Paradise Now won the Best Foreign Language Flm category in today’s 63rd Annual Golden Globe Awards. The film was directed by Palestinian Hany Abu-Assad from a screenplay he cowrote with Bero Beyer, the film’s Dutch producer, both of whom ascended to the podium to collect the award. Paradise Now chronicles the 48 hours before two best friends in Nablus are sent on a suicide mission to Israel. The New York Times said it “accomplishes the tricky feat of humanising the suicide bombers depicted in the film”. The paper dubbed the film “a taut, ingeniously calculated thriller”. Read more about "Paradise Now" wins Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film
“What’s going on in that head and that mind?” an American news commentator asks during a montage of media reports on the kidnapping of eleven Israeli athletes by the Palestinian Black September group. The astonished newsman is questioning the Palestinian hostage takers who end up murdering their eleven captors during Germany’s botched rescue attempt. But Munich’s director Steven Spielberg, for now, is more interested in what’s going on in the mind of the Israeli agent in charge of the state’s response to the Munich killings. However, whether we really get into the minds of the unlikely group of Israeli Mossad agents who are assembled by Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir to avenge the killings is debatable. It is mostly Spielberg’s moral dilemmas that we access, but not all the questions necessary to resolving his moral dilemma are posed. Read more about "Munich": Spielberg's thrilling crisis of conscience
The Israeli military is using dogs as a reconnaissance tool in its actions against Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including the Balata refugee camp in Nablus. The dogs’ actions are controlled remotely through sophisticated technology; commands are issued by way of a radio transmitter. This evokes much fear and deepens the alienation of Palestinians. The way Israel is using dogs is yet another dehumanising step, taking place under the “cover” of war. The dogs follow the orders of their military masters. In no way should the international community permit the Israeli government to escape its responsibility for these barbaric practices in enforcing its brutal occupation of the Palestinian territories. Read more about Dogs - Reconnaissance tool of the Israeli occupation
Let’s face it. So far, Palestinian PR and communications were not entirely successful. Just ask any person in the streets of Amsterdam, London or New York what he or she knows and thinks of Palestinians and Palestine. Palestinians who have never travelled outside Palestine will be shocked. On the other hand, almost every visitor to Palestine will start crying after three or four days. Based on these thoughts, The Palo Dutch Concept Factory is looking for creative talents. The Palo Dutch Concept Factory, boarded by some very good and well known Dutch PR professional, is founded by Dutch columnist Justus van Oel. In February 2005 he visited Palestine. He has been deeply moved by what he saw and became motivated to contribute to advocate for Palestine. Read more about Modern Activism: Palo Dutch Concept Factory
More and more, comparisons are being made between the living conditions of Palestinian Bedouins and those in the townships and informal settlements of apartheid South Africa. Human rights advocates Adri Nieuwhof and Bangani Ngeleza visited unrecognised villages in the Nakab (Negev). They travelled from Haifa in the North to the villages in the South of Israel. Near Tulkarem they noted how the Wall looked quite friendly from the Israeli side. There is a slope of earth planted with shrubs and flowers from the roadside up to the Wall. It covers the ugly high concrete Wall from the eyes of travellers on the Israeli highway. Read more about "This is our land, we are not going to move"
ASARIELSHARON’S career comes to an end, the whitewashing is already underway. Literally overnight he was being hailed as “a man of courage and peace” who had generated “hopes for a far-reaching accord” with an electoral campaign promising “to end conflict with the Palestinians.” But even if end-of-career assessments often stretch the truth, and even if far too many people fall for the old saw about the gruff old warrior miraculously turning into a man of peace, the reality is that miracles don’t happen, and only rarely have words and realities been separated by such a yawning abyss. Read more about The whitewashing of Ariel Sharon
Palestinian parties launched their election campaign with banners, rallies and parades yesterday amid growing tensions between the Islamic militant group Hamas and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas over his suggestion to postpone the Jan. 25 parliamentary vote. Abbas said for the first time Monday the balloting could be put off if Israel bars Palestinians from voting in Jerusalem. Hamas, which is expected to make a strong showing in its first general election, insisted yesterday the vote take place on schedule. It is unlikely Abbas would postpone the election without Hamas’s consent. Read more about Photostory: Campaigning begins for Palestinian elections
New Year good wishes have taken on a customary character, which means it can be hard to attach real expectations to them. Yet the new year is a moment to wish and campaign for meaningful change in the way the world is. And despite the breathtaking enormity of human progress, there remains too much to wish for still in terms of ending violence, injustice and poverty. EI contributor Hasan Abu Nimah lays out his three wishes for peace in Palestine and Iraq, and the restoration of the authority of international law, so badly eroded by US unilateralism in the wake of the end of Cold War. Read more about Three wishes for the New Year
The word democracy originates from the Greek demokratia: the components of the word being aredemos (the people), kratein (to rule), and the suffix ia. The term means “rule by the people”. In other words, democracy in its ideal sense is the notion that “the people” — in this instance, the Palestinian people - should have control of the government ruling over them. Recent moves by the EU and the US to interfere with and influence the outcome of the upcoming Palestinian elections are counterproductive and an insult to large segments of Palestinian society. Moreover, statements made by the US and EU are inconsistent and tend to promote violations of basic human rights. Read more about EU and US disrupt Palestinian elections
Last month, Israel finished building the wall and new security terminal that cut links between Jerusalem and the West Bank town of Bethlehem. The new security terminal, however, seems to be scaring away tourists and damaging Bethlehem’s already battered economy. In 2002, when the tension was at its worst, the number of visitors to Bethlehem dropped to an estimated 15,000, according to the municipality’s figures. There’s been a steady climb since, though: 100,000 in 2004 and 252,000 so far this year. Authorities have been frustrated by the timing as well as by delays caused by security checks, which are longer than anyone expected. Foreign visitors are now required to get off their buses and submit to a series of searches that can take up to an hour. Read more about Photostory: Christmas in Palestine
