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[MIDDLE EASTERN MUSIC PLAYING]
ALEX MILLER: So a few weeks ago, we got a call from the
Palestinian government.
They were wondering if we were interested in coming over to
cover Palestinian Youth Week which is sort of a week of
sports and arts and culture.
Also it's a celebration of the young glory of
the Palestinian youth.
They're offering to fly us over and put us up in a five
star hotel.
And we were like what the hell is going on?
This is Palestine.
Don't they have better and more important things to spend
their money on than us?
But apparently, they'd don't.
And we're here to find out what Palestinian
Youth Week's all about.
Or maybe sack off and just have a look
at the rest of Palestine.
Just in case you don't know what's going on in Palestine--
and if you've don't, I suggest watching the news at some
point-- the place is split into two.
One is the Gaza Strip.
It's the angry place where Hamas recently traded rockets
with Israel.
The second place, where we were going, is the West Bank.
It's inside the West Bank that the Israelis are always
building settlements, settlements which are illegal
under international law.
Still though, it's definitely the more
chilled out part of Palestine.
The bits of the West Bank that haven't been taken over by the
Israelis are run by the Palestinian Authority, a
government with ambitions of being recognized on the global
stage and whom aim to do this by maintaining stability and
acting like any other government.
We'd heard that a lot of Palestinians resented the PA
and saw them as an arm of Israeli rule.
West Bankers were complaining that the PA's commitment to
peaceful protest was a cop-out.
And the bureaucratic non-events like the National
Youth Week detracted from the struggle of
the Palestinian people.
We'd been told that our five star hotel was going to be the
headquarters of National Youth Week.
But when we arrived, we were the only people there.
Where are all the kids with boxing gloves doing kick ups
and finger paintings?
I think that we were asked to come here because there's
basically a big kind of PR campaign to change the way
people see Palestine so that people stop thinking of it as
this kind of depressing goiter in the face of Israel and
start to think of it as its own state, its own kind of
cosmopolitan, exciting place with cool young people who
listen to Coldplay and drink lattes.
The guy running the show was Jibril Rajoub.
He used to be Yasser Arafat's right hand man and has spent
17 years in Israeli jails for his major roles in decades of
violent Palestinian resistance.
But these days, he's the Youth and Sports Minister.
Surely he'd be able to explain to us exactly what this Youth
Week was supposed to be.
ALEX MILLER: And what kind of events are in Palestinian
Youth Week?
ALEX MILLER: So apparently, Palestinian Youth Week was a
real thing.
The next morning, it began in earnest as we travelled to a
state building and witnessed what was, without a doubt, the
weirdest celebration of Palestinian youth imaginable--
40 unidentified Japanese people dancing to the
Palestinian national anthem and waving a flag.
-We are Japanese.
[APPLAUSE]
[SINGING]
ALEX MILLER: It was followed by long, passionate speeches
of which I could not understand a word.
Let's be honest, Palestinian National Youth Week kind of
sucked and everyone there was about 60 so we ran away to try
and find out what the kids in Palestine were actually doing.
We're on our way to Balata, the largest refugee camp in
the West Bank.
So far, most of the bluster about Palestinian Youth Week,
whatever that might be, is that it's going to be a
peaceful thing.
And generally, trying to reinvent the Palestinian
protest movement as one that can appeal to an
international community.
I mean, there have been no suicide bombings since 2008.
It seems to be supported, but bubbling under the surface, is
still this fury.
I mean, only yesterday, rockets were fired from Gaza
and the same fury bubbles in the West Bank.
-[SPEAKING ARABIC]
ALEX MILLER: Does the situation make you angry?
I mean, how do you feel about the Israelis surrounding you?
-[SPEAKING ARABIC]
ALEX MILLER: How old were his cousins when they were
martyred?
-[SPEAKING ARABIC]
ALEX MILLER: Like cowboys and Indians?
-Yeah.
ALEX MILLER: What do you guys expect your
future to look like?
ALEX MILLER: To be honest, the camp, surrounded by military
outposts, is not an ideal place to grow up.
It's not hard to see why so many of these kids go on to be
involved in the Palestinian Resistance.
What's really remarkable about the landscape here is that
there's so little on them, partly because the Israelis
don't let the Palestinians do anything with their land.
So you just have these enormous swaths of land
without any crops or habitation or
anything like that.
It just seems like such a waste.
Up there on the mountains is a settlement.
That is the cause of a lot of international trouble.
They've all got solar panels on their roofs.
Very confusing for liberals.
We're on our way to Hebron, a town that's heavily populated
with settlers and is one of the most contested areas of
land in Palestine.
We were there to meet a guy called Issa, who we'd heard
lives next door to a recently occupied building.
ALEX MILLER: What happens if you do?
You're arrested?
ALEX MILLER: Really?
ISSA AMRO: Yeah.
ALICE WAGSTAFFE: Move over this way.
ISSA AMRO: Why?
-OK.
ALEX MILLER: Will move in and take it?
ALEX MILLER: Do the kids around here go to school or--?
