Dispatch from Gaza : An Interview with Harry Fear

Harry Fear is an English activist, journalist and reporter who has lived in the Gaza Strip since 2008. He made his name posting his work onto Youtube, and last year live-streamed Operation Pillar of Cloud- Israel’s eight day Ariel attack on Gaza. Hussein Kesvani speaks to the film maker:

What’s your background? Why did you want to report from Gaza?

I started producing documentaries on injustices in 2010.  I had decided that it was vital to use the medium of video to combat social and global injustices. These mediums are particularly potent in awakening individual conscience and erasing apathy in viewers, necessary steps for movement towards a better world.

Actually, I was always drawn to visit Gaza since I was young-I followed heroic journalist John Pilger’s articles in the New Statesman  on the Israel-Palestine situation.I’ve developed my personal knowledge, outrage and action on the injustice over the last few years.

My first time in Gaza was only last summer in May 2012. Since then my life has oriented here, as I’ve been increasingly drawn into the opportunities to do meaningful change-making media work in Palestine.

 Would you classify yourself as a citizen journalist or activist?

Every time I release a video, make a media appearance or give a lecture, I ask myself: how can I explain my work and my title to people? I see myself as an independent campaigning journalist. I suppose you could call me a media activist, or a citizen journalist involved in advocacy journalism. Why hold a placard and picket the Israeli embassy in London, I asked myself, when I can support the protesters by documenting and delivering their activism to thousands around the world? In a way I see myself as a technical practitioner of today’s modern technologies, exploiting them to generate media power for a cause of justice, dabbling in guerrilla film-making, for example. On other days I see myself as an artist, moving from one genre of journalism to another, for maximal impact — usually taking a clear and robust stand on a cause and capturing embedded empathy.

You’ve been covering events in Gaza for quite a long time. How did you start off, and was it difficult to produce content to begin with?

At one level it was hard to produce content in Gaza. I’ve found that ones’ understanding of the situation changes dramatically on seeing the facts on the ground and spending time in the Strip. My terms of reference have changed much more than I’d have expected. I certainly continue on a path of increasing my understanding and journalistic evolution as I continue my work. As I’ve produced content in Gaza I’ve never worked with career fixers or translators, quite deliberately. My desire has always been to understand un-commercially-compromised Palestinian perspectives, ingest them, and then do what I can to communicate stories of suffering and important perspectives to the Western world.

On the last point- how did the language barrier affect you?

The language barrier still affect me a great deal, although my Arabic has improved. I am not fluent in Arabic, and rely on translators for production. I’ve found that I can now predict what subjects are saying and interpret body language, intonation and keywords, so that I’m decreasingly reliant on word-for-word translation assistance. I recently initiated a project with one of Gaza’s (several) universities to setup an online database of Palestinian fixers and translators, for foreign media workers, to decrease journalistic barriers to entry in covering Gaza.

Most of us in the UK only hear snippets of what really goes on in Gaza and the Middle East region- it can create some quite polarising and distorted narratives. Have your experiences changed your attitude to the conflict and what would you say are the biggest misconceptions we have?

The fundamental problem is that we’ve historically had a Western media narrative that’s dehumanised Palestinians, reducing them to ‘terrorists’, ‘Islamists’, irrational actors, aggressors, and peace-rejecting — that’s not just a misconception- it’s explicitly dangerous.

However, this is slowly breaking down as people start to see a truer realistic image of the ‘conflict’ as Israel’s reputation depreciates, following milestones like 2006’s Lebanon War, 2008-09’s Gaza War, 2010’s Gaza Aid Flotilla Raid, recent continued settlement expansion in the West Bank, and November’s Gaza war. In relation to Gaza , the armed resistance groups and Hamas are probably most misunderstood by Britons. Although, I can’t apologise for illegal indiscriminate retaliatory rocket fire, I condemn the mainstream media’s ignoring of the desperate context in which the rocket fire emanates.

It’s been a fatal media flaw to only pay attention to the Israeli military’s narrative. The Hamas movement is not a terrorist organisation anymore than the British Labour Party or Conservative Party are terrorist organisations. The Hamas movement or Hamas’ politburo are not the same as the Al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas’ paramilitary wing). The simplified categorisation of the whole movement as a terrorist organisation is an intellectual failure. Hamas continues to govern Gaza under a seven-year-old mandate, while it maintains continued  support. Another important misconception is that Palestinians in Gaza need humanitarian support as a priority. Our priority should be political support to end the illegal siege that starves a resourceful and brilliant people into poverty and punishing imprisonment.

How has a Hamas government affected life for ordinary Palestinians?
Hamas has very limited political options to respond to Israeli occupation. Their official policy is that armed resistance is the only way to liberate Palestine from occupation. It’s true that diplomatic attempts have failed because Israel is unwilling to justly settle the conflict, even with a long-term ceasefire deal on the 1967 lines — the Palestine Papers prove that. Palestinians don’t really have a partner for peace with the Israeli state. The main thing afflicting Gazans is the siege, which there is little Hamas can do to solve, other than facilitate the underground smuggling system with Egypt.

