Both of the films A Stone’s Throw Away and The Children of Ibdaa investigate the thoughts and lives of a handful of children from the Deheisheh refugee camp, an impoverished refugee town on the outskirts of Bethlehem. Together, they illustrate that what drives Palestinians to commit violence, and how children need something to make their lives meaningful given the humiliation and lack of opportunity that come with living under Israeli military occupation. Read more about Review: "A Stone's Throw Away" and "The Children of Ibda'a"
Capturing the fragments of a land shattered by politics, history, and colonialism, Route 181: Fragments of a Journey in Israel-Palestine, clocks in at about four and a half hours. The film’s length is epic-worthy, but it allows the filmmakers to present oral history from a wide variety of people who live along the 1947 partition line, while at the same time allow for minutes-long footage of the monotonous grey concrete wall that quietly runs along one of the region’s main roads. By portraying both the divide of the physical landscape and that of the humans that inhabit it, viewers receive a fuller understanding of this conflicted part of the world. Read more about Review: "Route 181: Fragments of a Journey in Palestine-Israel"
Seven years ago, a Palestinian parliamentary panel conducted an investigation of the PA corruption. The panel exposed many official misgivings and abuses. It recommended that Civil Affairs Minister Jamil al-Tarifi, Planning and International Cooperation Minister Nabil Shaath and Transport Minister Ali Kawasmeh be brought to trial. They were never dismissed. Shaath and Tarifi are still cabinet members. Now, Tarifi is once more subject to parliamentary investigation for corruption. PA Minister of Economy Maher Masri was accused of negligence and fraude. Tarifi is accused of selling Egyptian cement, meant for rebuilding Palestinian homes, to Israeli companies. Read more about Cement and Corruption
“It’s a personal jihad for me, to have made it, to have gone through the process of making it,” says Muhammed Rum of his directorial debut Jihad!, the name of which comes from the Islamic spiritual concept of struggle of the will — the film’s central theme. Cinematographer Nara Garber, who took on many of the production roles because of the film’s limited budget, also considers the film to have been a personal journey, because it helped her more fully realize the hurdles Arab-Americans and Palestinians face in their respective situations. Read more about Interview: Jihad! filmmakers Muhammed Rum and Nara Garber
How can we explain the conjurer’s trick by which Sharon has turned into the darling of the Israeli peace camp? In the last Israeli elections, many voters who were fed up with Sharon voted for Labor candidate Amram Mitznah. But now their elected representatives are keeping Sharon afloat. On Monday, June 7, there were two non-confidence votes in the Israeli Parliament, one submitted jointly by the Beilin’s Yahad party and the Arab parties. The Labor party abstained, thus giving Sharon the majority he needed to survive. Tanya Reinhart comments. Read more about The address for protest is Labor's headquarters
On June 8, Arab Media Watch correspondent Victor Kattan interviewed British Member of Parliament George Galloway, who is running for a seat in the European Parliamentary elections for Respect-The Unity Coalition on Thursday June 10. Galloway: “…contrary to all the assurances given to Parliament by Mr. Blair, and contrary to assurances given to him by Ariel Sharon, British weapons were being used in the occupied territories… The so-called ethical foreign policy of Mr. Blair doesn’t seem to draw any lines around General Sharon.” Read more about Interview with George Galloway, British Member of Parliament
Does UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan think that Palestinians have a right to defend themselves against the kinds of violent attacks and destruction Israel is carrying out in Rafah refugee camp? EI’s Ali Abunimah spoke to Annan’s representative, but found its not so easy to get a straighforward answer to a straightforward question. Abunimah says that Annan could use his position to have a profound effect on the Palestine-Israel conflict, but instead chooses to play word games, dressing the persistent failure of the US-led “Quartet” as a restless search for peace. Read more about Questions with no answers
Based off of Jack Shaheen’s excellent anthology Reel Bad Arabs, which categorically catalogues depictions of Arabs in American film, Planet of the Arabs, while not without humor, reminds us that racist depictions of Arabs in American entertainment is a huge problem. And Arabs A Go-Go is Jacqueline Salloum’s modest attempt to contradict the racist tripe that Hollywood presents as Arab culture. Maureen Clare Murphy reviews the two short films, featured in the Chicago Palestine Film Fest, for EI. Read more about Film review: "Planet of the Arabs" and "Arabs A Go-Go"
Following pressure from the Israeli public, international condemnations and a UN resolution, and a flurry of rare coverage of Rafah from American cable news networks, Israel’s “Operation Rainbow” was ‘concluded’ in Rafah on 24 May 2004. According to Israel at least. Since then, in a one week period in Rafah (27 May-2 June 2004), Israel destroyed another 39 Palestinian homes, leaving at least another 485 Palestinian civilians homeless, and razed another 24 dunums of Palestinian land. Google News continuously crawls more than 4,500 news sources from around the world, yet a search for the keyword “Rafah” shows that, beyond the Israeli press, supplementary news websites such as the Electronic Intifada, and a handful of US newspapers, coverage of the latest demolitions has been minimal, particularly in the United States. EI’s Nigel Parry comments. Read more about Time to put the US media on trial for complicity in genocide?
We must again note that CNN’s reporting of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not all bad. But, once again, here is a report that employs terminology to describe land — the central issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — that comes straight from the Israeli lexicon. The language of this report suggests that the status of West Bank land is unclear, that it is “disputed”. The status of this land is anything but unclear and is defined by international law as occupied territory, regardless of the views of Israel or CNN. Read more about CNN goes where few have dared to go, adopting Israel's "disputed" territories terminology
