damn after it had said we're going underground as we enter the shed you'll final week of tory brick said chaos of the coming of the show we go to the birthplace of jesus as israeli settlements trying to cut off the biblical city from jerusalem to speak to the mayor of bethlehem was a scene you negotiate with the siege of the church of the nativity and as the u.n. security council debates because tin uing civilian casualties of nature's war in afghanistan we speak to controversial award winning one academy artist michael sambal about drawing tony blair naked on the doorstep of ten downing street all this more coming up in today's going underground but first a week before christmas eve we're going to bethlehem in palestine just because it's mad. anton thanks so much for joining us us media celebrating beth we have as not only israeli but the site of record tourism this christmas give us an idea an idea of what bethlehem is like kind of under siege from eighteen the parent

be illegal israeli occupation settlements first is celebrating christmas no matter the circumstances that we are facing as a palestinian people and people who still live under occupation because we believe that our celebration and our christmas it's our right our duty to. best. it have told meanings one it's our fear and our fees and give us the duty. and second part of the celebration in christmas is focusing on bethlehem and on the palestinian territories and show the. occupation and the palestinian people with all the challenges that they are facing. and said a brit christmas and there you go on living in this country. with all the

challenges with the hope that the future will bring the peace in the area as mayor of bethlehem what can you do to help christians whose land has been stolen by israeli settlers say in the commies and valley look what's going on in palestine is going against the palestinian people. and muslims and. there is no difference in the. israeli occupation policy concerning the palestinians i understand there was a conference backed by netanyahu and it was an israeli hotel in occupied land in bethlehem and american tourists came to look at the wall around bethlehem kurz. is not to come back to bite but land because better them is a palestinian city and under the palestinian national authority under law and they

are were coming and not welcome to come back to the city or occupy the city where four hours something is not going to be and will not be allowed going to struggle against because a bit lame is a palestinian territories and must be to continue as a palestinian territories second i don't know the americans if there were around the city or there and through the city or were around the wall i don't know or we don't hear of that and in general for us we insist that we are part of the palestinian people we are palestinians and our land is the palestinian territories and it's going to continue like this and to be part of the palestinian state in the future of course netanyahu is saying that that is from the bible and the gospels of course which tell the christmas story that he told the congress us.

congress that justifies the israeli occupation one our one time we are on this is the press conference in jerusalem two months ago all. of them by a press release i publish. told them not to use the religious issues or. draw marketing is policy in palestine or in the middle east second for us it's not accepted. and will never be accepted in the future and not on you know home or say that he is the friend of christians because he's not a friend to anybody he's a compiler so and we never accept or will not never let not any or any other. israeli leader to speak about their policy and people it's time to question and and days i'll draw out of the point that that is

core give the palestinian people their rights and having the. set of determination in state in building their state their future by the by ourselves britain is being recorded to weapons to the israeli government including sniper rifles to get to bethlehem do you have to go through israeli army checkpoints. as you know about the . area is divided in four or five zones. and nineteen sixty seven is it a confiscate the north side of bethlehem. and then continue in two thousand to one . wall surrounding the bethlehem governorate and also confiscated from the land of bethlehem another area the total area of bethlehem is six hundred and eight square kilometers the palestinian authority and the policy there people controlling. six seven point three percent of the total area zone

a according to the last hour or so argument in the door and the rest area we speak about other around eighty seven percent of there is divided into different areas see which is under the full control of is that on which is sixty seven sixty five percent of the total area and zone. national reserve also twenty two percent under the control of israel it means that the palestinian people in bethlehem area living with thirteen point four percent of the total area around seventy kilometers out of six six hundred and it's working on the thames on the edges seven percent around bethlehem it is there is not just eighteen settlement there is more than the. there is one hundred seventy thousand settlers living in the area and is available. now to build

a new settlement in the south side of bethlehem call in a place called the national air and that and that is they want to build another one hundred one thousand two hundred settlement units it means that bethlehem is selling from the north by the wall from the south and west and east by the settlements that was built by the israeli occupation israeli embassy in london never gives us any much of a comment to try and get their response to that any irony feel that there are u.s. evangelical christians coming to the city of bet. they hammed this christmas they support the move of the us embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem first. is jordan is occupied territories and to transfer. the american embassy united states and the embassy to jerusalem its illegal procedures took by the americans and that means that is that american the united states of america

must. go back and dig. the from jerusalem back door to let you know according to their international. and according to the international law that said that is dualism is part of the occupied territories and it's under. jurisdiction of the fourth geneva convention that is not allowing the occupier to change the status of that or cool make any changes demographic changes in the area and what happened last week in the general assembly and then i did nation with votes that voted for the palestinian state a very clear opening in the world to the. day and i sit. ministration procedures concerning the palestinian issues and the palestinian territories and

the palestinian people you must talk to some of the american tourists that are there for this christmas what do they tell you about their government's policies its record tourism apparently in bethlehem this year what we spoke to the people there is a lot of visited the city and i know that and we spoke about. the united states policy in the middle east and the people who are hearing us and understand what we are seeking and what we are planning for the. sure that they are again the policy that ignore and continue ignoring the palestinian rights and. in the future you were there at the siege of bethlehem as a negotiator a few years ago you could see britain is now exporting weapons to the israelis because things are better now than under the siege right in two thousand better

