(Chapter 2)
I never gave much thought to politics when I was in the Regiment. I was a soldier, not a politician. As far as I was concerned there were two kinds of people in the world: goodies and baddies.
When I joined The Circuit politics still weren't at the forefront of my mind. I read the newspapers regularly (Daily Telegraph and The Times) and watched news on television to keep myself informed. When the Israelis launched Operation Defensive Shield, I thought I had a pretty good grasp of the Arab-Israeli conflict: the Israelis were the good guys and the Palestinians were a bunch of terrorists led by the filthiest terrorist of them all, Yasir Arafat.
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Obviously, I held the Israelis in very high esteem. My feelings about the Palestinians were equally strong, albeit not in a positive way. The Western media had always referred to Arafat as a 'terrorist' and his multi-party confederation, the Palestine Liberation Organization, as a 'terrorist' organization. The label only meant one thing to me. The old adage of 'one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter' was a load of liberal crap as far as I was concerned. Having fought the IRA, I'd seen first hand just how ruthless they could be. IRA, PLO, it didn't matter; they were all gutless bastards who killed and maimed innocent civilians to acheive their aims.
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(Note: just to provide some context here without reproducing the whole chapter, the year is 2002, the author is working as an advisor to CNN journalists, and is on his way to meet with a colleague in Ramallah in the West Bank.)
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I only had about half a mile to travel, but most of it was over open ground. I took a couple of minutes to survey the landscape with my binos; about six hundred yards to my left I spotted a group of IDF soldiers on a patch of high ground. Glints of light were bouncing off their position, indicating they were looking through optics of their own. I couldn't see their weapons so I wasn't sure whether they had the firepower to target me effectively given the distance.
I had just tucked my binos into my daysack when I heard childrens' voices approaching from behind. I looked back and saw a group of ten of them, boys and girls aged about eight to twelve, come into view. They were all carrying book satchels and appeared to be headed in the same direction as me - Ramallah. I greeted the children in Arabic. One of the older girls responded in English. I asked her where they were going. She pointed towards Ramallah and explained the only way they could get to school during the Israeli lockdown was through the quarry. I warned the kids about the soldiers I'd spotted on the hillside and told them to be careful. The girl said the Israeli soldiers were always there and had shot them on several occasions. Before the kids headed off, the girl showed me the route they intended to follow. Though I was going in the same direction as the children, I didn't want to walk with them. If the Israelis were onto me, my presence alone could draw fire and endanger the kids unnecessarily.
The kids hadn't gone more than a hundred yards from me when the IDF soldiers on the hillside opened up. I could tell by the sound of the gunfire that the kids were out of range of the bullets. High velocity bullets like rounds from the M16 travel faster than the speed of sound. If you're in range when fired upon, you first hear the sharp crack of the round travelling past you followed by the thump of the bullet leaving the barrel. In the military it's referred to as 'crack and thump'.
I estimated the bullets were dropping fifty or sixty yards short of the children. The kids, meanwhile, simply glanced over at the high ground where the soldiers were positioned and carried on on their way to school. To them, it was just another day. They were seasoned veterans, and I was new to the game. I watched the kids for another five hundred yards until they disappeared into a small hollow. When the soldiers stopped shooting, I went on my way. Sure enough, as soon as I was in the open, the soldiers started firing their weapons again. The rounds were falling well short of my position and I couldn't be sure whether they were targeting me or the kids further up the path. My life wasn't in immediate danger but I was concerned that the gunfire could alert other IDF patrols in the area; patrols that might be in firing range.
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(Author meets his contact in Ramallah.)
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He handed me a list of written notes and the keys to CNN's armoured Land Rover. 'It's got three bullet srtikes in it', he said. 'Every time we go somewhere, the Israelis shoot at us.'
'I'll see if I can match that', I said.
'Seriously, mate', he said. 'Keep your body armour and helmet well advertised with the letters TV. The Israelis shoot at anything.'
He didn't have to remind me. I'd already been fired on twice in twenty-four hours just trying to get into Ramallah.
(Chapter 3)
Some people never change. Others do, it just takes one hell of a catalyst. In my case, it was seeing Israeli soldiers take pot shots at those kids on their way to school. Within forty-eight hours of arriving in Tel-Aviv my long-held beliefs about the Arab-Israeli conflict had been dealt a serious reality check. It never occurred to me that the Israeli military would be anything less than 100 per cent professional. At forty-seven, I was starting to realise that my political views weren't my own; I had allowed others to dictate them to me. When in the military I was fed a certain bias in order to fulfil a certain operation and I never questioned it. I guess the habit stuck when I retired to civilian life.
My assignment in Ramallah placed me in the role of observer rather than participant in a conflict. For the first time in my life, I was on a fence looking down on both sides. Suddenly the media reports I'd trusted to inform me about serious issues including the Arab-Israeli conflict didn't seem so reliable. My intention from then on was to stay on top of that fence and seek the truth for myself. It was the start of a long-overdue political education.
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The Circuit: An Ex-SAS Soldier, A Secretive Industry, The War On Terror - A True Story.
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