Excerpts: NPR Interview of Chris Hedges

[NeoLogiX]

Do we CARE? :'(

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Excerpts: NPR Interview of Chris Hedges

Posted on: 11/08/2001 7:40:36 AM

Chis Hedges

[Excerpts - interview with New York Times reporter Chris Hedges - NPR - Fresh Air - October 30, 2001]

Barbata BOGAEV: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Barbara Bogaev in for Terry Gross.

Let's continue our interview with New York Times reporter Chris Hedges. He's spent the past month in Spain, France and Belgium tracking Islamic terrorist networks in Europe. Hedges was The Times' Middle East bureau chief based in Cairo from 1991 to '95. During the Gulf War, he was one of the reporters captured and detained by Iraqi soldiers.

This summer he traveled to Khan Yunis, one of eight Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza. He wrote the cover story for the October issue of Harper's magazine about his experiences there. I asked him why he went to the Occupied Territories.

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Mr. HEDGES: I wanted to write a story that tried to explain why young--Palestinian young men are so willing to go into shopping malls in Israel and blow themselves up. And I also wanted to explain what it was like to be a Palestinian in one of these refugee camps in Gaza. I think that many Americans aren't aware of how horrendous life is for Palestinians and the kind of pressure that they're put under. So I didn't want to do it rhetorically. I spent seven days in the refugee camp and just wrote about what it was like on a day-to-day basis.

I picked Khan Yunis because it's surrounded on three sides in a kind of horseshoe-shaped position by Israeli military, by settlements, by Jewish settlements. And the Israeli tanks will go up on the dunes and fire into the camp. There's shooting almost every day between Palestinian gunmen and Israeli soldiers. You know, on any given day there are, you know, four or five wounded. The kids are killed all the time. There's use of live ammunition. It's a particularly brutal and horrible place. And because the Israelis can cut Gaza in half, Khan Yunis is often cut off, completely isolated from Gaza City and from the rest of the strip.

BOGAEV: Could you contrast for us life in the Jewish settlements and life in Khan Yunis?

Mr. HEDGES: It's remarkably like the raj in India. You have within these settlements--of course, they control the aquifers. There's an unlimited supply of water. They have--I went up and looked through the fence. I mean, you can see it from the camp. And it's sort of emerald-green lawns, white-washed villas with terra-cotta roofs. They have little resort hotels on the beach and horseback riding trails and swimming pools.

The camp, itself, in Khan Yunis--I mean, I did this on purpose as one of the worst, but within a stone's throw of the settlements--is one of the most crowded places on the planet. It has never been allowed to expand in size. That's not completely the Israelis' fault. When the Egyptians held Gaza, they didn't allow the camps to expand, either, but it now houses twice the number of registered refugees--almost 60,000--than it did five decades ago. And you have to remember that the Palestinian growth rate--or the population growth rate for the Palestinians is one of the highest in the world, 3.7 percent, compared with 1.7 percent in Israel.

You know, the situation for Gazans--there are 1.1 million Palestinians who live in Gaza--is such that the disparity between control over the land means that 20 percent of the territory belongs to the 16 Jewish

settlements, which have about 6,000 Jewish settlers. So, in other words, one-fifth of Gaza is in the hands of .5 percent of the people who live there.

These people can't travel. Now, because of the closure, they can't work. The average Palestinian, I think, is living on, you know--two-thirds of Palestinians are now living below the poverty line. And the--there's no hope of marriage, no hope of employment, no hope of housing. And I found that the only way for these young men finally to affirm themselves is to, essentially, become a martyr. And the whole culture is a kind of horrible necrophilia that's taken over the society where this is the way you assert who you are, which is through death.

BOGAEV: You describe daily encounters between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians there. And most of those killed are young Palestinian boys >:(. What did you see of this fighting while you were there? How did this shooting go down?

Mr. HEDGES: Well, every afternoon--you know, you could almost time it--around 3 or 4, the Palestinian kids, who have nowhere to play, would play--would go out on the dunes and they'd have kites or rag balls and this kind of stuff. And I remember--I heard it the first day. And I speak Arabic, so I'm listening over the loudspeaker to the worst curse words in Arabic, and phrases like, you know, 'All the Palestinians who live in Khan Yunis are dogs,' >:( which is calling an Arab a dog is particularly insulting. And I couldn't--I just couldn't believe what I heard.