than was under siege. by that is that our occupation for thirty nine days added continued after that of the siege of the nativity but but things are better britain is now sending more weapons than ever to the israelis you can see britain saying things are better now than they were then. i want to say their weapons were this security forces that i was given the security for israel and that is the peace with the palestinian people because one of your neighbor is good and in good situation you will be in good so for us as a palestinian we are like the forty's. in the area very good in their good work the relation to respect each other principles of independent freedom is jerusalem the capital of the palestinian state in the future when we speak about equality want to speak about the respect for lever or good relation it means that

give give us their portrait to implement security for all people in the region without the continued the conflict will continue and with all the work and they will have from the americans will never feel in peace because the neighbors whom we are the palestinians are not in peace so at the moment when bethany have become as the cultural capital of the arab world and twenty twenty you expect it still to be enclosed by eighteen illegal israeli ok. patient settlements and still surrounded by israeli checkpoints look when we speak up about our culture and it's back to the history of our city and for us we are going to send a brit. bethlehem to keep it off. of the arab world and we have

our programs and our events in the city no matter what the. behavior of the occupation because we believe that celebrating them as part of the capital of out of work it's part of our struggle against occupation and show the world that we are people who are deserve to live deserve pretty dumb and their independence because we have a culture we are qualified our culture is a bit of music it is poisons all kinds of cultures where our showing and giving the attention on our culture means that we are people and we are not the groups and we are people who deserve to live in peace as other people and other nations in the world their best i am thank you after the break i have tomorrow as u.n. security council debate on palestine we speak to award winning well academy artist michael sample about why he sculpted jesus as a british on his radio sixty pilot dollars more coming up in part two of going on

the ground. spine mania returns the u.s. weaponized as its laws against adversaries also is the western world in crisis and much much more on this edition of crossfire. dimension. six thirty five and you have a career and career involves using your i phone in your computer and things like that in an office. perhaps you start getting headaches circular teeth are going to have to stop doing all this in this kind of you look at the minutes must be from my

world became smaller and smaller and smaller until i ended up running it and the box. a very strong magnetic field held in my head. think of it like a real hard pressure on my skin burns and wireless access point and it's just continuous on saying what are students in the schools. we are just continually painting our citizens in this microwave radiation it is certainly electro small and it's getting worse. welcome back the u.n. security council sits today to debate the ever growing fallout of nature's longest war afghanistan where unknown numbers of afghans of perish more than ten thousand

british soldiers have been killed or wounded but afghanistan is just one of the countries experiencing the blowback from britain's humanitarian interventions and secret support for militants from libya to syria and yemen one of brushes away the head rubble of nato war means. media coverage is michael sandal his paintings edgings and sculpture look to criticize the heroic decadence of capitalism and its ever growing involvement in global conflict going underground deputy editor sebastian baca went to speak to the multi award winning royal academy artist. look at television or read newspapers it's pretty terrifying. i just think you can't possibly quote. the truth. lost because it's. planted in.

so you grew up in plymouth your house was bombed you think those bombs of that reverberated through your your artwork when i was in it we were evacuated to baldwin was in one thousand forty one plymouth gobo more than anywhere else in britain and you don't forget it i was i was five years old. if you're a child is a spectacle and you think that's normality but you don't forget it campaspe forget it it's seeing your city in ruins. and also knowing that it was you know it was all now our friends doing it i remember is a business of the world so i just think this is the he's so all for it tells you so much of how he is he would beings all europe it's soaked in blood. new thinking about how many wars there were in the twentieth century it wasn't just the second world war soaked in blood. well and very

unpleasant horrible was to one it was spawned another one of your scopes is a twentieth century memorial yes can you tell me why you decided to change the name because the counselor can recall you why it was i was inspired to do it i was in berkeley compassed with some friends that nixon had expanded the war put the mines in the high from delta and the stupid riot it was a middle of a riot was put down with some force by the national guard and those were running away and the rubber bullets and abuse hurling and tear gas i thought oh somebody's got to do a sculpture above you know a lot of thought then with the sinking feeling oh god it's going to have to be me. and i did a lot of homework. and i thought the americans were the bad guys is of the jerk reaction so i'm going to call it

a bikini mouse monument for america was going to have to be mouse and machine gun i did some homework and i found out to my amazement that the war in the us was caused by the british and this is a sort of fact that in the end it was the attlee government. just to be to after v.j. day the attlee government said the british general who general douglas gracie was small contingent of indian troops and he. was to take the surrender of the japanese forces who had occupied the no a toehold a no account get involved in the politics but he did just what he thought that the meeting was a puppet of the chinese communists they were nowhere near vietnam in fact the north pole was underneath the jurisdiction of the chinese nationalists anyway. instead of

