Stephen Weizman's Blog: Put Me Down I'm British - Posts Tagged "put-me-down-i-m-british"
HI, I'm Stephen Weizman
Welcome to my shiny new blog and my shiny new book "Put Me Down I'm British".
It's a journey to the frontlines of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ,which opens with an eyewitness account of the eruption of the 1987 Palestinian intifada and a close-up look at the birth of the Hamas movement, essential reading for anyone trying to comprehend the latest Israel-Gaza conflagration.
Put Me Down I’m British also offers an inside view into West African wars and the bloody rampages of outlaw bike gangs in Scandinavia along with snapshots of encounters with Salman Rushdie, Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, Hillary Clinton and European royalty.
There’s also a stay with Muslim guerrillas in the hills of northern Liberia and the shock of being bayonetted and arrested by Turkish commandos in occupied northern Cyprus.
It is a voyage of self-discovery; of overcoming almost daily challenges and thinking on the hoof while retaining a sense of compassion and a sense of humour.
The title is taken from an incident during the first Palestininan intifada while I was on assignment for Reuters news agency in the West Bank city of Ramallah in 1988.
"One day I was driving around Ramallah and as I passed the main hospital I noticed a group of young men hauling buckets of stones and rocks by rope up to the building’s roof.
They were obviously waiting for Israeli soldiers to arrive on the scene, so that they could pelt them from above.
As usual on my walkabouts I was wearing a suit and tie to signal that I was a foreigner and I had no qualms whatever about walking
into the hospital and climbing the stairs to the roof for a chat.
The Ramallah boys apparently had missed the class on welcoming visiting journalists and took it into their heads that I was a Shin Bet
agent. They grabbed me by the arms and legs and started to drag me to the edge of the roof, with the clear aim of throwing me off.
With no time to offer them my press credentials or suggest that they call one of my Palestinian friends to vouch for me I blurted
out, “Put me down, I’m British!”
Not innate jingoism but desperate shorthand for “Please don’t kill me, I’m not an Israeli spook.”
They took no notice and started to swing me back and forth to build up a bit of momentum.
Fortunately, a doctor who had seen me on my way upstairs andimagined that this might not end well, had followed me up to keep an
eye on things.
When he told my tormentors to put me down they did so immediately, albeit with ill grace.
I left the building and was talking to some locals outside when an Israel army jeep appeared suddenly from around a corner. With
no warning a soldier fired a tear gas canister, hitting me on the shinbone and knocking me down.
Damn it hurt!
Those things were fired from a launcher looking like a fat shotgun and the metal canister was searing hot when it hit
me, burning through the trouser leg of my dove-grey woolen suit.
It seemed that nobody in Ramallah that day had any respect for my tailoring.
As I fell to the ground, the same young men who had only a few minutes earlier been trying to launch me into space ran forward to
pick me up, shouting in Arabic “Allahu Akbar” (God is most great) the traditional cry for a fallen comrade.
To them I had now become one of them, a victim of the Israeli occupiers, and they rushed me into the emergency room.
They gave me cold drinks and shook my hand, while a doctor examined me, put some kind of cream on my leg and pronounced me good to go.
You will be relieved to know that Reuters reimbursed me for the
trousers."
You can get the whole book as a paperback or e-book on Amazon.
Happy reading!
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Published on October 02, 2023 01:03 • Tags: put-me-down-i-m-british
It's a journey to the frontlines of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ,which opens with an eyewitness account of the eruption of the 1987 Palestinian intifada and a close-up look at the birth of the Hamas movement, essential reading for anyone trying to comprehend the latest Israel-Gaza conflagration.
Put Me Down I’m British also offers an inside view into West African wars and the bloody rampages of outlaw bike gangs in Scandinavia along with snapshots of encounters with Salman Rushdie, Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, Hillary Clinton and European royalty.
There’s also a stay with Muslim guerrillas in the hills of northern Liberia and the shock of being bayonetted and arrested by Turkish commandos in occupied northern Cyprus.
It is a voyage of self-discovery; of overcoming almost daily challenges and thinking on the hoof while retaining a sense of compassion and a sense of humour.
The title is taken from an incident during the first Palestininan intifada while I was on assignment for Reuters news agency in the West Bank city of Ramallah in 1988.
