Caught in the Crossfire? by Dave Clinch
Caught in the Crossfire? David Clinch, 25.11.2003 23:00 Caught in the Crossfire? ‘... I reach for my pen’ Inspired by Robert Fisk’s article in the Independent Sat 2 October 2000 following the death of Mohammed al-Durah on 30 September 2000 Written Summer 2003. My only song to that date. I am a musician (Uilleann Pipes, Low Whistle, Bones, Bodhrán etc.) I decided to speak the lyrics over a 6/8 bodhrán beat. It took me a long time to work out this tribute to Mohammed Al- Durah and all Palestinians in the struggle for liberation. It was inside my head since he was murdered. I have been a long time anti war activist and a supporter of Palestine. I am a father too. The photo sequence still shocks. The song has been received well when I've performed it. NB I was reminded of the idea of 'lies' in this context by James Joyce's 'Ecce Puer' (Lo The Boy), a poem that has made a big impression on me. My father and my grandfather both went to the Jesuit run Belvedere College in Dublin where Joyce was educated after leaving the fee paying Clongowes Wood, also run by the Jesuits. Caught in the Crossfire? (With bodhrán accompaniment in 6/8 time)
Caught in the crossfire? Caught in the crossfire? Caught in the crossfire? It's a question Netzarim Junction, Gaza City Netzarim Junction, Gaza City Netzarim Junction, Gaza City
Caught in the crossfire? No way out Caught in the crossfire? No way out Caught in the crossfire? No way out
Mohammed al-Durah, twelve years old Mohammed al-Durah, twelve years old Mohammed al-Durah, twelve years old
Caught in the crossfire? We saw him cry Caught in the crossfire? We saw him cry Caught in the crossfire? We saw him cry
‘For the love of God protect me Baba’ ‘For the love of God protect me Baba’ ‘For the love of God protect me Baba’
Caught in the crossfire? Terror revealed Caught in the crossfire? Terror revealed Caught in the crossfire? Terror revealed They scream against the killing rain They scream against the killing rain They scream against the killing rain
Caught in the crossfire? The bullets strike Caught in the crossfire? The bullets strike Caught in the crossfire? The bullets strike
Dead in his father’s lap he lies Dead in his father’s lap he lies Dead in his father’s lap he lies
Caught in the crossfire? Israel lies Caught in the crossfire? Israel lies Caught in the crossfire? Israel lies
Mohammed al-Durah, 12 years old Mohammed al-Durah, 12 years old Mohammed al-Durah, 12 years old
Caught in the crossfire? Mohammed al-Durah Caught in the crossfire? Jamal al-Durah Caught in the crossfire? Amal al-Durah Caught in the crossfire? Bassam al-Babesi Caught in the crossfire? Israel lied Caught in the crossfire? Palestine
Caught in the crossfire? Caught in the crossfire? Caught in the crossfire?
Victory to the Intifada! Victory to the Intifada! Victory to the Intifada!
© David Clinch
Bassam al-Babesi was a Red Crescent ambulance driver who was shot dead trying to save Mohammed and Jamal al-Durah
Ecce Puer
Of the dark past A child is born; With joy and grief My heart is torn.
Calm in his cradle The living lies. May love and mercy Unclose his eyes!
Young life is breathed On the glass; The world that was not Comes to pass.
A child is sleeping: An old man gone. O, father forsaken, Forgive your son!
James Joyce 1932
Note: This poem was written "on the occasion of his grandson's [Stephen's] birth and soon after his father's death." (Levin) The title in Latin means "lo a boy!"
Where 'Caught in the Crossfire' Can Leave No Room for Doubt by Robert Fisk (from the 2 October 2000 issue of The Independent) When I read the word "crossfire", I reach for my pen. In the Middle East, it almost always means that the Israelis have killed an innocent person. When the Israelis fired shells into the United Nations compound at Qana in southern Lebanon in 1996, Time magazine printed a photograph of a dead baby with a caption saying it had been killed in "crossfire". This was untrue. The baby had been killed in the Israeli bombardment along with 105 other civilians which started after Hizbollah guerrillas opened fire on an Israeli army unit that was laying booby-trap mines inside the UN zone.
So when 12-year-old Mohammed Al-Durah was killed in Gaza on Saturday and I read on the Associated Press wire that the child was "caught in the crossfire", I knew at once who had killed him. Sure enough, reporters investigating the killing said the boy was shot by Israeli troops. So was his father who survived and so was the ambulance driver who was killed trying to rescue the boy. Yet BBC World Service Television was still saying yesterday morning that Mohammed Al-Durah was "caught in the crossfire of a battle that has left hundreds wounded and killed many others". I knew what this meant. True, the Israeli soldiers who killed the boy may not have known whom they hit. They were apparently firing through a wall. But why the reluctance on the part of journalists to tell the truth? Why was it that in its report from Jerusalem on Saturday, the AP only mentioned in paragraph 17, for heaven's sake, that Israeli troops, on the word of their own officer, fired anti-tank missiles during the confrontation? What was the Israeli army doing using missiles against rioters? By yesterday afternoon, the story had been transformed into a "blame" conflict. The Israelis blamed the Palestinian authority for organising riots. BBC World Service Radio ran a tape of an Israeli official stating that rioters were "shooting Molotov cocktails and stones" which "kill people". A listener might have been forgiven for thinking that 22 Israelis had been killed rather than 22 Palestinians in the previous 72 hours. The BBC then ran a tape of Nabil Shaath, the Palestinian spokesman, saying that the Israelis, not the Palestinians, had been shooting.
Truth is a hard bullet to bite. Palestinian policemen had also opened fire on the Israelis. Ironically, the Arab press in Beirut had no hesitation in saying this. The press in Lebanon showed photographs of Palestinian policemen firing Kalashnikov rifles at Israeli troops. But, given the fact that they did not kill Israelis -one of them was hit while firing- was it not worth mentioning that the Palestinians were the victims, not the Israelis?
When BBC Television got round to mentioning Ariel Sharon's flagrantly provocative visit to the Haram Al-Sharif on Thursday, they yesterday called him an "Israeli leader" when for Palestinians he was the man who bore indirect responsibility (according to Israel's own inquiry) for the massacre of up to 2,000 Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut 18 years ago. The BBC correspondent, Paul Adams, was one of the very few who bravely drew attention to Sharon's appalling record, pointing out Sharon had "an extraordinary capacity to leave [...] destruction in his wake." And so, by last night, the story had changed. No longer did Israeli soldiers and policemen kill at least 22 Palestinians in three days; now the question was whether the Palestinian Authority organized the riot that "led" to their deaths. The Israeli soldiers, who disobeyed every human rights commitment by firing on rioters with live rounds, were respectfully called the "Israeli security forces", disregarding the fact that "security" was the one thing Israeli soldiers were clearly unable to provide. On CNN and the BBC and other satellite chains, reporters were asked if the killings would upset the "peace process", with no willingness to explain that it was the collapse of the peace process which lay at the heart of the riots. The Muslim holy areas of Jerusalem were "disputed" although UN Security Council resolution 242, upon which the "peace process" is supposedly based, demands the withdrawal of Israeli forces from territories captured during the 1967 war, including East Jerusalem.
What lies behind this, apart from the sheep-like inability of many journalists to call a spade a spade, was the continuing belief that Palestinians are, by nature, violent and riotous. The United States called for an end to the "violence" this courtesy of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright without making any reference to Sharon's grotesque visit to the mosque grounds of East Jerusalem. By yesterday afternoon, the BBC were at it again, reporting that "Israeli authorities were bracing themselves for what may lie ahead". Weren't the Palestinians also doing that?