Activist and Journalist Jody McIntyre Speaks

Time to globalise the intifada? Stories of resistance from Bil’in to the Gaza Strip

  • Monday 15th March, 5pm-6pm. Room H216, Connaught House, London School of Economics. Facebook event here
  • Wednesday 17th March, 5pm-7pm. JCR room of SOAS university in Russell Square. Facebook event here

British activist and freelance journalist Jody McIntyre has just returned from an eight-months trip to the West Bank and Gaza, and will be speaking at locations around the country, including LSE and SOAS in London. See his website for other dates and locations, including Cambridge, Leeds, Sussex, Edinburgh and Manchester.

In his own words:

“From being evicted with the Hanoun family in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem, to six months of participating in the non-violent demonstrations in Bil’in, and witnessing Israeli army’s nightly military raids into village as a response, to marching into the “buffer zone” in the north of the Gaza Strip, I have spent the last eight months of my life with an occupied people.

“My talk will mainly focus on my experiences from Bil’in, where I reported on the Israeli military’s aggressive suppression of the non-violent Palestinian resistance movement, now spreading across Palestine, and for which the village has become a model. Bil’in became my home, and for those months living with a young photographer from the village… sleepless nights spent lying awake or chasing soldiers, I will never forget.

“After a brief interlude in Egypt, in which I was the only one of 1400 foreigners to make it out of Cairo, followed by beatings from the police in al-Arish, I made it to the Gaza Strip. There, I witnessed a people living under siege… one year after Israel’s brutal massacre, and ever increasing electricity cuts and food shortages make the situation more desperate than ever. Living with two young brothers in Gaza City, and participating in non-violent demonstrations near the Beit Hanoun – Erez border, I will give a portrayal of the isolated Strip today.

“Will also touch on being attacked in the Guardian, over an article I wrote about Shimon Peres.

“I will conclude my talk by giving my own thoughts, and the proposals I have heard in conversations with Palestinian leaders of the non-violent resistance campaign, of how we can support this movement in the UK, and why it is time to globalise the intifada.”