And I walked out towards the dunes and they were--the--over the loudspeaker from an Israeli army Jeep on the other side of the electric fence they were taunting these kids. And these kids started to throw rocks. And most of these kids were 10, 11, 12 years old. And, first of all, the rocks were the size of a fist. They were being hurled towards a Jeep that was armor-plated. I doubt they could even hit the Jeep. And then I watched the soldiers open fire. And it was--I mean, I've seen kids shot in Sarajevo. I mean, snipers would shoot kids in Sarajevo. I've seen death squads kill families in Algeria or El Salvador. But I'd never seen soldiers bait or taunt kids like this and then shoot them for sport >:(. It was--I just--even now, I find it almost inconceivable. And I went back every day, and every day it was the same.

And it became, of course, a subtext to my story where I just, one, you know, kept interviewing parents and imams as to why they let the kids go. The answer being that, in essence, they couldn't control them. There was no room in the houses. There are just too many kids. I found that imams were preaching in the mosques, asking the kids not to go, but the problem is that, you know, the funerals became political events. You know, they would carry the bodies of the newest Shaheed through the camp. Hundreds of people would go along behind. They would fire their guns in the air. On the news that's all they talk about are the new martyrs. On the radio it's the same. So the kids are almost indoctrinated into this sort of culture of martyrdom, culture of death.

And it is something that many parents, who, despite, you know, the rhetoric that we often read about, 'I'm so proud my son died,' I mean, that is something totally handed out for consumption by Western--for Western reporters or outside reporters because sitting around the houses with these people with, you know, the puffy eyes and the 1,000-yard stare, it's clear that these parents are as devastated as any parents would be to lose their child. The militants take over these funerals. They put up their banners. They put up their signs. The bodies become props; a kind of political prop to make a political statement. The parents lose control of their children even in death.

BOGAEV: You talked to many Palestinians about their conception or their hope or their vision of peace. What did they say?

Mr. HEDGES: I think that, you know, my piece--I was very bleak. I don't see that--I think the Oslo agreement, the Oslo Accord signed in '93, there was a lot of hope after that. I think there was the possibility that the radical Islamic groups, such as Hamas, could have been vanquished or at least made marginal forces, if there was real economic improvement, real investment, if Arafat and the Palestinian Authority had granted real press freedom and some kind of democratic representation, which they have not. He rules the place just like the thugs who rule the rest of the Middle East. And there's such a terrible sense of betrayal and such a sense of disappointment. And life has become so much worse for Palestinians since the peace agreement was signed, since the Oslo agreement was signed, that there is now such a sort of rage and despair that I don't see that chasm being bridged. I walked away, you know, in deep despair.

BOGAEV: What insights does your experience in Gaza and the West Bank give you into the rise of militant Islam in Europe or what parallels have you drawn between these two experiences?

Mr. HEDGES: That all of this is primarily about self-destruction. That's what it's about. And when you have nothing left to live for and no hope; when you--you know, you can't even assert your own identity; when

you can't be anything other than a sort of--you know, a walking bomb or a force for violence--that what this is ultimately about is, you know, 'I'm gonna go down and I'm gonna take everyone with me.' And I think that that is a common thread, both among the radical sort of Palestinians who carry out these kind of suicide attacks, and these deeply alienated, deeply dislocated, deeply frustrated young men who drove planes into the World Trade Center.

BOGAEV: Chris Hedges, I want to thank you very much for talking with us

today.

Mr. HEDGES: Thank you.

BOGAEV: New York Times reporter Chris Hedges. He served as The Times'

Middle East bureau chief for four years in the early '90s. His article

about his trip to Gaza is the cover story for the October issue of

Harper's magazine.

[leo]

You know first came the terror attacks and only then the army went into the cities. Just in the last year Israeli army was sent back to the lines, immediately as it happened the terror attacks raised dramatically. Believe me as much as the Palestinians don’t like to be killed so are the Israelis, we don’t like our soldiers to be in those cities. However, don’t forget how it started. Every time we start making a change and move slowly from city after city there is another suicide attack.

