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Forty years on from the Six Day War, a new book gives us a grim window into modern times.

A remarkable photographic record of an obscured and scarred part of the world is represented in What Did We Do To Deserve This? by Mark Howell, from Garnet Publishing.

What Did We Do to Deserve This? - Palestinian Life under Occupation in the West Bank by Mark Howell

Forty years on from the Six Day War that effectively created the borders of present day Israel Mark Howells' portrait of a people living under occupation is at times chilling (a pension aged Palestinian couple left to live in a cave through having nowhere the Israeli authorities will let them live more permanently), to the striking (the ever growing security ‘Wall’ Israeli authorities are constructing that cuts across the landscape and in some cases down the centre of streets), to the mundane (Palestinian policemen forlornly guarding the rubble of the Palestinian Authority's headquarters in Nablus, though it's long been destroyed).

Finding a solution to what is frequently termed the ‘Israeli-Palestinian conflict’ is now widely acknowledged as an important step in reversing the growing gap between mainstream Muslim society and the West. By providing the reader with a comprehensive understanding and photographic evidence of how Israel’s policies in the West Bank affect the lives of real people, What Did We Do to Deserve This? uses words and images to offer the reader a new platform from which to form his or her own opinions.

Published to coincide with the 40th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank – back in June 1967 - the book tells the truly compelling story of the sometimes mundane, often horrific, everyday existence of the Palestinian people living there.

Pictured (left): Commuter road. Rush hour traffic from Israeli settlements entering East Jerusalem, taken from a bus carrying Palestinians with Jerusalem ID. The tri-lingual sign belies the fact that the road is off-limits to the 90% of West Bank Palestinians who do not have such status. © Mark Howell 2007

Based around photographs with accompanying captions and interviews from August 2005 to January of this year, What Did We Do to Deserve This? looks at all aspects of the often hidden, almost always obscured business of daily life in the present day West Bank, including freedom of movement, religion, business, and the development of democracy. It is very much an expression of Palestinian life through Palestinian voices, the views of the men and women on the street, and the power of the book comes from the people themselves.

A Big 'Prison'?

“We are brothers in Bethlehem” says Adnan, pictured in his souvenir shop in Bethlehem in the book - and commenting as the main road from Jerusalem to his home town is gradually cut in two by the construction of the security wall. “Christian and Muslim. We live together, we suffer together, we are happy together...Many people are leaving Bethlehem because of the wall. There’s no business, no European financial support, no tourists. We live in a big prison.”

For the British reader, the images of the IDF going about their daily business of manning checkpoints, checking papers and patrolling - armed and in full kit - what otherwise often look like perfectly ordinary streets can’t help call to mind similar images of the RUC and the British Army in Northern Ireland in recent decades. They’re shocking for the same reasons – a sense that the civil power has been given over to a state of what looks like permanent ‘war readiness’ and of a population divided unhappily into ‘them and us’.

The central message that comes across from both the images and text is of a population who feel annexed, unrepresented at home and misrepresented (or ignored) abroad. Above all the reader is left with the lasting – though obvious and clear - impression that the problems of this region’s people could very easily be the problems of any one of us through no fault of our own and that rather than think about the problems the Palestinian refugees deal with day to day as somehow being uniquely their situation to consider for a moment the prospect of finding yourself a second-class citizen in your own neighbourhood, subject to movement restrictions and identity checks by an occupying power and finding this state to have become somehow permanent?

Human Stories

Pictured (right): Street in Old City. Street in the Old City of Hebron in the Southern West Bank with netting put up to shield Palestinians from objects thrown by Israeli settlers who have occupied the upper floors of Palestinian buildings. © Mark Howell 2007.

Ultimately it is the human stories of the refugees that are the most affecting – the image of Umm Akram, a woman who lost a child following denial of passage through an Israeli checkpoint when complications with her pregnancy developed is particularly heartbreaking – but the most striking images (peppered throughout the work as the structure appears to be around the refugees) of Israel’s growing security ‘wall’ – which calls to mind nothing so much as the post World War Two East/West demarcation wall in Berlin, torn down to much jubilation back in 1989. Chilling stuff when you consider how long that lasted.