ALEX MILLER: These guys over my shoulder are the IDF and
like 20 meters away from our pal's house, they're like
stationed because there's a kind of house under dispute at
the moment as to whether it belongs to the settlers or
some Palestinians.
What do you think would happen if you walked across there and
tried to shake the soldier's hand?
ALEX MILLER: Yeah.
ALEX MILLER: Excuse me.
Hi.
Is it possible for us to talk to somebody?
ALEX MILLER: OK.
ALEX MILLER: OK.
ALEX MILLER: OK.
ALEX MILLER: Could you just tell me how long, maybe,
you've worked in this area?
ALEX MILLER: Right then, Issa got a call.
We'd later find out it was from the police.
ALEX MILLER: And this is why he got arrested.
A bunch of sympathetic National Youth Week guests are
acting out in front of the military.
Issa didn't seem to be doing much wrong at all.
[PRAYER CALLING]
ALEX MILLER: So I'm listening to the largest call to prayer
I've ever heard which sounds like it's coming from every
single angle.
I wonder how it makes the settlers feel because it
sounds like an enormous kind of wail from the earth, a
reminder that this land isn't Israeli, it's Palestinian.
The next day, we headed to Nablus.
We were looking for people who disagreed with the peaceful
methods of the Palestinian Authority, people who
subscribe to more extreme versions of protests.
But first, we wanted to see just how people thought the PA
had been politicizing peace.
So we went to see out contact, Mohammed.
ALEX MILLER: Yeah.
ALEX MILLER: So can you explain to us who the guy
we're going to go meet is?
ALEX MILLER: In 2012, Palestinians in Israeli
prisons took part in a mass hunger strike.
These hunger strikers are seen as figureheads for those
looking to protest the Israeli occupation peacefully.
HASSAN SAFADI: [SPEAKING ARABIC]
ALEX MILLER: He let us come into the house and kind of
walk through this amazing little house and we had a
very, very serious interview with him.
His house is like a shrine.
The streets are like a shrine.
His photo is absolutely everywhere.
He's really become a celebrity.
And when we came downstairs and there were like 25 white
people sitting very penitently.
They're part of a kind of tourist trade of going around
and finding out about the troubles.
The atrocity exhibition, I guess it is.
ALEX MILLER: Oh what, they want to go and see the pretty
stuff and he's like, no, no, no.
Let's go and see the real--
ALEX MILLER: Mohammed's hooked us up with a friend of his.
He used to be an Islamic Jihad.
Of all the different types of protests we've seen today,
this is the most extreme.
-[SPEAKING ARABIC]
ALEX MILLER: If you witness the PA trying to talk to young
people, encourage them to do nonviolent resistance, will
you talk to the young people and try and encourage them to
be violent in their resistance?
-[SPEAKING ARABIC]
ALEX MILLER: And do you still believe that the violent
resistance is the only answer to the Israeli occupation?
-[SPEAKING ARABIC]
ALEX MILLER: We'd just got back to Ramallah when we got a
surprising call saying that there was, tonight, being led
by Palestinians for Dignity and another bunch of youth
movements, a tutorial on lessons for engagement, rules
of engagement for young Palestinians who are going to
be involved in tomorrow's protest.
Actually, inside a nondescript restaurant in a derelict area
of Ramallah, what we found was about 150 international
protesters attending what seemed to be a how-not-to-die
protest master class led by Palestinian veterans.
ALEX MILLER: So we just walked into this restaurant not
expecting very much and instead there's about 150
people from all around the world and a guy standing on
one table explaining to all of these volunteers what exactly
to do if you get arrested.
They separated the groups into those who were willing to be
arrested, those who weren't willing to be arrested and
they were teaching them how not to get shot, how not to
get beaten up.
I went and stood with the ones who are happy to be arrested
and they were going through again and again and again what
bits of paper they should sign, what they should say,
how they should bring their consulate's number, how they
should bring a lawyer's number.
And so [INAUDIBLE].
They've got integrity.
They're really happy to put themselves in the line for
this cause which, by geography, isn't theirs, but
they really believe, by morality, is.
But now we know the plans for tomorrow and you know what?
All Jibril's plans seem to be real.
I mean, there actually seems to be some demonstrations
going on tomorrow.
There's been a warning by the Israeli authorities that no
Israelis can take part in it, otherwise they'll suffer
serious repercussions.
So yeah, now it's suddenly looking like tomorrow
might be a big day.
It certainly will be for the arrestables.
Last night, we went to this restaurant where there was
this massive meeting happening.
And in there, there were loads of kind of international
activists and observers and they've all been dotted off
around the West Bank to protest.
But then afterwards, we found out that they were being used
as a diversion because they would have depleted the
Israeli troops.
So we're at the real protest in Bil'in with a few of the
arrestable internationals and a bunch of pretty passionate
Palestinians.
Be nice if we had a gas mask between us.
The protesters' plan was basically to bum around in a
convoy of about 30 vans and cars shutting down the
motorways leading to Israeli settlements.
