Jeremy Hardy versus the Israeli Army

national | miscellaneous | news report Tuesday April 15, 2003 09:45 by kokomero

Photographic/Film evidence of shoot-to-kill policy against Peace Activists

If you have ever heard that stuff about nervous soldiers panicking under pressure, I particularly urge you to see this film. You will never see a soldier under less pressure than the man who decided to open up on us. You will see Kunle and Lillian, our designated negotiators, walk forward with arms outstretched to approach the armoured personnel carrier. Kunle was hit in three places. Their "crime"? ISM activists ride in Red Crescent ambulances. They help farmers who try to labour in the shadow of Israeli settlements and their violent occupants. They remove roadblocks so that people can go about their business. They run playgroups. Taking verbal and physical abuse from from settlers, police and soldiers.

Four days in hell

Checkpoint shootings and tanks outside the hotel ... Jeremy Hardy on what happened when he went filming in the West Bank

Tuesday April 15, 2003
The Guardian

Last April, I had occasion to be evacuated from Bethlehem by the British Consulate. It wasn't the first evacuation I had experienced that week - an Israeli tank muzzle outside your hotel bedroom window is an excellent purgative. The invasion of the city began two nights earlier, on Easter Monday. As it progressed, the various consulates decided to remove as many of their nationals as were prepared to leave, and I was one. We were trapped in the hotel and the consul told me if we didn't leave now, it might be weeks before he could get another car into Bethlehem. So I was relieved when two Range Rovers pulled up. I was further relieved not to be an American. The US consulate sent the CIA in armoured limousines, and their agents had helmets, flak jackets and guns. Our man had driving gloves. And travel sweets.
I had arrived on Good Friday to make a documentary about the International Solidarity Movement. I was on the plane when Ariel Sharon announced his intention to reoccupy the entire West Bank. Leila Sansour, the producer, had said I would not be put in any danger. The look on her face when she met me at the Bethlehem checkpoint told me she knew it had been a rash promise.

The idea was that I should join the ISM and take part in its usual activities. But with tanks at the edge of the city, our options were limited. On previous trips, actions had involved demonstrations but also practical help. The presence of internationals affords locals some protection. Activists ride in Red Crescent ambulances. They help farmers who try to labour in the shadow of Israeli settlements and their violent occupants. They remove roadblocks so that people can go about their business. They run playgroups. They bear witness. And they take a fair amount of verbal and physical abuse from settlers, police and soldiers. The group I was with was the first to sustain bullet wounds, as we marched cheerfully to Beit Jala that Easter Monday. Since then, other ISM activists have been shot - most recently, Tom Hurndall on Friday. And last month, Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by a Caterpillar bulldozer.

Fortunately, none of us was killed last year, although several were injured. An Australian friend is still carrying bits of a bullet in her stomach. And if you have ever heard that stuff about nervous soldiers panicking under pressure, I particularly urge you to see this film. You will never see a soldier under less pressure than the man who decided to open up on us. You will see Kunle and Lillian, our designated negotiators, walk forward with arms outstretched to approach the armoured personnel carrier. Kunle was hit in three places.

That night, we knew the Israelis were going to take the city. Most activists volunteered to stay in the refugee camps, which, I firmly believe, prevented a massacre. The rest of us did media work in the hotel and, on Wednesday night, some of us took the chance to escape with our consulates. My premature departure made one thing certain: I would have to go back to Palestine to finish the film.

When I returned in July, the wrecking of Leila's hometown, and the destruction of the whole fabric of Palestinian life, had turned the completion of the film into a mission for her. I didn't want to disappoint her. She has a way of getting people to do things. She fixes you with pained and hopeful eyes, and although she doesn't actually use the words, "the suffering of my people", you know she will if you don't agree.

We were based in Jerusalem, from where ISM activity was directed. Bethlehem was under curfew like most of the West Bank. But Leila is an ingenious planner and managed to find a Russian-speaking cabbie who knew a Russian soldier at the checkpoint. She is fluent in the language, and her Russian mother lives in Beit Jala, so she was able to blag our way through the checkpoint on the basis of a family visit.

The contrast with Easter was stunning. For all the menace in the air before the incursion, there had been a frenzy of human activity. Now everyone seemed to have vanished and nothing moved but armoured cars. Except, that is, in the refugee camps. Despite being besieged in the camps, the residents were able to move about. We visited Dheisha, a camp that had seen its fair share of suffering (including the shooting of a young stonethrower the previous week), but still seemed to have some kind of life.

We stayed the night with a Palestinian family. I began with perhaps the most stupid question I could have mustered: "Have you ever been to England?" Palestinian women have a way of looking at you that says: "Are you uniquely stupid, or is it a male thing?" But I think I redeemed myself when the baby took a shine to me. Apparently they sometimes ask after Mr Jeremy.

We visited Leila's mum, an elegant and gracious widow living alone in Beit Jala, hospitable as ever and remarkably serene considering the chaos of her adopted country. It seemed fatuous to ask Leila what it's like to have to break curfew to pop in on your mum and see that she's OK.

In fact, it was hard through all of this not to feel quite useless - which is why I was glad that, back in Jerusalem, I was able to join in with a successful action. I was also heartened that it was organised by Israelis, the Ta'ayush peace group, who booked a convoy of coaches to take medical supplies into the West Bank town of Salfit. This is my favourite part of the film, probably because we did something helpful and practical that involved a direct challenge to the military occupation. Having said that, I am gratingly chirpy at this point in the film. Perhaps, being a middle-aged man on a coach trip, I was impelled to make a daft joke every few seconds. That is tangential to the wider issues, obviously, but I want to make clear that I'm aware of it before anyone sees the film.

My four days were up, so I headed home. I had no idea what the film would look like but, having seen it, I'm proud. Not of myself - except as an intriguing study in bewilderment - but of Leila, and of the activists the film shamelessly champions. I'm sure no broadcaster will touch it. I just hope it doesn't spawn the idea for a series called I'm a Celebrity - Evacuate Me.

· Jeremy Hardy versus the Israeli Army is screened at the Bloomsbury Theatre, London WC1, on April 23 and 24. Box office: 020-7388 8822.