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Film review: "The Syrian Bride" makes for a difficult marriage

Jonathan Cook 21 July 2005


“Maybe I should learn to be less sensitive but when director Eran Riklis arrived in Nazareth last month for the screening of his much-garlanded film ‘The Syrian Bride’, he got off on the wrong footing the moment he walked through the door,” writes EI contributor Jonathan Cook. The film, produced with Israeli, Palestinian and Syrian actors is set in a tiny Druze community in the Golan Heights, part of Syria occupied by Israel since 1967. The only contact the Israeli and Syrian authorities allow is the occasional passage of brides across the ceasefire line. While the film tries to break boundaries, Cook says, it also reveals others that the director failed to see. 

Weekly report on human rights violations

20 July 2005


This week Israeli forces killed 14 Palestinians, including two children. Eight Palestinians were killed in extra-judicial executions. Israeli forces invaded various Palestinian communities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israeli forces raided homes and arrested 78 Palestinian civilians. Israeli forces used two Palestinian civilians as human shields during these raids. Israeli forces turned 21 homes into military sites. Israel continues to impose a total siege on the occupied Palestinian territories. Israeli forces divided the Gaza Strip in three separate zones. Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian child near a checkpoint in the Gaza Strip. 

Gaza clashes continue

20 July 2005


Unknown armed individuals fired at houses and offices of prominent Fatah Leaders and members of the Security Forces. According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, members of the Preventive Security opened fire on a vehicle driven by a member of the Eiz al Din al Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. The driver remains unidentified at this stage. Later, unknown militants opened fire on several homes and offices belonging to PA officials, Fatah leaders and commanders of the security forces. Militants carried out their attacks using civilian cars and fired from rooftops of nearby homes. Security forces returned fire and clashes were witnessed in various areas of Gaza City. 

Teenager killed at Israeli checkpoint

Laila El-Haddad 21 July 2005


A Palestinian teenager has been shot dead while trying to pass an Israeli occupation forces checkpoint in the Gaza Strip. The shooting on Monday occurred as Israel continued its closure on the Gaza Strip for the fifth day in a row, dividing the strip into three areas and shooting at commuters who try to cross. The Matahen and Abo Holi checkpoints, just north of the town of Khan Yunus, have been closed since Thursday, a day after a Qassam rocket killed an Israeli woman in the Negev town of Sderot, according to Palestinian police officials. The two checkpoints divide southern Gaza from the central and northern parts of the strip. 

Gaza clashes renew

19 July 2005


A number of people were injured, three institutions were burned in both Gaza City and Jabalya in the aftermath of the tension between Hamas and the Palestinian Security Forces. Dozens of militants marched through Jabalya refugee camp, through Tel al Zatar and in the area near the hospital. Hamas militants shot at vehicles belonging to the Preventive Security Force and clashes erupted between both sides. These clashes constitute a continuation of recent clashes which left three children dead and at least 50 people injured. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights strongly condemns these clashes and calls for a complete cessation of violence between both sides. 

Two new Israeli documentaries explore the moral failure of Zionism

Maureen Clare Murphy 19 July 2005


Two new Israeli films that premiered at this month’s Jerusalem Film Festival explore the moral failure that is inherent in Zionism. In the biographical documentary The Diaries of Yossef Nachmany, the Zionist leader largely responsible for the Judaization of the Galilee in the years leading up to the State of Israel is portrayed as conflicted by the ultimate consequence of Zionism — the expulsion and suffering of the indigenous Palestinian population. And in the important documentary Dear Father, Quiet, We’re Shooting … , we see that the Zionist enterprise is spiralling so far out of control that Israeli citizens are being made to collectively pay for the ideology of the extreme minority. 

A truce or a fig leaf?

Hasan Abu Nimah 20 July 2005


The world has suddenly noticed the renewed violence between Israelis and Palestinians, but not because Israel stepped-up extrajudicial executions and other attacks on Palestinians in recent weeks. Only when several Palestinian resistance groups responded did the matter rise to the top of the international agenda. Surprisingly there is little or no talk that the truce must be over with fighting erupting at this scale. Rather, we are in a very strange situation in which a truce and its opposite — open fighting — are said to exist at exactly the same time. EI contributor Hasan Abu Nimah explains this strange phenomenon. 

When Will it End?

Laila El-Haddad Gaza City, Palestine 18 July 2005


I spent much of the day talking to Palestinians trying to cross the Netzarim checkpoint today. It is a 6m deep trench dug deep into Gaza’s coastal road, which has in recent days been ripped apart by nocturnal armoured bulldozers that come out from behind the lone sniper in he distance, and dissappear before dawn when their work is done. The checkpoint, along with one further south at Abo Holi, has divided Gaza into three isolated segments for over five days now: Rafah and Khan Yunis in the south; dair al-Balah, Maghazi, and Nseirat refugee camps in the central Gaza Strip; and Gaza city, Beit Hanun, and Jabaliya in the north. 

Israeli-Palestinian truce put to test

Laila El-Haddad 17 July 2005


After a bloody day that saw 10 Palestinians killed, the fragile five-month Israeli-Palestinian truce seems to be in danger of unraveling. But analysts on both sides say this is simply a game of chicken weeks before Israel’s planned Gaza disengagement. Analysts say the violence is only intended to test the limits of the fragile truce. Sharon does not want to be seen as evacuating under fire, and Palestinian factions want the disengagement to appear as a victory. In the end, analysts say, it is in neither side’s interest to officially abandon the ceasefire before disengagement. Both sides are pushing it to the very edge. Israel’s mass of forces will not lightly decide to go in.” 

Israeli government proposes blocking Palestinian compensation suits

18 July 2005


Today, Palestinians are not able to sue the state for damages caused by combatant activity, broadly defined as, “…any action of combating terror, hostile actions, or insurrection, and action intended to prevent terror and hostile acts and insurrection committed in circumstances of danger to life or limb.” If the Knesset passes the new amendment to the Civil Wrongs Law, intended to excempt Israel from paying compensation to Palestinians injured by the security forces, it will almost completely block the ability of Palestinians to file for compensation, even for damage caused by illegal shooting, looting, negligence on training grounds, abuse and degrading treatment at checkpoints, or physical violence.