Max Blumenthal is currently traveling in Israel/Palestine and will be contributing reports to Mondoweiss:
I was in Ni'lin today, a town in the West Bank that has been the site of weekly demonstrations against the construction of a portion of the Israeli separation wall that would effectively and deliberately annex farmland from the villagers for a nearby Jewish settlement. Each week the Israeli Army puts down Ni'lin's demonstrations in a draconian manner, escalating from the firing of teargas from surrounding hillsides to rubber bullets and live fire when they invade the town center.
Yesterday, true to form, the army set up positions in the hills above the village and began firing teargas volleys towards a cluster of about 30 demonstrators seeking to block the path of the wall's construction. I stood behind the demonstrators and filmed. Within minutes we were blanketed by teargas as canisters exploded all around us. My eyes burned until I couldn't see; I struggled to breathe as I ran down a narrow street, seeking cover behind walls. This happened over and over throughout the day. At one point the army cornered journalists and a group of demonstrators in a parking lot then appeared to pursue us until we leapt over a series of backyard walls and scattered. Afterwards the Shabab assembled at various points and began slinging rocks towards the Israeli positions.
By 3 pm I was exhausted. My head was searing with pain and my clothes were immersed in teargas residue. Most of the journalists and many of the international demonstrators had left, so I followed them out of Ni'lin, passing on my way out through an Israeli flying checkpoint that had sealed off the town's main entrance. With the media and international presence gone, Israeli forces transitioned from tear gas to live bullets.
At approximately 4:30 pm, a 12-year-old girl named Summer Amira was struck in the arm by a .22 caliber bullet from an Israeli rifle as she passed by the window of her home. She was taken to the hospital fifteen minutes later. This is nothing new for the residents of Ni'lin. The town of only 5000 residents has lost four young people to Israeli gunfire since May, including an 11-year-old boy. This is the price they pay for daring to resist the impending destruction of their farmland and the irrevocable rupturing of their community. Next week they will try again to stop the wall.
In a few days I will begin releasing video of the struggle inside Ni'lin and other footage I shot during an intensive reporting trip through the West Bank. The ISM's account of Summer Amira's shooting is here.
Thanks for being there.
Max please don't let them kill you. Your parents must be desperate with worry for you, as I am.
Maybe the occupants should do as Witty suggests and take them to court.
RE: "Eyewitness account from Ni'lin" MY COMMENT: Max Blumenthal is a superb journalist!
There goes a man much better than I. Plus, "Journalism is dead"? Perhaps if the mainstream media was actually printing news instead of propaganda and op/ed pages and pages and pages written by neocons only (goyim and jews) then perhaps journalism would not be dead. What mainstream media newspaper is Mr. Max Blumenthal writing for then… ?
This is great that Blumenthal is reporting from I-P. It this who you guys wanted to send over, or is Adam still going? I concur with the comments above.
Thanks to Max Blumenthal for making the sacrifices necessary to bring us this report. I first came across him via a video he made of an AIPAC(?) conference a couple of years ago which brought home to me the strength of the mimetic support for Zionism by some Evangelicals. Please pass on to the people who are being killed and robbed and imprisoned by the Israeli state my best wishes and prayers for deliverance.
Thanks, Max for your courage–damn, a real journalist of the old school on the Cronkite ground! Willie & Joe must be thanking you too from up there in the sky. Max certainly adds hot meat to the new international scholars' report coming out on Israeli's OPT activity, the subject of another article on this blog today. Will these subjects make it into the MSM at all? On cable TV news? Maybe a rolling blip at least scrolling across the bottom of the screen on CNN? Hopefully at least C-SPAN will have the subject on Washington Journal… Will even one congress person get up and make a one-minute speech about it? We all need to contact our congressional reps to bring it to their attention.
Max Blumenthal shines for America! Yahoo!
While you ignore the homocidal and genocidal attacks from the Palestinian Fascist regime.
Later today I will post on a series of actions around the Hebron hills to protect Palestinian farmers from settler violence and to draw attention to illegal outposts. It was a remarkable day and a relatively successful one, too. In the meantime, an update on Summer Amira: she was released from the hospital with a superficial wound to her arm. The bullet apparently ricocheted off a wall and into her house.
Max , you continue to shine the light into dark corners! You are an awesome, brave reporter! I am so glad little Summer will be OK.
Max Blumenthal is smart, naughty and utterly funny. So it will be very interesting how this context changes his videos. It feels it somehow must. I'll join your thanks for being there: Max.
Go, Max, go! Now here's a patriotic American humanist in action! We look forward to your posts!
No, do NOT ignore anything. Report everything AS IS without bias – simply write what you see. See – journalism is easy :-)
"Genocidal fascist regime" indeed. What rubbish. They are pathetic stooges for the zionist fascist regime, as everyone can clearly see.
In the US, we call this drive-by shooting and it's vilified. Why not there? Not done in cars?
ah, wolfie, that all you got?
He reported from the Christians United For Israel conference starring John Hagee. It's called "Rapture Ready" on youtube.
I have an incredible amount of admiration for Max's journalistic integrity. Blumenthal's loyalty is, first and foremost, to the citizen. He could easily make tons of money working for the corporate media but he refuses to sell out. The MSM media is never going to put a spotlight on the effects of occupation on Palestinian life (because it's not profitable for them to do so), which makes his work all the more valuable. However, I'm almost certain that Amy Goodman would give him some coverage. Keep it going!
hey, max i love your videos!!!
Max, your videos are brilliant and painfully funny. Look at this one on the War on Gaza. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FABqq_jjRRo
Is not the truth all anyone needs?
I have an incredible amount of admiration for Max's journalistic integrity. I agree, this is straight-backed work. Also, I don't think there is anything wrong with working for the corporate media and/or making good money for one's work, as long as one maintains respectable standards of journalism. I think such journalists deserve to be compensated at a higher rate precisely because they strive for excellence well beyond the average. It's obviously hard when covering anything to do with Israel. However, it is certainly possible in other areas.
so you're saying they use .22's – You do understand that just sounds silly? No real army in the world uses .22's – people who are not in armies do.
See, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.56x45mm_NATO it will tell you all you ever wanted to know about ".22" military appliances.