Palestine

February 19, 2008

Israel – Palestine on Record: How the New York Times Misreports Conflict in the Middle East

When Israel was occupying much of southern Lebanon in 1984, I recall reporting, in a paragraph or two in a larger story, that I’d just been in a trashed Shi’ite village where, amongst other things, a car had been run over by an Israeli tank. That evening I received a checking query from New York. […]


November 12, 2007

Comicbook journalism

War reporter cartoonist Joe Sacco is interviewed in the Star Tribune. Socca has cartooned from Palestine to Bosnia and, most recently, Iraq, I certainly wondered how seriously I would be taken when I started “Palestine.” First of all, comics at the time were still dismissed by the mainstream. And comics about Palestinians? Here was a […]


August 31, 2007

You too can be Hassan Nasrallah

That’s right, you too can be the leader of Hezbollah. The Lebanese group have entered the world of video gaming bringing the frontline to a living room near you. No surprises for guessing who the enemy is, The Lebanese armed group Hezbollah has launched a new computer game with Israel as the enemy. Special Force […]


March 1, 2007

Intifada: The Long Day of Rage (2)

In the foreword to this perceptive and timely book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, David Pratt notes that amid the hatred and bitterness it has generated over the decades, both warring communities cling resolutely to “their respective narratives of victimhood.” Put another way, each has its own version of the events that have locked them together […]


March 1, 2007

Intifada: The Long Day of Rage (1)

The first boy was shot at around three o’clock. He was carried past, trying to be brave but sobbing with the pain of his shattered elbow. The next was shot 15 minutes later. The third was shot about 45 minutes after that. By early evening I had counted six seriously injured teenagers loaded into the […]


September 26, 2006

On Release

You just know when the Head of News for the company your husband freelances for tracks you down at a Damascus hotel late in the evening that he’s not ringing to offer you a job. You know as the unfamiliar TV executive hastily introduces himself that he’s calling you with extremely bad news. Probably to […]