Interview with the Extreme Rambling writer, Mark Thomas

The author talks about his experience walking along Israel's separation barrier in the West Bank.

The British political comedian and author Mark Thomas says ‘a mixture of devilment and curiosity’ spurred him on to walk the length of the separation barrier in the West Bank.

When the British political comedian Mark Thomas announced he was publishing a book about rambling, it's likely many of his fans were a bit bemused. After all, this was a comic - or "libertarian anarchist" as he sometimes calls himself - who once persuaded an Indonesian military chief to admit to torture on camera by posing as a public relations agency representing dictatorships. Over the past few years, Thomas has tied himself to a bus taking arms dealers to a weapons fair, put a bounty on the head of George W Bush, and been added to the Guinness World Records for attending more demonstrations in one day (20 protests in 20 different locations). Rambling seemed a bit on the mild side.

But Thomas's walking tour wasn't your average affair. It was in the West Bank, following Israel's illegal separation barrier from one end to the other, a hike that would involve tear gas, demonstrations and a whole lot of military checkpoints. A controversial wall dividing an even more controversial region of the world was definitely Mark Thomas territory (not that it stopped a fellow comedian asking him why he couldn't just stand up and tell a joke, like everyone else in the profession).

"It was a mixture of devilment and curiosity," says Thomas on what first gave him the idea. "Curiosity because I didn't think I knew enough about what was happening there, and there seems to be a lot of liberal fudge where people cringe and say they don't want to talk about it."

So, over eight-and-a-half weeks in 2009, Thomas and his cameraman journeyed the length the wall from the north-easterly tip, where the River Jordan meets the Jordan Valley, to the very bottom. The adventure is described in Extreme Rambling, his book recently published by Ebury.

Working out the logistics for such an expedition didn't involve simply buying an Ordnance Survey map and a compass. Thomas first did a reccy in East Jerusalem, meeting Palestinian groups and Israeli activists and speaking to solicitors, human rights organisations and media fixers. Hotel bookings proved tricky. The first night he slept in a barn, the second in a garage. After a few days he landed in Jenin and visited the Freedom Theatre in the city's refugee camp. Here, Thomas met the theatre's charismatic director Juliano Mer-Khamis (who was tragically murdered by gunmen earlier this year), and he used the theatre for a base for the first section of the ramble.

"We'd set out each morning and go to the wall and then turn and start hiking, eventually hooking up with our translators. Normally, we'd have an interview with someone, and after that we'd start the ramble. But inevitably something would happen, things would occur and we'd be faced with something we hadn't thought of. For the first week it was a real struggle getting from A to B."

Among the incidents he found himself immersed in were the weekly demonstrations at Bil'in, a village near Ramallah that in 2009 forced an order by the Israeli High Court of Justice for the army to reroute the wall, which has swallowed half its land. The army has not adhered to the court order and every Friday, protesters made up of Israeli anarchists, Palestinian youths, scout bands and even people dressed as clowns march to the wall. And almost every time they get forced back by tear gas. Thomas found himself stuck with one of the clowns as the gas canisters landed. "I had to help him up the hill because he had big shoes on."

On his travels he also came across those who have made their living under the lawlessness that the wall brings, including illegal scrap heaps letting out toxic fumes - things that exist because the Israeli army don't care and the Palestinian police won't come near it because of the wall.

He also witnessed the humiliation of Palestinians trying to pass from one side of the wall to the other, usually to access the land that was theirs before it was carved up by the concrete. In one spot he saw people queuing up at the barrier at 2am for its 5am opening simply so they can get to work on time.

One of the most interesting things he noticed was the inconsistency of the wall, put up supposedly for security reasons. "In the south, there are bits where it isn't finished, where we actually managed to sneak across a few times," he says, adding that he met many who crossed illegally all the time. "So there's a paradox here with the idea that this stops suicide bombers."

Naturally, in a land littered with military checkpoints, Thomas got stopped rather a lot of times, which helped him perfect his technique of dealing with the inevitable questions regarding his motives. "I just used to say that we were making a book about rambling, which is true. After a while the army would ask: 'Is it just about walking? Are you talking to people too?'"

Another major disruption to Thomas's schedule proved to be the endless rounds of coffee and tea laid on by locals in the West Bank, something he calls the "Palestinian roadblock". Because of this hospitality he says he actually went home having put weight on.

Despite admitting that optimism isn't "in big supply", Thomas is clear about how the situation should end. "Without doubt, the wall has to come down and the occupation has to end. This wall is a brutal extension of the occupation and is an evil and humiliating thing." He points to the growing boycott movement, plus the non-violent community groups and Israeli activists as positive tools to that end.

As for Thomas, he might not be hanging up his politically minded boots just yet. In fact, with rambling and conflict he might just have found himself a subject worth exploring further. "When I got back home I got a call from a friend asking, 'What are you doing next?' I think there's something going on in Burma.'"

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