to become president, the animosity could no longer be ignored. The humiliation of losing to the little-known Tehran Mayor in his shabby coat must have shaken this political behemoth.

Over the past year, signs of this rivalry between the Principlists and Rafsanjani have become increasingly apparent. Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazi, the arch-fundamentalist cleric who is seen as the ideological mentor to Ahmadinejad and his allies, has been making his hostility known to Rafsanjani.

In June, at a major speech in Qom, the heartland of the country’s clergy, Rafsanjani was heckled by Mesbah-Yazdi’s students, who accused him of being an “appeaser” and a “counter-revolutionary”. Rafsanjani, visibly shocked by this public affront by protesters in clerical robes, ended his televised speech early and cancelled subsequent appearances and interviews.

This animosity towards Rafsanjani was further confirmed when an electoral list for the Assembly of Experts was released under the name of “the friends of Mesbah-Yazdi” which did not include Rafsanjani or his powerful ally Rohani among their candidates. Both these personalities are on the Conservative and Reformist lists, which is more evidence of the Principlists separating themselves from the main Conservative bloc.

Finally, and most relevant to the upcoming election this Friday, Principlists stand divided in the Tehran City Council elections, once again because of Rafsanjani.

The current Tehran Mayor Ghalibaf, who considers himself a Principlist, has been shunned by the more extreme elements of the group who criticise him, among other things, for appointing Rafsanjani’s son as Manager of the Tehran Metro. This division among the Principlists leaves them vulnerable ahead of the local elections and has dominated the Iranian media in the run-up to Friday’s ballot.

Reformists court their new friend?

Ever since Rafsanjani’s public humiliation in Qom, Reformists have been adapting to the possibility of adopting this new enemy of the Principlists, or the extreme Conservatives, as one of their own.

Seen until very recently as a regime stalwart and a Conservative, Rafsanjani has been an awkward ally for some Reformists.

However, Reformists are using defence of Rafsanjani as a means to attack their Principlist enemies. By criticising Rafsanjani’s critics, Reformists are able to vent their frustration with the current administration while hiding behind Rafsanjani’s position.

The pro-government press finds it harder to attack the Reformists if it means criticising Rafsanjani in the process. It is still a dangerous game for anyone to attack the powerful man publicly.

Rafsanjani’s conversion to a Reformist figure is still very much in process. However, his endorsement of the Reformist coalition in the local elections is a major step in that direction.

What this means for Iranian politics is still hard to say; however, this rift between the Principlists and traditional Conservatives, including Rafsanjani, could shape Iranian politics for years to come.

Unity, Disunity and Friday’s Election

The Reformists, unlike the Principlists, have achieved unity for the first time in years, with all the Reformist groups running a joint list. The minor exception is Karrubi, the former parliamentary speaker, who while technically running a separate list for his National Trust Party, has been persuaded by Khatami to list identical candidates to the official Reformist Coalition.

Faced with this unprecedented Reformist unity, the Principlist bickering could damage both their - and Ahmadinejad’s - standing in government. A significant defeat in Friday’s election would dent the popular support that Ahmadinejad has been claiming since the 2005 presidential election.

However, this prediction relies on one unpredictable variable: voter turnout.

If Iranians choose to boycott the ballot-box, something they have been doing increasingly since Khatami’s first election in 1997, then the Principlists can expect to win again.

If Iranians decide that these elections do provide a worthwhile opportunity for change, however slight, then they may vote in larger numbers, almost certainly for the Reformists.

So, in summary, what to look out for (in order of interest):

• Who wins the Tehran City Council?
• What is the voter turnout?
• What are the relative Reformist/Principlist gains?
• What the various individuals and groups say in the heat of the election, and
• What is the position of the various groups on the results?

While the Western media seems preoccupied with Tehran’s “Holocaust Conference” – which garners little interest among people in Iran – if you want to know what’s happening in the generally opaque world of Iranian politics, Friday will provide a rare opportunity to find out.

**

I appreciate this article is going to be a oversimplification for some, since Iranian politics is not exactly straightforward. However, I was trying to explain to those with little knowledge of Iranian politics that there is movement beneath Iran’s authoritarian veneer. There are forces for change, even if all the actors look disturbingly similar to the foreign eye. Go ahead and ask any questions and I’ll try and answer them. I’m no expert, but with the depressingly low level of public knowledge about the politics of such a “high priority” country, I think that anything can help.

