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'All Hail, the New Puritans' is the collection of new stories from
the most exciting young novelists today. Inspired by the Dogme 95
group of film makers, the New Puritans are attempting to rediscover
fiction as a discipline rather than a category. 1. Primarily
storytellers, we are dedicated to the narrative form. 2. We are
prose writers and recognise that prose is the dominant form of
expression. For this reason we shun poetry and poetic licence in
all its forms. 3. While acknowledging the value of genre fiction,
whether classical or modern, we will always move towards new
openings, rupturing existing genre expectations. 4. We believe in
textual simplicity and vow to avoid all devices of voice: rhetoric,
authorial asides. 5. In the name of clarity, we recognise the
importance of temporal linearity and eschew flashbacks, dual
temporal narratives and foreshadowing. 6. We believe in grammatical
purity and avoid any elaborate punctuation. 7. We recognise that
published works are also historical documents. As fragments of our
time, all our texts are dated and set in the present day. All
products, places, artists and objects named are real. 8. As
faithful representation of the present, our texts will avoid all
improbable or unknowable speculations on the past or the future. 9.
We are moralists, so all text feature a recognisable ethical
reality. 10. Nevertheless, our aim is integrity of expression,
above and beyond any commitment to form.
The town of Bethlehem carries so many layers of meaning--some
ancient, some mythical, some religious--that it feels like an
unreal city, even to the people who call it home. Today, the city
is hemmed in by a wall and surrounded by forty-one Israeli
settlements and hostile settlers and soldiers. The population is
undergoing such enormous strains it is close to falling apart. Any
town with an eleven-thousand-year history has to be robust, but
Bethlehem may soon go the way of Salonica or Constantinople: the
physical site might survive, but the long thread winding back to
the ancient past will have snapped, and the city risks losing
everything that makes it unique. Still, for many, Bethlehem remains
the "little town" of the Christmas song. Nicholas Blincoe will tell
the history of the famous little town, through the visceral
experience of living there, taking readers through its stone
streets and desert wadis, its monasteries, aqueducts and orchards,
showing the city from every angle and era. Inevitably, a portrait
of Bethlehem will shed light on one of the world's most intractable
political problems. Bethlehem is a much-loved Palestinian city, a
source of pride and wealth but also a beacon of co-existence in a
region where hopelessness, poverty and violence has become the
norm. Bethlehem could light the way to a better future, but if the
city is lost then the chances of an end to the Israel-Palestine
conflict will be lost with it.
By turns tragic and hopeful, the history of Israel and Palestine
through the lens of the world's most popular sport. Football has
never been shy of politics. This is especially true for Israel and
Palestine. A sport introduced by Victorian churchmen swiftly became
a vehicle for nationalism and pride. Under British military rule,
Jewish and Palestinian teams competed in the same leagues, not only
on the pitch, but in smoky committee rooms and street corners, as
the two communities fought for control of the sport. After the
creation of Israel in 1948, Palestinian football survived among
refugees, with Jordan's greatest side hailing from the poorest of
the camps on the fringes of the capital. In recent years, Israel's
dynamic Premier League has seen some of the country's best teams
and players emerge from the Palestinian community - inspiring hope
that football might help Arabs and Jews become friends and equals.
Meanwhile, in the West Bank and Gaza, a series of shock wins by a
new Palestinian national side saw Palestine climb the FIFA
rankings, making football the one field where Palestinians could
compete with pride on a world stage, as one nation among the
others. This is a vibrant and often shocking story filled with
driven, even ferocious people who are inspired by nationalism as
much as a love of the game. There are many sacrifices, as brilliant
teams are scattered by wars, side-lined through boycotts, and
stories of players arrested, expelled, driven to hunger strikes,
and beaten or shot. It is a story not simply of Jewish-Arab
rivalry, but also of the deep fracture lines within each community.
In this unusual history of the world's most intractable conflict,
Nicholas Blincoe sets out to ask: is it hopelessly romantic to
think of football as a level playing field, governed by
sportsmanship and the love of the game? Or will it always be just
another space to be fought over and polluted?