We might be getting close.
We just hit the motorway.
I don't know if this is the road that they're
going to try and stop.
Yeah, here we go.
Here we go.
This is the road we're trying to stop.
Check it out.
It's a massive *** motorway.
-Watch out!
ALEX MILLER: OK.
They're already tear gassing.
We've been here for about 30 seconds and they're already
dropping off some *** gas.
Yeah.
Looks like they're not *** around.
They seem to have successfully shut down the motorway.
I guess we're going to see what the
retaliation is going to be.
There we go.
There's the retaliation.
Loads of *** of tear gas.
I'm got to say, it's a pretty
successful dispersion technique.
Everyone's gone back now.
There's still firing more gas.
Yeah, they're just firing loads and loads of gas at us.
All right.
So the convoy are all heading down there.
(SINGING) Convoy.
There's a lot of confusion at the moment.
A lot of people milling and [INAUDIBLE]
cars.
A lot of people shouting.
The guy in the car is an Israeli settler.
He was holding his own personal demonstration against
the protesters by driving backwards and forwards through
their march.
-[SPEAKING ARABIC]
ALEX MILLER: OK.
So we're just kind of speeding around these bumpy roads.
I've got no idea where we're going.
There's a whole bunch of protesters down there stopping
the traffic, being pretty direct with them.
I guess we're jumping out.
All right.
So they've succeeded.
They've managed to lock down the road.
They've put chains over it at two spots.
I don't know how long it's going to be before the army
show up and start gassing everyone.
They're not actually trying to disrupt everything for an
incredibly long amount of time.
It's we can lock down this road because we have some kind
of authority within ourselves.
[CHANTING]
ALEX MILLER: Do you know where the army are?
-Huh?
ALEX MILLER: Do you know where the army are?
ALEX MILLER: Which direction is that?
Is that them?
ALEX MILLER: Army.
[CHANTING]
ALEX MILLER: The army moved in and everyone fell
back onto the buses.
Everyone's a bit confused.
It seems to be the technique is to go from spot to spot
shutting down a road, wait for the police to arrive, leaving,
shutting down the road, wait for the
army to arrive, leaving.
A mile down the road, though, the convoy was pulled over by
the military.
They've taken the keys from the car and the whole convoy
has been stopped.
I'm guessing that's the end of the protests for the day.
I'm just going to sweat to death in this
box with 500 people.
After about 30 minutes, we were let out of the van.
The protesters were ushered in one direction while we were
pushed in another.
So the vibe here is pretty hairy.
We've no idea what's going on.
I mean, our gang are disappearing over the hills.
ALICE WAGSTAFFE: Yep.
ALEX MILLER: Yeah, please.
[INAUDIBLE]
we got left.
Thank you.
Thanks very much.
So we've, luckily, found someone
who's giving us a lift.
Otherwise we would just be in the middle of the desert.
SARIT MICHAELI: I work for an Israeli human rights
organization.
We try to document demonstrations, protests in
the West Bank.
When you look at the response of the Israeli security forces
to demonstrations and protests in the West Bank, you see that
there's an exaggerated use of crowd control weapons, very
often in ways that are extremely dangerous and, in
some cases, cause injuries and death of protesters.
[SIRENS]
SARIT MICHAELI: There's a very, very extreme and
Draconian restriction on the ability to demonstrate.
So Palestinians are actually prohibited from protesting in
the West Bank by an Israeli military order that was signed
in 1967 which then obviously allows the security forces
quite a wide ability to disperse them even when
there's no violence.
ALEX MILLER: She dropped us of at a petrol station where the
protesters were regrouping.
What's happened already so far today?
ALEX MILLER: What do you hope to achieve by
chaining all the roads?
ALEX MILLER: Our convoy was just one of many West Bank
protests that day.
While we'd been getting gassed on the motorway, Jibril Rajoub
had been getting gassed in Jericho.
ALEX MILLER: And how do you think the journalist that
you've brought over for National Youth Week perceived
the events in Jericho today?
ALEX MILLER: What do you think of those who criticize the PA
who say that by encouraging peaceful protests, you're
actually playing into the hands of the Israelis?
ALEX MILLER: Rajoub may have been preaching peaceful
protest, but at this moment, in the other Palestinian
territory of Gaza, Israel and Hamas were trading missiles
with a ferocity unseen in years.
As the West Bank watched this unfold on their TVs, people
headed back onto the streets and marched towards Israeli
settlements.
They were stopped by armed members of the Palestinian
Authority fueling the criticism that the PA were
more loyal to the Israelis than they were to the
Palestinians.
[CHANTING]
ALEX MILLER: With war breaking out in Gaza, Palestinian
National Youth Week seemed a long time ago.
Instead of uniting the Palestinians in front of
global journalists, the week had highlighted the
differences between your average West
Banker and the PA.
The mood seems to suggest that the Palestinian people were
crying out for two revolutions, one against
Israel and another against the Palestinian Authority
themselves.
[MIDDLE EASTERN MUSIC]