 Palestine recently was awarded ‘observer’ status by the United Nations. Do you think that this is a good starting point for proper negotiations, or another obstacle?

Actually this could prove a spark (among others) towards proper negotiations, because it would force Israel to recognise the need for a Palestinian state to be established sooner rather than later, as the international community’s temperature of intolerance towards Israeli occupation increases. However, UN pressure would not constitute sufficient pressure to force Israel to make concessions to negotiate. Israel would have to freeze settlement expansion proper and recognise all Palestinian factions including Hamas, for instance.

 How have things been since OPD last November? Was it a challenge covering what was going on- including the aftermath of the war?

The families mourn, meanwhile there is more reconstruction to effect. Since the war, five Palestinians have been killed, including one militant by an airstrike. That’s much less bloody than before OPD. In this sense, Gaza is now a relatively safer place than it was a year ago, if Palestinians stay away from the land borders and Israeli navy. So what remains is a relatively suffocating economic siege that drains opportunity and prosperity from Palestinians.                      

For me, covering the war was a spiritual, emotional, psychological and physical test of strength, steadfastness and security. I’m certainly left deeply-affected by my experiences during those bloody 8-days. Palestinians say that Israel’s 8-day bombardment campaign was unprecedentedly ferocious in aerial force, terrorising civilians to new limits. I am grateful that I was in Gaza during the war and was able to do something hopefully constructive in having tried reduce Israel’s media impunity.

What do you think the West can and should be doing to help the Gazans from this point- particularly considering their support for Israel?

Western states should simply enforce international law, including United Nations resolutions. It really is that simple, but that’s going to be hard because the US, UK et al. have flagrantly flouted and manipulated international law in recent history. Western states should at least stop ideologically, diplomatically, economically and militarily supporting Israel.

How do you think things might change in line with the paradigm shifts going on in the wider Middle East ? For example, considering what’s going on in Syria, Lebanon and Turkey, do you think the Palestinian issue occupies a lesser importance, or a new strategic importance?

Firstly, from a media agenda perspective, any distraction away from the story of solving the Israel-Palestine injustice is strategically beneficial for Israel, as it gobbles up more Palestinian land and resources. Israel is worried about Syria, Lebanon and Iran; the Gaza prison is containable, as is the West Bank, as things stand. I’m pessimistic in this regard. The supposed increased democracy in Egypt, for instance, hasn’t yet borne any fruit for the

What’s the greatest challenge being a citizen reporter in such an unstable region?

The greatest difficulty is getting an audience to pay attention to a region and narratives that are not necessarily ‘hot’ or ‘sexy’, and to which they don’t naturally feel a necessity to follow. To properly report I rely on economic independence, and so it’s also difficult to sustain myself financially as I work full-time doing this work. I have to rely on viewer donations, which can’t be taken for granted.

Where do you see yourself going in a few years? Will you want to remain in Gaza, or report other conflicts?

Gaza will always remain closest in my heart, however I hope to be covering other injustice zones (not just armed conflicts) in the coming years.

 Considering the restart of peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine, do you think there is hope for a lasting peace in the form of a two-state solution? How do you think the Gaza Strip might change in the next few years?

There are incredibly significant political and practical obstacles to the realisation of two-state solution. Yet, although a two-state solution (presumably with land-swaps) is not practically impossible,  I don't see how it would solve the fundamental issues of the 'conflict'.

How could a two-state solution really lead to a lasting peace?, I ask myself frequently and rhetorically. I don't see how a two-state solution would satisfy Israel's rational security fears. Most likely, 'terrorism' would emanate from the new Palestinan state, aimed at Israel, aimed at recovering access to Historic Palestine, from groups like the Islamic Jihad movement. Frankly, a two-state solution is the dealing with replacement of one historic injustice with a 21st century injustice, codified and ever-egregious. Let's be clear: a two-state solution for the Palestinians means a massive loss. A loss that I don't detect most Palestinians in Gaza are willing to make. It's all very elementary, one just has to look at the Disappearing Land of Palestine image with milestone maps since the beginning of the 20th century, to see the dynamic of the conflict and what it's all about, and to see the real context of a two-state solution.

The practical situation looks bleak for the fast-growing population of Gaza. Foreseeably, instability in Egypt will remain for the coming weeks (or even months) and will impact heavily on Gaza's economy and will also prohibiting Palestinians in Gaza from travelling to further afield. The Israeli side of the siege does not look like it's going to loosen any time soon. There's no real hope that there will be a refreshing of Palestinan representation with democratic elections any time soon.

Despite this, every day in Gaza I see a widespread commitment to faith and conscious steadfastness.