From boycotts to Bilin: An interview with Jonathan Cook
Jeff Gore, The Electronic Intifada, 9 October 2009

Jonathan Cook is a British journalist based in Nazareth, the largest Palestinian city in Israel, whose work is regularly published by The Electronic Intifada. His latest book, Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair, was published by Zed Books last October. He recently sat with Jeff Gore to discuss his work and his analysis of the current situation on the ground.

Jeff Gore: How and when did you first become interested in the Middle East, specifically the issue of Israel/Palestine?

Jonathan Cook: It was a gradual process that took over a decade. I became interested in Arab culture during a backpacking trip to Morocco in my early 20s. Later I got my first, faint taste of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during the Oslo years when I crossed over from Jordan for a three-day visit to Jerusalem. While I was walking along the Old City walls, I was surprised to see a group of Israeli soldiers beating two young Palestinian boys, maybe 12 years old, for no apparent reason. It certainly disturbed me, although I can’t say it greatly politicized me at the time — like most tourists, I suppose, I put it to the back of my mind.

A vague interest in the Middle East solidified into a more obvious concern while I was working in the foreign department of the Guardian. I started to sense that the paper’s coverage didn’t seem to be giving the whole picture of what I was seeing on my travels. Assuming the fault lay with me, I then did a two-year, part-time MA in Middle East politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University. By the end I felt even more strongly that the media were failing. I chose as the topic of my MA dissertation land problems faced by Israel’s Palestinian citizens in the Galilee. It was during the research that I began to conclude that much could be understood about the regional conflict from Israel’s approach towards its Palestinian minority. I was surprised no one else appeared to be reaching such a conclusion, at least not at that time. Eventually, in 2001, I decided to leave my job in London and move to Nazareth to write a book about Israel’s treatment of the minority at the start of the second intifada. I expected to complete it in a year. It took five — and I am still in Nazareth eight years after my arrival.

/Full interview at link
Link: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10815.shtml
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Superb stuff
Posted by John Hilley on October 15, 2009, 12:05 am,
Thanks, Eds, for flagging that really inspiring and deeply-informed interview. The analysis here, as in Cook’s other voluminous output, is simply outstanding. I’m particularly grateful for all those micro insights into the Palestinian struggle inside Israel. His take on the BDS campaign is, likewise, both incisive and encouraging. In addition, he provides this invaluable window on the whole media process.

Although Israel may, as suggested, be reluctant to try and muzzle or/and deport Cook, they must be wishing he wasn’t there doing what other journalists are failing to do – namely, reporting the situation as it is, rather than how the editorial desks want it to look.

John

The Israeli government announced yesterday it would consider banning Israel’s Islamic Movement at the next cabinet meeting, in a significant escalation of tensions that have fuelled a fortnight of bloody clashes in Jerusalem over access to the Haram al Sharif compound of mosques.