"One day I was driving around Ramallah and as I passed the main hospital I noticed a group of young men hauling buckets of stones and rocks by rope up to the building’s roof.
They were obviously waiting for Israeli soldiers to arrive on the scene, so that they could pelt them from above.
As usual on my walkabouts I was wearing a suit and tie to signal that I was a foreigner and I had no qualms whatever about walking
into the hospital and climbing the stairs to the roof for a chat.
The Ramallah boys apparently had missed the class on welcoming visiting journalists and took it into their heads that I was a Shin Bet
agent. They grabbed me by the arms and legs and started to drag me to the edge of the roof, with the clear aim of throwing me off.
With no time to offer them my press credentials or suggest that they call one of my Palestinian friends to vouch for me I blurted
out, “Put me down, I’m British!”
Not innate jingoism but desperate shorthand for “Please don’t kill me, I’m not an Israeli spook.”
They took no notice and started to swing me back and forth to build up a bit of momentum.
Fortunately, a doctor who had seen me on my way upstairs andimagined that this might not end well, had followed me up to keep an
eye on things.
When he told my tormentors to put me down they did so immediately, albeit with ill grace.
I left the building and was talking to some locals outside when an Israel army jeep appeared suddenly from around a corner. With
no warning a soldier fired a tear gas canister, hitting me on the shinbone and knocking me down.
Damn it hurt!
Those things were fired from a launcher looking like a fat shotgun and the metal canister was searing hot when it hit
me, burning through the trouser leg of my dove-grey woolen suit.
It seemed that nobody in Ramallah that day had any respect for my tailoring.
As I fell to the ground, the same young men who had only a few minutes earlier been trying to launch me into space ran forward to
pick me up, shouting in Arabic “Allahu Akbar” (God is most great) the traditional cry for a fallen comrade.
To them I had now become one of them, a victim of the Israeli occupiers, and they rushed me into the emergency room.
They gave me cold drinks and shook my hand, while a doctor examined me, put some kind of cream on my leg and pronounced me good to go.
You will be relieved to know that Reuters reimbursed me for the
trousers."
You can get the whole book as a paperback or e-book on Amazon.
Happy reading!
Like • 0 comments • flag
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter
Published on October 02, 2023 01:03 • Tags: put-me-down-i-m-british
Review, by Emily Thompson, Discovery
Put me down I’m British is a fascinating book. Particularly reading it at the moment when there is fresh conflict in Israel and the middle-east.
Written by Stephen Weizman, a former Reuters journalist who witnessed many of the world’s recent atrocities - the book provides an interesting first hand account of international politics and conflicts.
It focuses initially on the Palestinian intifada in 1987 and provides a balanced view of the bloody battles...through personal accounts.
The book also covers Weizman’s work in Liberia (and) Zaire ...as well as gang warfare in Scandinavia and reporting on the border in Cyprus where he suffers a stabbing.
Throughout Weizman suffers personal injuries and near death experiences as well as regular bans on his reports and public humiliations at the hands of the governments not wanting the truths to be published. It feels like a battle not many people would have continued, not for a career and not for the truth.
This is a fascinating book about recent conflicts, told by someone who lived through them. The complexities of conflicts and the interconnected politics is bewildering. So the personal accounts of incidents in his life during this period help to bring the events to life and help them make sense to the reader.
A must for anyone interested in current events to understand the context of them.
Written by Stephen Weizman, a former Reuters journalist who witnessed many of the world’s recent atrocities - the book provides an interesting first hand account of international politics and conflicts.
It focuses initially on the Palestinian intifada in 1987 and provides a balanced view of the bloody battles...through personal accounts.
The book also covers Weizman’s work in Liberia (and) Zaire ...as well as gang warfare in Scandinavia and reporting on the border in Cyprus where he suffers a stabbing.
Throughout Weizman suffers personal injuries and near death experiences as well as regular bans on his reports and public humiliations at the hands of the governments not wanting the truths to be published. It feels like a battle not many people would have continued, not for a career and not for the truth.
This is a fascinating book about recent conflicts, told by someone who lived through them. The complexities of conflicts and the interconnected politics is bewildering. So the personal accounts of incidents in his life during this period help to bring the events to life and help them make sense to the reader.
A must for anyone interested in current events to understand the context of them.
