The Circuit (6 page)

Later that afternoon, we returned to the incident area to shoot some b-roll for a story wrapping the day’s events. As we got out of our vehicle, the Israeli unit that had shot the little boy trundled down the road in their APC shouting at us in a very aggressive manner to move off the street. When they pulled alongside our vehicle, Nihal, out of nowhere, let fly a barrage of angry words – in Hebrew. I didn’t know what she was saying. I didn’t know she could speak Hebrew. But it was clear from her expression and the look on the soldiers’ faces that she was really letting them have it.

As much as I relished watching Nihal stand up to the soldiers, having recently survived the incident with the Russian I knew that things could turn nasty quickly. One of the soldiers on top of the APC began to dismount the vehicle. Nihal, still yelling, tried to climb up to meet him. I grabbed her by the neck of her flak jacket and pulled her back into our vehicle. She was fuming. As we drove back to Ramattan, I told her she was brilliant, but if she kept on that way she’d get herself shot.

‘If you want to beat the Israelis, do it by telling great stories,’ I said.

CHAPTER 4

As Operation Defensive Shield passed the thirty-day mark, pressure was mounting worldwide for the Israelis to pull back from Yasir Arafat’s Mukhata and leave Ramallah. There was growing concern at the time among the international community that the Israelis would kill Arafat – and any hope of restarting the peace process along with him. Though the Palestinian President had given phone interviews from inside his compound, cameras couldn’t penetrate the ring of Israeli armour. No one knew for sure how Arafat, who looked frail before the siege, was coping physically with his imprisonment. The press corps was foaming at the mouth to get that all-important, on-camera interview with him.

At the start of the siege, Will Scully had managed to get CNN an exclusive with Arafat by concealing a crew amongst a group of peace activists who were allowed past the Israeli cordon surrounding the Mukhata. The ruse was brilliant in its simplicity and totally effective. I wanted to match it.

In between working with Margaret, a second cameraman I’ll call Samir rotated in for CNN. Though Samir held a Jordanian passport, he was originally from Bethlehem, which made the West Bank his home. After a couple of days on the ground with Samir, I asked him if he’d be interested in getting in to see Arafat, provided I could find a way. He was well up for it.

From that point onward, I took every available opportunity to recce the Israeli troops surrounding the Mukhata. It soon became apparent that during bad weather – and there was plenty of it – the Israelis were happy to batten down their hatches and stay put. On a few occasions I was even able to weave in and around Israeli armoured positions without being stopped. I’d determined that, given the right weather conditions, getting a crew in to see Arafat was achievable.

I was up on a rooftop overlooking the Mukhata when I saw an opening. It was a very cold, wet and windy evening and Samir and his correspondent were shooting b-roll for a story. Around 11 p.m. local time, an Israeli patrol arrived in two jeeps to tell us to leave the roof. After a bit of negotiating, they agreed to let us stay so long as we didn’t move from our location.

‘Things are changing,’ they warned.

An hour later, I heard what sounded like the revving of engines coming from the western end of the Mukhata. At first I thought the Israelis might be mounting an offensive. Then I saw a long convoy of tanks pulling back. There was still a heavy flank of Israeli armour hemming in the Mukhata from the east, north and south, though I was fairly certain the tank redeployment had left a major hole in the cordon. Only a recce could confirm my theory. I told Samir and his correspondent to stay on the roof while I took the Land Rover out for a look. Sure enough, when I reached the far western edge of the Mukhata there wasn’t an Israeli tank in sight.

I rushed back to the roof and told Samir that if he was up for it, I reckoned I could get him in to see Arafat. Not only was Samir willing to give it a try, so was the correspondent. The three of us jumped into the armoured car and drove back to the western edge of the Mukhata. The gap was still wide open. We drove past the outer wall right up to the central building where Arafat was holed up. I couldn’t believe how easy it was!

We dismounted our vehicle and knocked on a large steel door surrounded by sand bags. A viewing hatch slid open. The man peering through recognized Samir immediately. The door swung open and all three of us were pulled in by PLO bodyguards. The building was dimly lit by candles and the odd torch. At the start of the siege, the Israelis cut all electricity and running water to the Mukhata. My euphoria at having successfully evaded the IDF was smothered by the stench of 150 PLO men who hadn’t bathed in over a month. The guards meanwhile were thrilled to see us. They knew better than anyone the risks involved in running the gauntlet of Israeli positions. They appreciated our efforts and were eager to get their side of the story across to the world. One huge man grabbed me as if I was his best mate. As he crushed my face into his armpit, I thought the heavy tracks of an Israeli tank going over my head would have been a more favourable outcome.

