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| Middle East | ||
| ’My life with Hamas’ by Welsh gran | ||
| 2004-01-13 | ||
| Just what Rantburg needs. A feel good story about Hamas. BTW ’gran’ is a term of affection for your grandmother in the UK. EFL A WELSH grandmother has become one of the most militant voices in condemning Israel’s policies in the West Bank and Gaza. Anne Gwynne, a former bank manager in Aberystwyth, has lived as an ambulance nurse in the West Bank town of Nablus. The 65-year-old claims Israeli soldiers have wounded her and threatened to both frame her for carrying explosives and to rape her. Maybe she shouldn’t have carried the explosives in the first place! Or maybe find a journalist who can write english. Ms Gwynne has become well known in the pro-Palestinian internet community but has been condemned by critics for defending the use of violence, including, in some circumstances, suicide bombing. She claims Hamas is seen by Palestinians as the true representatives of their nation. She told The Western Mail, "Palestine is Hamas and Hamas is Palestine. The Palestinian Authority is just a tool of Israel. They are nothing, except they hold the purse-strings. Tool of Israel! Yep, always suspected that! "They love [Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat] for his past and hate him for his present." Ms Gwynne has been interviewed for tonight’s edition of current affairs programme Y Byd ar Bedwar. Suprise! Suprise! Not the BBC. She was due to meet the film crew in Nablus but upon arrival in Israel she was arrested, interviewed, and held in a detention room overnight. Following her demands that she be allowed to leave she returned to Britain. Reporter Eifion Glyn was astonished by Ms Gwynne’s fervency when he first met her. He originally intended her to be the backbone of his programme. He said, "I got the shock of my life when I talked to her."
Words fail me! "You’re talking about 60% of Nablus being out of work."
No mention of baby ducks. She is adamant that Hamas will cease its campaign of violence if the occupation ends and Israeli attacks on civilians stop, if prisoners are released, and if Palestinians are permitted to return to their family homes within the state of Israel. We have a few other conditions but those are the main ones. She said that when interviewing members of Hamas she was assured that a Palestinian state would not be a place of Islamic extremism. "He said, ’This land is the holy land. It belongs to everyone.’ They believe they hold it in trust to pass on to future generations because it is sacred to Jews, Muslims and Christians." During her time in Nablus she has made close friends, some of whose family members were suicide bombers, and she regularly escorted ambulances through military checkpoints. While carrying a stretcher she received a shrapnel wound to the leg when soldiers fired shots. Do bullets cause shrapnel wounds? She claimed that in February an Israeli military officer in the village of Beit Foriq said, "Have you heard the word rape? Have you ever been raped? In the prison you will be raped very often." Sounds to me like a reference to what the inmates will do. But we have already established the Joos threatened to rape her. So clearly my interpretation is wrong. Ms Gwynne has re-mortgaged her Welsh home to buy equipment to document the conflict and the conditions it creates. She has also become a regular contributor to US "alternative" radio station Pacifica Radio. She has been surprised at people’s reaction to her nationality. She said, "Being Welsh, when you go to Nablus they say, ’Oh, you were under occupation for the last 700 years.’ I guess we have more insight in small nations’ struggles than perhaps an Englishman from the southeast." I’d struggle to describe Welsh Nationalists to an American audience. What you can say about people who can build an entire ideology around a language spoken by a few thousand sheep farmers Jean Evans of the Cardiff- based Israeli Information Centre said there were effective ways to make complaints about the military and that these would guarantee that if the incidents described were true the officials would be punished. She said, "I haven’t got time to comment on her wild claims which are unsubstantiated." MALCOLM LOWE, originally from Haverfordwest, is a philosopher and New Testament scholar who has lived in Israel since 1970. And now a whole series of on the money quote!!!! He said, "There’s a lot of crazy people like that. Somebody described Palestinianism as the new religion of the European Left. It’s like a cult. I think it’s absurd. Some people are so crazy you can’t argue with them." Hamas, he said, was driven by religious fundamentalism and not a quest for social justice. "They think [the land] is an eternal possession which has to be redeemed from the infidel." Mr Lowe, who contributes to philosophical journal Efrydiau Athronyddol, said defeating terrorism in Palestine and Israel was crucial to winning any War on Terror. People like Ms Gwynne, he claimed, visited Israel for short periods, had intense experiences, and believed they had a full understanding of the conflict. He said, "These volunteers come here with high ideals, but they know very little about the situation. Experience is not the same thing as knowledge." Mr Lowe argued that the Palestinian leadership was deliberately keeping much of its own population in refugee camps so that it could demand these people have the right to return to original family homes in Israel. | ||
| Posted by:phil_b |
| #14 It is because of the Welsh that Y is sometimes considered a vowel. It must drive the Welsh mad to know that the castles built to supress them are one of the major driving forces of their economy these days. Conwy and Caerphilly castles were very cool. |
| Posted by: ruprecht 2004-1-13 10:17:23 PM |
| #13 Stop makin fun of Grand Kleagle Byrd else me, Luke and Little Faisal gonna come outta this machine and whip yawls yankee asses! Yhear? And Pepe too. |
| Posted by: grand pappy Amos 2004-1-13 6:30:43 PM |
| #12 Granny got run over by a Dozer.... Walking home from Hamas yester-eve... (sung to 'Grandma got run over by a reindeer'... in honor of St. Pancake). |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-1-13 3:40:52 PM |
| #11 Byrdistan, complete with statues and posters of the Honorable Dear Senator. He already has everything else named after him. |
| Posted by: Steve 2004-1-13 2:37:40 PM |
| #10 "Look out! Granny's got a bomb bely and an AK-47!" |
| Posted by: Mike 2004-1-13 2:30:28 PM |
| #9 Byrd Country? Byrd Isle? Byrd Nation??? |
| Posted by: Anonymous2U 2004-1-13 1:48:09 PM |
| #8 Imagine if West Virginia had a successionist movement... What do you mean if? |
| Posted by: grand pappy Amos 2004-1-13 12:19:31 PM |
| #7 I hate people like this old fool,why do they stick up for these sicko's.Send her to Gauntanamo bay so she can be with her own type. |
| Posted by: Jon Shep U.K 2004-1-13 12:05:12 PM |
| #6 BH -- The Welsh already have plenty of vowels. A, E, I, O, U, W, and Y. I hear they've considered selling off their surplus stock of L's, though. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2004-1-13 10:52:43 AM |
| #5 She claims Hamas is seen by Palestinians as the true representatives of their nation. Even the Welsh can see it?! Arafish must be losing his touch. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2004-1-13 10:43:50 AM |
| #4 I refuse to consider the Welsh point of view until they buy. some. f*cking. vowels! |
| Posted by: BH 2004-1-13 10:41:41 AM |
| #3 Imagine if West Virginia had a successionist movement... Oh Please please please please please! I wonder if she ever visited a terrorist bombed bus or night club? Didn't think so. She just went on a carefully controlled 'tour' conducted by Hamas. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-1-13 9:53:45 AM |
| #2 I’d struggle to describe Welsh Nationalists to an American audience. What you can say about people who can build an entire ideology around a language spoken by a few thousand sheep farmers How's this for a try: Imagine if West Virginia had a successionist movement... |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2004-1-13 8:25:08 AM |
| #1 Be a shame if Miss Gwynne had an encounter with a bulldozer. |
| Posted by: Dragon Fly 2004-1-13 6:46:49 AM |