As you might expect for such subject matter, some of this is grim stuff indeed – but this is essential reading nonetheless for anyone interested in documentary photography or the world around them. Thought provoking stuff indeed. What Did We Do to Deserve This? will appeal to anyone interested in current affairs, history, politics, travel, photography, or Middle Eastern studies.

Stephen Donlan spoke to Mark Howell - the author and photographer behind the book - starting by asking him how he first got started as a photo journalist:

Mark Howell: “I have always been interested in news and photography but didn't go to the type of school which encouraged you to think of unconventional careers. I ended being a hardworking City lawyer. Looking back on it this gave me valuable skills - the ability to get things done to schedule, attention to detail, research skills - and it also gave me the opportunity to work for two years in Cairo. This was where I rediscovered photography. From there I found an MA course in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography and that set me on my current track.”

Q: What do you hope this book can actually achieve?

Mark Howell: “When putting something like this together you always hope it is going to change the world - it's one of the things that gets you through it. However, I was fully aware of the enormous obstacles that face anybody wishing to present a balanced view of the conflict. As a consequence, many writers and campaigners largely end up preaching to the converted. My book, with its equal mix of text and pictures, and concentration on issues of daily life, is designed to be easily accessible. Many people would like to know a little more about the conflict, but are not prepared to read text heavy books to achieve this. If I can attract some of them to read the book and challenge their assumptions, I will view it as a success.”

Q: You have a legal background – eight years’ experience as a lawyer, eighteen months of that in a Cairo-based firm – but is photography - such as this new book – now where your heart is?

Mark Howell: “Absolutely. Law was always a staging post on the way to something else. To keep on achieving in this world I think you stop for a while, build up skills and move on. The photographic world is a very challenging environment to work in at the moment. It is massively competitive and constantly changing. That means you have to change with it - which I like.”

Q: The book as a whole comes across very much as a window into an ‘unreported world’. Was this the aim of the work – to cast a light into a neglected part of the world?

Mark Howell: “I certainly hope that in some small way a light has been cast on the true reality of the conflict by the book. However, the book grew organically out of a much smaller project. When I first went to the West Bank, it was primarily as an observer. I hoped a photographic project would result but I went to see what the place was actually like. I was so shocked at the difference between the reality and the perception one is given through western media that it became obvious that that was the story I should try to show.

“As my understanding increased and my stock of pictures expanded I realised there was potential for a book. When I was commissioned by Garnet, they wanted some written explanation. That presented a real challenge as I felt I had to put the conflict in context so a reader with no prior knowledge would not be lost but keep it succinct. I hope I have achieved this.

“I think it is the job of a photojournalist to act as a window on an ‘unreported world’. It is where we find the pictures which make people challenge their assumptions. Personally, I also like to put things in context. Perhaps it comes from my BA in History but also from my interest in politics. Some photographers enjoy the minutiae - spending long periods of time on single issues distinct from their impact on the wider world. I prefer to look at things more broadly, see how they interrelate, understand the politics and make sense of situations.”

Q: Was there one single thing that made you first want to do a book looking at the situation from the point of view of the present reality for the Palestinian refugees in the West Bank?

Mark Howell: “The book is from the point of view of Palestinians in the West Bank, a large number of whom are refugees but most of whom are inhabitants whose families were living in the West Bank for centuries prior to the establishment of Israel. The injustice of the situation was my primary motive - seeing a peace-loving and incredibly friendly people suffering terribly, and quietly, at the hands of a country defended by the western powers as a democratic and liberal ally.”

Pictured (left): Ibrahim-Fatima. Ibrahim and Fatima, an elderly Palestinian couple who have lived in a cave since 1967 because the Israeli authorities refuse them permission to build a house in their village, Qawawis, Southern West Bank. © Mark Howell 2007.

Q: There are many affecting images in the book – of people you met, photographed and talked to for the book. Which individual do you think will leave the greatest impression on you personally?

Mark Howell: “For me it is Ibrahim and Fatima, a couple who have lived in a cave for 40 years because of Israeli building restrictions in the West Bank. They face frequent aggravation from settlers and their neighbours’ houses have been demolished. Recently they have seen their grazing lands taken away by surrounding settlements and it is only a matter before they are moved off their land completely. They are an example of how Israel's policy to force Palestinians into urban ghettos or to leave the West Bank altogether works to affect most aspects of Palestinian's lives.”