[NeoLogiX]

bah Israel :P,

who is start & who is start ?

>:(

is't shootings child & women necessary ?

goddamn zionist >:(

[ordos45]

Flaming is not debating and discussing.

However, I can see shooting children and women as justified in certain occasions, such as when they're shooting. There have been female suicide bombers before, and children have picked up weapons before. But if they are unarmed, then no, I personally do not feel it necessary or justified.

[Acriku]

Such an easy world it would be if bullets could dodge women and children.

[thomas]

you need to see both sides, these suicide bombers are going into crowded areas and blowing themselves up killing some and mutilating dozens in a hail of shrapnel.

though I don't like tge israeli militaries approach to the situation.

[NeoLogiX]

sorry then :-X,

btw, both side have problems. When I see there was AMONG of people who countering Israel carrying bombs for suicide, in other side they ALL always carry tanks & gun.

[leo]

sorry then :-X,

btw, both side have problems. When I see there was AMONG of people who countering Israel carrying bombs for suicide, in other side they ALL always carry tanks & gun.

All the Palestinian militants (hammas, Islamic jihad, Tanzim etc….) are using guns, furthermore, in the last couple of years they actually shoot little rockets called “kasam” on our cities, and they shoot it almost every day. Only yesterday a couple was injured from those rockets in their house while watching TV.

Yes we use guns, the Palestinians use guns too, but the difference is that we use guns only to retaliate, our forces are going into the Palestinian cities only when there are terror activities (apparently the Palestinian authority is not doing anything to stop the Islamic extremists).

[NeoLogiX]

perhaps, both should be called terrorist?

So must IDF retaliate including innocent women & child ?

[Wolf]

I think the IDF is attempting to capture or neutralize those who were directly involved in the attacks, or those who were aiding them -- much the same policy the US military has taken with regard to the Insurgency.

If, in fact, the IDF is just retaliating for the hell of it... well, sorry Leo, but that would be terrorist. Or at least petty.

[TMA_1]

hmm lets see,

Israel was made a state by the international community in 48, england gave the proper agreements and so legally in the international community, israel is a sovergn nation.

The Palistinians are NOT the first native inhabitents of the land. The Canaanites are the first found peoples to populate what is now israel. The Canaanites were dispersed or killed off by attacks from the jews long long ago, and for many good reasons too. Many Canaanites survived and eventually either tried to attack israel, or melted into the population. Controlling israel became a birthright to the jews, only till the dispersion by many other nations like babylon, medo-persia, and with rome which was the final large dispersion from israel. After this with many years that passed, islam took control over the lands, and eventually became apart of islamic holy lands.

Finally the jews took it back, because it is still their birthright, that is my opinion, but it hold true with many others, since palistinians are descendents of neighboring tribes that lie around. There have been attempts of the palistinians to say they descend from Canaan, but this is absolutely silly! because like the jews, the muslims believe that the Canaanites are cursed, and would put a curse on themselves for saying such a thing, as well as the extreme lack of evidance for it. It is just a futile attempt at trying to claim and older birthright.

In the end the jews had largely international support for their move to israel. Also they took it and have secured it, making it their home and made it blume and thrive, something that it hasent had in thousands of years. They have claimed it for their own now, and have been too kind to the palistinians who have constantly been hostile to israel, and a majority of the population of the palistinians openly admit that they wish israel to be destroyed.

What do you expect? Palistinians as a majority dispise israel, and make unfair attacks at men,women and children alike. How can you say that the palistinians are the pure and only victims in the case? of course there have been horrible attacks made against them, but that is little compared to what the jews have suffered. They have tried to open up talks of peace, but there is nothing that pleases the palistinians, there have been attempts of the jews giving up more of their already small sliver of land to make a seperate palistinian state but that doesnt suffice!

Most palistinians just want israel destroyed, how else can the jewish people act against this? they have to use violence many times, do you expect the jews to just sit by an do nothing while women and children are bombed in cowardly acts?

Not all palistinians feel this way, many want peaceful resorts to all of this, but largely there is no stopping the hostilities that many palistinians put against the jews. I ask how can you call the actions of the israeli government terrorist in nature? when the people of israel are constantly attacked? they only face retaliation, and nothing can stop it it seems. And if the israelis do anything, the hostile palistinians whine and complain, trying to make the israelis look bad to the international government. They use the international community as well as terrorist action to destroy israel, so what is israel supposed to do?