rounding up the japanese and putting him in prison the nine hundred forty five british of the japanese fought alongside each other. and forced even who was a nationalist into the arms of communism and into the jungle also. he also the dogs grazing with these indian troops also sprung the interned french garson the japanese interned and the french was alongside us and british uniforms we use spit for us against even the mes. when i tell people this they're both full open anyway i thought we can't possibly blame the americans long cold it is a dream a moral for general perfidy and general stupidity not just americans it is also why did the blair drawing it will at least go clean away with it a bucket directly of blood is going to i mean you show us and me expose him in your

ugly around tripoli because i find him so disgusting in his hypocrisy it's a lot of my work is against apocrypha come barrett so he pretends he's found jesus the one that he knew how he so say when you go to heaven they want you to burn in hell and became a peace and that was the whole point i did i was interviewed over is a peaceful the only magazine and use it to have tourney as a peace envoy in the middle east is like having king herod as a child by a few on the left and pummel those couple paying who who did prisoners and beat them to cook as his simply the old hopefully by different selves to entertain his mates i don't think about the war in iraq which exercised me it

was all. because i'm convinced that tony blair went to war because of vanity. and the need of the other. of us thought in many ways we're a bit like vishy fronts you know the french pretend they had nothing to do with the persecution of the jews because they did. so we didn't have to go persecute the rockies because that was attempted regime change. the regime just as we know. it's a kind of us look at look at libya look what's happened with isis came because of the power vacuum and then you've got. getting rid of saddam hussein would seem to be a terrible mistake the mother being a monster book away and he was a bulwark against radical islam and this peace in iraq the sound of your silence i mean always he's commenting on the election process he's made by the british army

base also talking about the silo vote there in the point is the the war in iraq is but was it could justify that millions of them to have an iraq is double deliberate and most of the people say. yes the the the sculpture up i didn't know how to finish it i thought it would be totally different sculpture but then i thought on the internet they photograph of a woman to carry her baby would have had the blade off. and bandage i thought this is where i'm going to go and do a lot of research and usually a lot of iraqi prisoners with bags on their occluding bags put on by the british this is a very long just a short period the sculptural. ended up as appear to the reason these of course because again. against hypocrisy the simple diary a mild of hypocrisy. in the world that had put christie in foreign policy

is examine the in the sculpture behind us that yes this is this is it you see. we are pulled that idea all i see is cutting the heads off with with knives but we cut heads off with droves of them strikes many ways it could be argued that ethically or morally superior to cut somebody fall through the head of the knife i could do it but up there but you will particularly if the if you're in the i.d.f. the israeli defense force you flying over gaza you could be in an object your perfect safety dropping bombs killing those five children of the problems doing it that actually was the inspiration of the work when i when i when i saw a project growth of the children from seventy to four laid out five of them i

thought one gold out of that monthly so i suppose it was my daughter who my daughter's in that there's a portrait of her in that and then i thought well i don't want to attack this isn't really jesus i don't want to this is or a truck all the paint is based on but i think all the lights of the by the light of the world but i thought in many ways it would be a powerful statement of five point zero the fact that we do it been done throughout history but cutting heads off with. burning people alive is what we do with missiles and you know it's is pretty disgusting for white phosphorous i read about the trial to go with it the doctors were horrified because steam was coming of the trial via the. in the. white phosphorus it is no hope for the they

said they didn't use the course of all depleted uranium because so they don't of course they do and they kill first of all the positive i mean is that when you think about it it was astonishing. connection to a dream of greed cruelty stupidity a huge amount of money made from rush to people i love the work i'm most proud of is the multiple siege memorial. when i gave them all to go on the round trip kept in morgan's ship and i look up and i am sick with pride and the reason i got this commission is quite interesting because i used to go drinking in the very first job i had it lester in a pub called job wayne book thirty years later i got a letter from the. new veterans association is being set up called the george cross i love association an eye of the president of the maritime the bronx burning branch

and i want short career. they want a memorial to the convoy that saved most of which of the codename operation at a school pedestal when i actually got the monument finished after four years it was such a privilege working with these veterans i thought about the money. i thought that's it i mean. i was pronto and i was one of the bit of architect so you show that destruction of your home and when you when you listen and you wanted to be a crater in a way or you think you got to go through you know you can't just it's so incredibly important part of our history and we're heading towards sleepwalking probably into the other war we're living in very very dangerous times of i'm convinced i worry about my children close or not to be here but they're going to be the. this history

just tend to repeat itself. a lot of something people who really just seem to lack imagination. when you think is a misery call the misery of the second world war the misery see what i hate is all these empty russian propaganda because they actually won the war twenty eight million died which is why we don't speak german. there's a conservative published politician was german the that these are was. mouth bad mouthing russia i think this is the thing is i thought this is a pity that the letter b. of putin wasn't called roman stephanie peter why razz putin then he you are vilified even though it. so.

yes. yes. he.

joined me. oh. i know i i i. i i. was.

i i. i. subscribe to rub people some get lucky content for just twelve euros fifty per month. b.b.c. reporter says her editors are out for blood this she asked another journalist in france to establish any links between the kremlin and the yellow fest movement. china and the united states.