Q: It’s clear from the book that there are numerous practical difficulties with living and working in the occupied territories that adversely affect the everyday lives of Palestinians. As a photo-journalist what were the practical difficulties for you moving about, working and – in particular taking pictures - in the region?

Mark Howell: “Unlike Palestinians, internationals can move relatively freely in the West Bank, except where Israel has closed checkpoints. Israeli forces tend to keep to the edges of towns where they have checkpoints. Within towns you have a lot of freedom unless the Israeli authorities mount an incursion or impose a curfew. In places like Nablus and refugee camps though, incursions happen on a nightly basis. Israeli soldiers are generally suspicious of you (as they see any visitor as pro-Palestinian) but they are sometimes welcoming, identifying you as western and implicitly safe as opposed to Palestinian and by definition dangerous.

“My main concerns were taking photographs of checkpoints and other Israeli infrastructure and getting my film through checkpoints and out of Israel. I was mistaken for an Israeli by children a couple of times and stoned which was a little hairy. However, as my story was about ordinary Palestinian life and not Palestinian militants and demonstrations, I did not go out of my way to place myself in difficult situations. Sometimes, however, for example an incursion in Ramullah you can't escape it but my inclination then is to keep my head down. I take the view I am more useful alive.”

Q: Probably very few of this books’ readership will (thankfully) have any first-hand experience of life under occupation of any kind. How difficult is it as a photographer to get across the scale and the day to day reality of this particular situation?

Mark Howell: “It is very difficult because many of the obstacles imposed on the Palestinians do not look so significant in isolation - a person imprisoned here, a piece of land confiscated there, someone restricted from reaching medical care through a checkpoint. However, it is the cumulative effect of these actions multiplied across the West Bank and day after day which wears down the Palestinian will, forcing many of those who can to leave their lands and even the West Bank itself. This is a deliberate tactic by Israel. It knows that proceeding in this piecemeal way rather than by a more overt plan it can achieve its ends without catching the attention of the world's media. I concluded that the most effective way of getting the reality across was simply to let ordinary Palestinians speak and place them in context with a portrait. The interviews are a very important part of the book.”

Q: Few Palestinian people - or outside observers - might have imagined forty years ago when they were driven out of their homes that the situation would have seemingly become permanent in 2007. Having spent years there, what prospect do you see yourself for change in the future?

Mark Howell: “It will be 60 years next year since the majority of the Palestinian people were driven from their homes. 40 years ago, although some 250,000 West Bank Palestinians who were abroad were forbidden to return by Israel, most of the Palestinians in the West Bank stayed put, hence the Occupation. I am very pessimistic. The West and Israel are trying to force the Palestinians to accept a ‘solution’ which essentially bottles them in enclaves in the West Bank with limited self-government, essentially a bantustan-style, apartheid system within a Greater Israel. This is why the West has supported Fatah and forced the removal of Hamas, the democratically elected government. Fatah was originally rejected by the Palestinian people because of corruption of Fatah officials and its failure to make headway with Israel. This hasn't changed and it has to be doubted whether Fatah could even win a mandate within the West Bank (as distinct from Gaza), which is its natural bedrock.

“Most Palestinians I spoke to saw no prospect of a settlement in their lifetimes. It is possible that the West, Israel and the Fatah leaders do agree some form of ‘settlement’. Tony Blair's appointment as envoy may serve to strengthen the links between this triumvirate. Any settlement will, however, be on Israel's terms and leave the Palestinian people as second class citizens of an Israeli state without voting rights, freedom of movement or access to social services which Israelis (including settlers who may live on the hill above them) have as of right. This will simply bottle up more anger and despair and lead to more violence both in this Greater Israel and more widely on the world stage.

Q: Forty years from now, would you envisage someone (perhaps yourself?) doing a very different kind of book – similar to the ones done since ’89 of reunited East and West Germany – or is that unrealistic?