We were shown upstairs to a small room and told to set up for an interview with ‘President Arafat’. While Samir got his camera ready and the correspondent went over his notes, I admired the only decoration in the room: Arafat’s presidential flag. It was rather spectacular; three layers of silk the size of a double bedspread with the Palestinian national colours and Arafat’s coat of arms embroidered in gold and black threads.

The word ‘souvenir’ popped into my mind.

Samir must have read my thoughts.

‘After the interview,’ he said grinning.

A few minutes later two PLO men armed with AK47s burst into the room followed by the man himself. Given his infamous reputation, you’d think Yasir Arafat would have been a towering man mountain. Instead, in marched this slight, five foot two cartoon character with a greying beard, huge grin and eyes that had really seen life. Arafat was full of praise for CNN coming to interview him. His manner was very warm and genuine. His command of English was excellent and none of his wicked dry humour was lost in translation. He decided to give CNN an interview in English – something he rarely did. The Israelis may have had the upper hand militarily, but Arafat knew that world opinion, not firepower, would determine the true winner of the siege. Giving the interview in English was a calculated move on his part to garner greater support from the international community.

The correspondent asked Arafat the obvious questions: how are you feeling? How long do you think you can survive like this? Arafat answered each question with trademark passion. After the interview he shook all our hands and exited with his bodyguards, leaving us alone in the room. While Samir folded up his tripod, I asked the correspondent to keep a watch on the door and let me know if anyone was coming. Samir looked at me and laughed.

‘What’s going on?’ the correspondent asked.

‘I’m taking that flag,’ I said.

The correspondent’s eyes widened like saucers. ‘You can’t do that. They’ll kill us!’

‘I’ll kill you if you don’t watch that door,’ I joked. ‘And I just got you a world exclusive. I can do anything I want.’

Samir laughed again. I looked at the correspondent, and he laughed as well.

‘Well, be quick then,’ he said.

I pulled the flag off its plinth, folded it up and tucked it inside my body armour.

Arafat’s bodyguards had lined the staircase to see us out. The correspondent led the way, followed by Samir and then me. I was halfway down when one of the guards stopped me. He put his hand on the top of my vest and patted my chest. The ends of his fingers touched the flag. My arse almost hit the floor. How on earth did he know?

‘What’s your name?’ asked the guard. His voice was deep and grisly and his breath stank of strong coffee and cigarettes.

I squared up to him. ‘Bob,’ I said.

‘Well, Bob, when this is all over you can come back to see us anytime,’ he said and shook my hand.

Thirty-six days after Israeli tanks rolled into the West Bank, they turned around and rolled back out. Yasir Arafat emerged from his Mukhata completely unscathed, flashing the Churchill two fingers victory sign. It was an appropriate gesture. Before the siege, Arafat was contending with heavy domestic criticism. Afterward, he was more popular than ever with his people. Even Palestinians opposed to Arafat had rallied around him – albeit briefly.

The Israelis didn’t seem to fare so well. They launched Operation Defensive Shield to root out terrorist elements within the Palestinian community. But from what I saw, instead of curtailing extremism, the Israeli military’s overly aggressive tactics only seemed to fuel it. Many innocent Palestinian civilians were killed during the siege. It cost Israel the goodwill of the international community, not to mention a sizeable investment of military resources. And for what? The deadly campaign of Palestinian suicide bombings continued. Sadly, it was a pattern I would see repeated elsewhere in the not-so-distant future.

As for me and my clients: CNN came out of Operation Defensive Shield with six bullet strikes on its armoured Land Rover (three on Will’s watch, three on mine – all of them courtesy of the IDF) and two world exclusives. I left the West Bank with one very nice souvenir and an insatiable desire to learn more about the conflict I’d witnessed first hand. I’d been to see Arafat and got his flag to prove it. Now it was time to meet the militants behind the suicide bombings.