[Wolf]

I found this, kind of making light of the situation, but it makes an interesting point.

http://protestwarrior.com/poster_sets/sign_24.pdf

What exactly, besides religious or traditional reasons, is the territory of Israel important?

[TMA_1]

well both feel it is their land, besides those reasons, they both feel a patriotic and needed desire to stay where they are, like all people do with their home. Also, wouldnt you want a secure place to stay for your people? Somewhere that wasent a temporary settlement? that is what the palistinians feel like many times. They feel that it isnt truly yet partly their land, they have a point, but take it too far with their actions.

[leo]

well said TMA-1. :)

[NeoLogiX]

whatever action to secure themselves is not to kill each other, :(

it's too bad the stubborn Arabs have NO choice to living or dead, hence in order to secure themselves is to kill themselves by suicide bombing, :(

As for the Jews, the foretold Testament & Koran said they are chosen to lead us. They should optimist to help others race, unlike Zionist Jews only care for being atheist.

[Acriku]

Perhaps the only option left while entirely keeping their goals and their rules.

[TMA_1]

unlike Zionist Jews only care for being atheist.

lol! whoa whoa man, cool down that stuff. A little goes too long a way. It isnt good to categorize a group like that, it is not only unfair but wrong.

Of course I could easily prove you wrong, as most of humanity's greatest theologens have been jews, hailing from many religions.

Some of my favorites is from the "dark ages". Moses Maimonides was his name. He wrote in detailed manner from things like the sacred torah, to the understanding of the one true God, to angels. a very good writer.

I am proud to call myself a zionist. Even though that name has taken on a largely racist term, I still am a strong supporter of a strong jewish nation state. As well as the temple being placed upon the temple mount. (that is controversial, as you know what sits on the temple mount now days).

Also, It is hard to be optimistic these days while living in israel. Lets face it, there is no way to find peace in the holy land, I mean it is the nature of the beast. Fighting has gone on there for thousands of years, literally. I dont see it becoming peaceful any time soon, that is until the messiah returns.

[Acriku]

Religious stories destroying your optimism TMA?

[TMA_1]

hehe, I have optimism towards the infinite and eternal. Not things that are natural errors. I see it as this. Instead of placing my trust in things that i see, but have a tendancy to screw up, I put my trust in things that I cannot see, but have said to have been perfect. I would rather put trust in something that shows perfection, than trust my imperfect senses on things that can lie to me.

enough of that, back on subject. (thanks to you acriku, you silly.lol ;) )

[NeoLogiX]

"Some of my favorites is from the "dark ages". Moses Maimonides was his name. He wrote in detailed manner from things like the sacred torah, to the understanding of the one true God, to angels. a very good writer"

but he was influence from moslem scholar (from Karen Armstrong)

"I am proud to call myself a zionist. Even though that name has taken on a largely racist term, I still am a strong supporter of a strong jewish nation state. As well as the temple being placed upon the temple mount. (that is controversial, as you know what sits on the temple mount now days)."

~ God forbid Jews nation (Rabbi Moshe- Neturei Kartou), as result Jews cannot livin peace in Israel. + Zionist is ANTIGENTILES lead you more Talmud than original Testament.

[TMA_1]

lol.... He did indeed live in egypt for a long long time, and was the court physician for the sultan. He was also highly respected by the muslim community in certain parts, even now he is, which is amazing. He was NOT influenced by muslim docterns though, he grew up learning strictly hebrew religious beliefs, focused around his gathered docterns of the 612 commandments and commentary of the torah.

also, why are you so anti israel? do you have a thing against jews?

[NeoLogiX]

"..., he grew up learning strictly hebrew religious beliefs, focused around his gathered docterns of the 612 commandments and commentary of the torah"

lol, Even God command 613 Miztvah, but still Zionist Jews prefer to separate it

"also, why are you so anti israel? do you have a thing against jews?"

I believe from Isaac to Yeshuah/ Jesus, Zaboor & Torah teaching, but not Zionist from Talmud.