Mark Howell: “One should never give up hope but I do think this is unrealistic. I believe that most people just want to get on with their lives and support their families. There is a solution that would work. It has been the same since 1967 - a Palestinian state within 1967 borders with its capital in East Jerusalem. This would bring peace. The trouble is that the Israeli establishment has always, and probably most Israelis do, see the West Bank as part of Israel and Jewish. They prefer to identify the Palestinians as Arabs who should simply just move to some other Arab land rather than a people with a historic and current connection with the land. Israelis will not accept Palestinians as equals within a secular state and the US will not exert enough pressure on Israel to give up its hold on the West Bank.

Q: Apparently there was some resistance from publishers to the publication of this book – given its’ politically charged, contemporary subject. How did this manifest? Did you think there was a prospect of the work not seeing print?

Mark Howell: “I would say 'resistance' is the wrong word. The book's subject matter is political in nature and most major photographic publishers steer away from political issues. On the other hand, most journalistic publishers produce textual books of paperback size and are not suited to photographic reproduction. The cost of producing a colour photography book is also significant. I was fortunate that my publisher, Garnet, liked the concept and it fitted in with their profile and how they wished to develop their portfolio. The book might never have made print but as the cliché goes you make your own luck. I was prepared to work with Garnet and deliver a book which will hopefully do well for them and for me.

Q: Are there any plans to exhibit the collection in this book anywhere?

Mark Howell: “I would love to exhibit but the problem is that most galleries and public spaces book their space one to two years ahead whereas the optimum time for exhibition is on publication. With the need to produce a current affairs book quickly it is difficult to build exhibition plans into the process. If the book is successful I would hope to find a partner to help me put on an exhibition at a later stage.”

Q: After What Did We Do to Deserve This?, do you have any plans for your next project? If so, what is that likely to be?

Mark Howell: “I have a number of projects I am working on at the moment on UK issues although production and marketing of the book has been taking up a lot of my time. I am particularly interested in the current state of democracy in the UK. I would like to undertake further projects in the Middle East but at the moment I am stepping back a little to assess what impact my book is having and how I might use the knowledge and skills I have acquired to best effect in the future.”

Here’s what some of the reviews have had to say about the book so far:

“Its strength lies in its success in capturing the ordinary and, in so doing, restoring the sense of humanity for the observer who may have become numb to the more typical images emanating from the region.” - Emel Magazine, December 2006.

Jim Miles, reviewing the book for Aljazeera magazine online comments: "The Palestinian people present themselves as a compassionate and caring people, for themselves, their land, and were it possible, for their neighbours...As an introductory view of the Palestinian situation, What Did We Do to Deserve This? is an excellent starting point. Hard-hitting, gritty, realistic, yet also compassionate and humanistic and ultimately, in spite of the negatives, hopeful."

Mark Howell “has witnessed the simple exhaustion and weariness of those who never know whether they will make it to work that day, of the ambulance drivers forced to take indirect routes to an emergency because they cannot use Israeli-only roads, the shopkeepers forced to move out of the premises because the Israeli settlers living above throw their rubbish down upon them and the man whose wife is forced to live illegally with him because she isn’t given an ID card and who, once the Wall is completed, may never be able to see her family again. It is exactly this exhaustion, this quiet depression and frustration that Howell captures so well.” - Emel Magazine, December 2006.

The Author

Short-listed for the prestigious photography award, The Ian Parry Scholarship in 2006 Mark Howell’s photographs have appeared in The Sunday Times and in exhibition at London’s Getty Library. Aside from being an accomplished photographer (with a MA in Photojournalism) he is also a trained lawyer, speaks and reads Arabic and has travelled extensively throughout the Middle East. For more information on the author visit his official website at: www.markhowell.co.uk

Follow this link to read Barbarity is the inevitable consequence of foreign rule - article by Seumas Milne originally published in The Guardian (27/01/05)

What Did We Do to Deserve This? - Palestinian Life under Occupation in the West Bank is in the shops now, published by Garnet Publishing, priced £19.95.

Images taken from What Did We Do to Deserve This? - Palestinian Life Under Occupation in the West Bank by Mark Howell £19.95 (Garnet Publishing, 2007). © Mark Howell 2007. PSP Ltd is not responsible for the contents of external websites.

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