CHAPTER 5

I used to think there was no difference between Palestinian groups: PLO, Hamas, same people, different acronyms. Working with CNN in the West Bank taught me otherwise. Yasir Arafat may have been President of the Palestinian National Authority, but he did not enjoy universal support among his people. Arafat’s power base was the PLO and its secular, political wing, Fatah.

At his core, Arafat was a fierce warrior and not at all the type to sit down with his enemy and work things out over a brew. It was remarkable that he’d ever sought a negotiated settlement with Israel. Even during his more militant periods, though, Arafat had boundaries. He never asked his followers to go and blow themselves up for the cause.

That distinction belonged to Arafat’s most bitter political rival: Sheikh Ahmed Ismail Yassin, co-founder and spiritual leader of Hamas (the Movement of Islamic Resistance), and the father of the Palestinian suicide bomber. Yassin was based in Gaza, a good hour’s drive from the West Bank but a world away ideologically. Unlike Arafat’s Fatah, Hamas refused to negotiate with Israel. For Yassin, armed struggle was the only way forward.

In July 2002 I took another assignment working with CNN’s Jerusalem bureau. By then the focus of the story had shifted from the West Bank to Gaza. The day after I arrived in Gaza, Hamas militants attacked an Israeli settlement with al-Kazan rockets. Anticipating an Israeli response in the form of an armoured incursion into Gaza, Hamas planned to lay landmines to slow the advance of Israeli tanks and APCs. The militants invited CNN to film the operation.

The offer was made to CNN’s Gaza producer: a twenty-four-year-old woman I’ll call Noor. Despite her youth, Noor had impeccable credentials within the Palestinian community; her uncle had been assassinated in North Africa by agents of Israel’s Intelligence Agency, Mossad. Noor called a meeting in our hotel to discuss the Hamas offer with the team. The correspondent refused to do the story outright, saying it was far too dangerous. The camerawoman, Margaret Moth, disagreed; she thought it was an amazing opportunity and CNN would be crazy to turn it down. With the correspondent and camerawoman divided on what to do, they turned to me to cast the deciding vote. All that mattered from my point of view was whether they could get the story safely. I told them I’d have an answer by dinner. I needed to be alone and free from individual agendas to run the scenarios in my head.

I went to the hotel restaurant to have a think over a cup of coffee. I found a quiet spot overlooking the beach leading out to the Mediterranean. It was twilight and the lanterns from the fishermen’s boats in the distance glowed against the darkening horizon.

Though I hadn’t let on to the team, I was as intrigued as Margaret by the offer. It was very rare for Hamas militants to be filmed during an operation. I wondered what kind of equipment they used and how professional they were. I was also curious to see whether the operation was legitimate or just an orchestrated media stunt; it would reveal a lot about how much world opinion mattered to the militants.

As I watched the lights dance on the water, I thought about the run of luck I’d had with CNN in Ramallah. It would have been all too easy to sit back and follow the roll without thinking about when and how it might end. Complacency is a security adviser’s worst enemy.

I put my personal interests to one side and focused on what could go wrong. My main concern was that the Israelis would find out about the Hamas operation in advance and launch an attack while we were filming. It was well known that Israeli Intelligence had its touts inside the Palestinian community. One loud-mouthed militant was all it would take for word of the operation to spread like wildfire.

The correspondent was justifiably cautious. Even if we did go ahead with the story, technically, he didn’t need to be there while Margaret filmed, nor would I want him there. He’d made his position clear and I respected that. He was a very good journalist and a brave man to stand by his limits. Good on him. That would leave Noor, Margaret and me. In theory, I could have let the two of them go on their own, but I’d never have let that happen. I didn’t trust Hamas with their lives. Not because I thought the militants would harm them deliberately. My worry was that Hamas lacked the skills to determine whether the Israelis were observing them, waiting to attack.

I had been told that Hamas operated on the assumption that unless they could physically see them, the Israelis weren’t a threat. It reminded me of my children when they were very young. They would hide by covering their eyes, reasoning that if they couldn’t see me, I couldn’t see them. Surely, operatives of a notorious militant group such as Hamas were more sophisticated than that. After all, it was common knowledge that the Israelis sent pilot-less aircraft called drones over Gaza and areas of the West Bank to gather intelligence.