A brave young independent journalist writes from Nazareth

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Mr. Cook writes about and from his web site that he is, "a British journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. This site includes my articles on the Middle East published in international newspapers, English-language Arab publications and specialist magazines since 2001.

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Why my reporting is different
I have chosen to position myself in the region in two ways - one professional, the other geographical - that distinguish me from colleagues. This approach gives me greater freedom to reflect on the true nature of the conflict and provides me with fresh insight into its root causes.

Professionally, I am one of the few journalists regularly writing about the region who work as an independent freelancer. I choose the issues I wish to cover, so I am not constrained by the ‘treadmill’ of the mainstream media, which require an endless flow of instant copy and analysis. I am also not tied to the mainstream agenda, which gives disproportionate coverage to the concerns of the powerful, in this case the Israeli and American positions - in the US media to a degree that makes much of their Israel/Palestine reporting implausible. I also rarely accept commissions, restricting myself to topics that I consider to be the most revealing about the conflict.

Geographically, I am the first foreign correspondent to be based in the Israeli Arab city of Nazareth, in the Galilee. Most reporters covering the conflict live in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, with a handful of specialists based in the West Bank city of Ramallah. The range of stories readily available to reporters in these locations reinforces the assumption among editors back home that the conflict can only be understood in terms of the events that followed the West Bank and Gaza’s occupation in 1967. This has encouraged the media to give far too much weight to Israeli concerns about ‘security’ - a catch-all that offers Israel special dispensation to ignore its duties to the Palestinians under international law.

Many topics central to the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians, including the plight of the refugees and the continuing dispossession of Palestinians living as Israeli citizens, do not register on most reporters’ radars.

From Nazareth, the capital of the Palestinian minority in Israel, things look very different. There are striking, and disturbing, similarities between the experiences of Palestinians inside Israel and those inside the West Bank and Gaza. All have faced Zionism's appetite for territory and domination, as well as repeated attempts at ethnic cleansing. These unifying themes suggest that the conflict is less about the specific circumstances thrown up by the 1967 war and more about the central tenets of Zionism as expressed in the war of 1948 that founded Israel and the war of 1967 that breathed new life into its colonial agenda."

About his first book, just published in America:

"My first book, entitled 'Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State', is published by Pluto Press in Britain in April and in the United States in July 2006. It concerns Israel's treatment of its Palestinian citizens during the second intifada, and the real reasons for the policies of territorial separation evident in the Gaza disengagement and the building of the West Bank wall. It argues that, threatened by predictions that the combined Palestinian population inside Israel and the Occupied Territories will soon outnumber the region's Jews, Israel decided to create an expanded fortress state, where only Jewish blood and Jewish religion count."

To find out more about Mr. Cook's book click here.

This is his latest article as published in the famous Counterpunch web site. The link below will take you directly to his web site. Click below to read it (he has written many that are archived at his site):
The Struggle for Palestine's Soul, Counterpunch, 6 Oct 2006