You wrote: 'we still need drivers from nottingham to the g8'

After some searching I've found out about a bike caravan that goes from Gent (Belgium) which will travel through the Netherlands and Northern Germany to meet up with another bike group on its way to the G8. You could cycle to the ferry, get on and meet up with them. That seems the easiest solution anyway. Here are some of the links:

 http://dissentnetzwerk.org/wiki/Bicycle-Caravan_%22West%22
 http://indymedia.nl/nl/2007/04/43938.shtml (promotional video)
 http://dissentnetzwerk.org/wiki/Fahrradkarawanen_/_bicycle_caravans

Good luck!

Can people donate money so you stay in Palestine and don't come back

nti - Clown

ta for your efforts but if youd read the (admittedly long and rambling post) you would know we have to get a van full of stuff to palestine via the g8. we can already get ourselves to the g8 - and in fact have a tour (and therefore route) booked - which isnt the same as the bike caravan
cheers
anyway

as for you, you twit
we will quite happily stay in palestine once we're there

with the added bonus that we wont come into contact with people like you -

if you cant be positive and still want to make a donation
why dont you donate the rest of your supply of oxygen

and do us all a favour and take some pressure of the population crisis

every little helps

X

"ta for your efforts but if youd read the you would know we have to get a van full of stuff to palestine via the g8."

Germany is not on the way to palestine.


"we will quite happily stay in palestine once we're there"
Great news.

"with the added bonus that we wont come into contact with people like you -"
...and they added bonus you'll come into contact with live fire.

"if you cant be positive and still want to make a donation
why dont you donate the rest of your supply of oxygen

and do us all a favour and take some pressure of the population crisis"

And now your on about a 'population crisis'! Great. A clown, a hippy, a liberal, and now a bit of fascist too.

You really are a piece of work.

I take it you've organised your stay in palestine independently as none of the orgs out there would tolerate muppets like you.

I'd just like to apologise to the world for creating the clowns, it was the biggest political and personal mistake i have ever made.

What ungodly beast have i unleashed unto the world. I shall spend the rest of my days as a recluse nurtering the deserved feelings of regret and dismay.

May god have mercy upon me.

This is just to say that i did not post the last comment - someone else posted it who is either a cop and wants to cause frictions within movements or has an identity crisis or is just so busy working on the much needed global rebellion that they spend their life online pretending to be other people ....

dear poster - get a life, stand away from your computer screen, make some friends and stop the lies, you really will feel much more happy as a result

yours
the real john jordan

Let me first of all say that I think it is good that you initiated this project. It is good to see that young people get involved with issues surounding them, as well as with issues further away. Through this website and on your own website I have been following your project for some time now, and I have considered supporting you. I do feel however there are some concerns. Please allow me to voice these, in the hope you'll take these on board and maybe give them some thought.

In relation to this article, the first thing that I noticed was the fact that about 10 days before you leave you're still looking for a driver. This seems unfortunate and also a little last-minute and indicates something about the level of organisation. It seems odd to me as well that you would need a van to drive you to the G8 when, as the previous comment pointed out, there are bike caravans going there. If I were to support 'pedal powered clowns' to go to Palestine, then I'd like to see you get there 'pedal-powered'. Especially even more so now with climate change getting worse. Consider it. Are you training? I was thinking that as you were cycling to Palestine, you would be doing a lot of training and us (the potential supporters you're appealing to) would be kept informed of the progress of that. There is no mention of it on the website. It seems the cycling aspect of it is moved to the background, which I find a real shame.

The next thing I noticed is that in the beginning the idea of the project was to work in Palestine. I guess the aim was (and still is) to raise awareness of the situation in Palestine and rally support along the way. Now the idea suddenly is to go to the G8 and I read maybe to Denmark. That doesn't seem to make sense as Palestine is located South-East, not North. Anyhow, it's good you want to go to the G8, but it's not what the project was initially about. As someone considering supporting you, I'd like to know what I'm giving my money to and if the plans keeps changing I'm less confident about the fact that my money will actually be used to support your work with children in Palestine. Have the pedal-powered clowns have got too many issues on their agenda?