The town of Bethlehem carries so many layers of meaning--some
ancient, some mythical, some religious--that it feels like an
unreal city, even to the people who call it home. Today, the city
is hemmed in by a wall and surrounded by forty-one Israeli
settlements and hostile settlers and soldiers. The population is
undergoing such enormous strains it is close to falling apart. Any
town with an eleven-thousand-year history has to be robust, but
Bethlehem may soon go the way of Salonica or Constantinople: the
physical site might survive, but the long thread winding back to
the ancient past will have snapped, and the city risks losing
everything that makes it unique. Still, for many, Bethlehem remains
the "little town" of the Christmas song. Nicholas Blincoe will tell
the history of the famous little town, through the visceral
experience of living there, taking readers through its stone
streets and desert wadis, its monasteries, aqueducts and orchards,
showing the city from every angle and era. Inevitably, a portrait
of Bethlehem will shed light on one of the world's most intractable
political problems. Bethlehem is a much-loved Palestinian city, a
source of pride and wealth but also a beacon of co-existence in a
region where hopelessness, poverty and violence has become the
norm. Bethlehem could light the way to a better future, but if the
city is lost then the chances of an end to the Israel-Palestine
conflict will be lost with it.
By turns tragic and hopeful, the history of Israel and Palestine
through the lens of the world's most popular sport. Football has
never been shy of politics. This is especially true for Israel and
Palestine. A sport introduced by Victorian churchmen swiftly became
a vehicle for nationalism and pride. Under British military rule,
Jewish and Palestinian teams competed in the same leagues, not only
on the pitch, but in smoky committee rooms and street corners, as
the two communities fought for control of the sport. After the
creation of Israel in 1948, Palestinian football survived among
refugees, with Jordan's greatest side hailing from the poorest of
the camps on the fringes of the capital. In recent years, Israel's
dynamic Premier League has seen some of the country's best teams
and players emerge from the Palestinian community - inspiring hope
that football might help Arabs and Jews become friends and equals.
Meanwhile, in the West Bank and Gaza, a series of shock wins by a
new Palestinian national side saw Palestine climb the FIFA
rankings, making football the one field where Palestinians could
compete with pride on a world stage, as one nation among the
others. This is a vibrant and often shocking story filled with
driven, even ferocious people who are inspired by nationalism as
much as a love of the game. There are many sacrifices, as brilliant
teams are scattered by wars, side-lined through boycotts, and
stories of players arrested, expelled, driven to hunger strikes,
and beaten or shot. It is a story not simply of Jewish-Arab
rivalry, but also of the deep fracture lines within each community.
In this unusual history of the world's most intractable conflict,
Nicholas Blincoe sets out to ask: is it hopelessly romantic to
think of football as a level playing field, governed by
sportsmanship and the love of the game? Or will it always be just
another space to be fought over and polluted?
The last two years have been the most brutal in the entire
thirty-six year history of Israel's military occupation of the West
Bank and Gaza Strip; indeed the most violent since the creation of
Israel itself. The International Solidarity Movement (ISM),
coordinating international volunteers, was founded as peaceful
resistance to that violence. Its highly visible actions, which have
included breaking the sieges in Ramallah and Bethlehem, as well as
saving countless lives, have shone a spotlight on Israel's
occupation. Outlawed in Israel and nominated for the Nobel Peace
Prize, the ISM has threatened the governing coalition with fears
that Israeli opinion might at last be turning against them. In
showing what risks Palestinians take, ISM volunteers have also
tragically been targeted. the shooting of Kate Edwards, Caoimhe
Butterley, Brian Avery have never been fully explained; covered up
in the US and UK, and brushed aside in Israel - an unfortunate
consequence of Israel's 'war on terror'. Collecting previously
published news articles on the movement, giving accounts drawn from
web-logs and diaries as they happened and including last writings
of the murdered American Rachel Corrie and contributions from the
Hurndall family, Peace Under Fire -the story of first two years of
the International Solidarity Movement - reveals the real horror of
life under occupation, and describes the first signs of a new wave
of international solidarity.
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