In the past week, Mohammad Khatami and Jack Straw have both called for British citizens to prioritise their ‘Britishness’. Halfiranian asks why.

Last Wednesday night, I went to hear the ex-president of Iran, Mohammad Khatami, give a talk entitled ‘Tolerance, Moderation and the Dialogue of Civilizations’.

I wasn’t that interested in the subject of his talk, I was more excited to see what kind of man Khatami really is. Unlike the demonstrators outside Chatham House, who see him as just another mullah in a theocracy with blood and torture on its hands, I left the discussion with a positive impression of the guy.

Sure, I think he’s a spineless bureaucrat for never once putting his career - let alone life - on the line for the reformist movement while in power. But at the same time, after seeing him talk, at least now I’m convinced he stands in the right place. He does believe in genuine peaceful reform, even if he doesn’t have the balls to really push for it.

I’m babbling slightly though. What really struck me about his talk was his statement about British identity. In a reply to a question from a World Service reporter about the veil (yawn) in the UK, Khatami addressed Muslims in Britain, saying: “don’t think you are Muslim; you are British first of all”.

I must say, it did surprise me to hear that from a representative of the Islamic Republic. However, perhaps it was naive of me to expect any state leader (past or present) to promote the primacy of anything other than a state identity.

The next day, Thursday, Jack Straw made similar statements about identity at an “inter-faith conference” at UCL. Straw was concerned that people had come to see themselves “more in terms of their cultural, ethnic, national, gender or religious affiliations”, the BBC quoted him as saying.

He went on to say that “Britishness” could provide “common values”, such as liberty, tolerance and the rule of law, adding that a “stronger sense of shared British identity” was needed.

But why?

Why do Khatami and Straw say that we need to be more British? Straw implies that it’s to compensate for the “erosion of [a] collective sense of community”, resulting from our diminished “sense of class” over the past 50 years (is that not a good thing?).

But is promoting “Britishness” really the best we can do? Surely, we have to think about what our common identities are first, and then create political institutions to accommodate them - not the other way round.

What is it - if anything - that unifies British citizens under one identity? Was this identity changed by the inclusion of Northern Ireland into the mix a couple of hundred years ago? What if we chopped off Wales (only joking), or added Brittany?

Next time someone talks about “Britishness”, think really hard about what they’re talking about. Better still, ask them to define it. See if they can do better than the hopeless job by the Telegraph.

Tell me if I’m being excessively cynical, but to me “Britishness” is nothing more than a political identity (same as Iranian-ness). Straw himself admits that it’s not a national identity, saying “there are Scottish, English and Welsh nations” (in the same way as there are Kurdish, Baluch and Persian nations - to name but a few - in Iran).

By trying to define (and enforce) Britishness, we are desperately seeking to explain a system where “we” as Britons are treated differently to foreigners. We need to define our differences from non-British citizens, otherwise the justification for preferential treatment disappears.

If we didn’t do that - i.e. consider ourselves different to foreigners - things would start to go awry. We might start caring as much about the Iraqi victims of violence as we do about the July 7th bombing victims in “our own” London. We might start being concerned as much for children with HIV in Africa as we do for those in the North-East of England.

Neglecting a state identity risks exposing a huge lie about the way we all live our comfortable lives.

Without Britishness, we wouldn’t be talking about “turkey twizzlers” in UK schools, but about the 100 million children who don’t go to school.

Without Britishness, we wouldn’t be moaning about NHS waiting-lists, but doing something about the 10 million children who die of preventable diseases every year.

Without Britishness, we wouldn’t be questioning Romania’s right to join the EU, but questioning our ‘right’ to a veto in the Security Council.

Without Britishness, we would have no reason to have passports which provide us access to places where others cannot go.

Without Britishness, we wouldn’t tolerate locking people up and deporting them simply because they want to share our opportunities.

Without Britishness, if a foreigner could do your job better than you, what argument would you use to stop her?

Without Britishness, we are forced to see our country for what it is. A racist club designed to maintain our arbitrary privileges.

That is why we need Britishness. Because without it, we are reduced to humans. And nobody seems to want that.