Another point I feel very strongly about is the way this and other articles have been written. A lot of the text is in CAPITALS, a lot of it is rambly, no correct spelling etc. In Britain about 5% of the population (thats around 3 million people) have some form of a reading disablity, such as dyslexia, print reading disability or other sight problem. The way you've written the articles and the layout of your website are very inaccessible. Even for me it is hard to read. Also the information isn't categorized very well so its difficult to find what you're looking for efficiently. More information about these issues can be found on the website of the Royal National Institute of the Blind:  http://www.rnib.org.uk

I would have liked to read a lot more about Palestine, the villages you're going to work in, the people you'll be working with, more about the kind of work you're thinking of doing and how you feel it will affect peoples lives there. More background, more analysis, more photos of previous work and more of why you think it will make a difference for you to go there dressed as 'clowns'. Are you interested in different ways of working? Is there any contact with existing groups supporting Palestine in Nottingham and if so, will they be at your event on 7th May? Why does your website state 'we have a lot of people wanting to come for just 1 or 2 months of the project so now we are only interested in people wanting to commit to the whole thing'? Are you not interested to work with people if they can't commit to doing the whole project? What is that about? Another thing you write on your website is: 'the closer we get to our leaving date the more necessary the short cut solutions of money will be to the projects realisation'. It reads like you are very unrealistic about the amount of money this tour will cost and haven't been as on the case as you should have been about fundraising. You go on about being 'DIY' but seem to mostly ask others for all the things that are needed. 'We'll blag it all along the way' is the ethos I get from reading your website. On the whole the project seems very badly put together. No transparency of where money is coming from and how it's exactly spent, no open structure for people to support you, no clear understanding of what it is that you are ACTUALLY doing. Maybe you ARE organised enough to do this project, it's just that whats been published on the internet isn't reflecting it. And for me and many others, this is the only thing to go by. It's all a bit vague and although this project project has the potential of being really good, consider what it is you actually want people to support you for.

Let me finish off by wishing you all the best on your travels and hope that in future you will be able to communicate with and learn from people who have done these types of tours before, to avoid making the same kind of mistakes.

All the best,

Simon, if that wasn't just a nice way of demonstrating what ab unch of dodgy chancers this lot are, then i can hopefully point you in the direction of some genuinely useful solidarity groups.

The most high - profile campaign for internationals is the International Solidarity Movement. Without the ISM, half the international groups now in the occupied territories probably wouldn't be there.

ISM is a horizonatally organised, consensus based and Palestinian lead movement. It works in direct solidarity with palestinians every day of the year, with some annual campaigns which they push for volunteers to try and make such as the olive harvest (harassed by soldiers and settlers), Freedom Summer, and obstructing the construction of the apartheid wall.

I recommend supporting palestinian aid organisations and solidarity groups which are ALREADY IN PALESTINE, as security in and out of israel which controls palestine's borders is very tight and even the best cover story for a peace activist can fall through. They don't have to let people in. They will deport anyone they think has come to protest the occupation.

as you point out about the clowns:
"'We'll blag it all along the way' is the ethos I get from reading your website. On the whole the project seems very badly put together."

- this is utterly intolerable in palestine. Activists need to be well organised with a clear plan and a good link to palestians, such as a fluency in arabic.

look at www.palsolidarity.org, google 'women in black', 'checkpoint watch' and 'anarchists against the wall'. I really don't mind which group you choose to support, as long as you don't sponsor somehting which actually damage the good relations and groundwork intenationals have built up in palestine so far.

Thanks for your response,
Al McShoof

As a quick comment, I'm currently in Palestine and I've talked to a good few people who are really excited about the clowns coming out. Believe me, I find clowns intensely irritating at protests in Britain, but if people in Palestine (both internationals and Palestinians) are looking forward to them arriving and think its a positive project, you can't really argue with that. Also they do say that their van is biofuel powered in their post.

Hi SM,

nice one for going out to the OPT, massive respect due there.
Can i just ask a few things then - and i'm well aware you can't be too specific about your identity due to getting back into israel at a later date.

Where are you stationed?

Which group are you working with/what are your activities mainly?

What exactly are you expecting from the clowns and what have palestininians said about them?

Take care and good luck,

Al McShoof