Just days before 5 June’s 40th anniversary of the start of the June 1967 war, some of the biggest names in British architecture signed a petition calling on Israeli architects and their fellow professionals to stop participating in the creation of “facts on the ground”, which obliterate the idea of a viable future Palestinian state. Susannah Tarbush follows the controversy that has surrounded the London-based Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine’s efforts to hold accountable their Israeli peers’ involvement in projects that make them complicit in the violation of Palestinians’ rights. Read more about Pressure mounts on Israel's architects
Dear Rolling Stones: The Palestinian arts community received in disbelief media reports of your upcoming performance in Israel, at a time when Israel continues unabated with its colonial and apartheid designs to further dispossess, oppress, and ultimately ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their homeland. We strongly urge you to cancel your plans to perform in Israel until the time comes when it ends its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and respects fundamental human rights. Read more about Open Letter to Rolling Stones: Boycott Israeli Apartheid
Overcoming Zionism, Joel Kovel’s first book on the question of Israel, is a contribution to the growing body of literature advocating “a single democratic state in Israel/Palestine.” However, while Kovel’s subtitle is longer than his title, it is the devastating critique of Zionism that occupies eight of the book’s ten chapters. What is unique about Kovel’s project is its multi-perspectival nature: he demolishes Zionism from historical, political, cultural, environmental, ethical, and psychological perspectives, and still has space left for elegant invective and stimulating digression. Read more about Book Review: "Overcoming Zionism"
Hamid Dabashi, founder of the Dreams of a Nation: A Palestinian Film Project, has said that one of the distinguishing qualities of Palestinian national cinema is that it has and continues to be produced during the throes of trauma. This stands apart from other national cinema (German, Italian, and Iranian, to name a few) which came to maturity through dealing with past national trauma. However, there has never been a Palestinian-produced feature film focusing on the Nakba. Yet, the Nakba is at the core of Palestinian cinema, as exemplified by the Palestinian Revolution Cinema series curated by Palestinian artist Emily Jacir. Read more about Review: Palestinian Revolution Cinema
The Boston Palestine Film Festival (BPFF) is now accepting entries for its first annual festival to be held in September-October 2007. BPFF seeks to present the extraordinary narrative of a dispossessed people living in exile or under Occupation. Palestinian cinema represents a powerful means for visually interpreting the collective identity, historic struggle and emotional expression of Palestinians today. BPFF will showcase the diverse and creative work of all filmmakers (any nationality) exploring both historic and contemporary themes related to Palestinian culture, experience, and narrative. Read more about Boston Palestine Film Festival Call for Entries
Voices Breaking Boundaries is pleased to present for the first time a Houston Palestine Film Festival. This exciting festival, cosponsored by The Station, Rice Cinema and Fotofest Inc., will bring not only cutting edge new cinema from Palestine about Palestine but will also present three directors Lina Makboul, Nida Sinnokrot and Elle Flanders along with political analyst/academic/journalist (and Angry Arab) As’ad Abu Khalil and Rice University Associate professor Ussama Makdisi. Read more about Houston Palestine Film Festival, May 11-20
Sanna Nimtz Towns and Joseph F. Towns27 April 2007
Susan Abulhawa’s first novel, The Scar of David, is an intricately woven tapestry of historical fiction chronicling the Palestinian Abulheja family over four generations. The novel begins in Ein Hod, the village where patriarch Yehya Abulheja, a peasant olive farmer, and his family, wife Basima and sons Hasan and Darweesh, live. This land of olive trees has been nurtured by Yehya’s relatives and ancestors for over forty generations. We witness the simple and charming life of these peasants when son Hasan, on errands for his father to the Old City in Jerusalem, meets with his best friend Ari Perlstein; both boys share their lives, families and dreams with each other. Read more about Book Review: The Scar of David
As contemporary Palestinian artists continue to exhibit internationally with the same determined and prolific impetus that has characterized their work for decades, their impact on international art will further underscore the fact that the Palestinian struggle coincides with larger international political issues that the global community cannot continue to ignore. Amidst the creative and sociopolitical contexts that configure contemporary Palestinian art, the 6+ artists collective chose to embark upon a journey that would take them not only across time zones, military check points and red tape, but through the experiences of 14 artists working to negotiate social, historical and political realities. Read more about The Unearthing of Secrets: Palestinian Art, 6+ and a Series of Transgressions
The title of Joseph Massad’s book The Persistence of the Palestinian Question: Essays on Zionism and the Palestinians does not do justice to the contribution this book makes to the history of Zionism, Israel, and the Jews. Massad’s brilliant and scholarly work is profoundly illuminating not only for the history of Palestine and the discourses surrounding it, but for the history of Europe and the United States and, finally, as an account that raises compelling theoretical questions. Read more about Interdependent Palestinian and Jewish Histories
What role can music play in confronting the Israeli occupation? This is the question posed yet not definitively answered in Helena Cotinier and Pierre-Nicolas Durand’s documentary It’s Not a Gun, which follows Palestinian musician Ramzi Aburedwan as he realizes his dream of establishing a music education school in Palestine as part of his al-Kamandjati (meaning “the violinist”) project. Ramzi, who grew up in Ramallah’s Al-Amari refugee camp, says, “I spent my whole childhood during the first intifada throwing stones. And then, by chance, I had the [opportunity] to play music.” Read more about Film Review: "It's Not a Gun"
