What is it like for a Palestinian-American artist to make art when each day Palestinians are suffering at home because of the Israeli occupation and current intifada? How can art help bridge borders and open people’s eyes to the realities of the Palestinians? These questions find answers in the work of Palestinian-American artist Emily Jacir, who works in Ramallah and New York, and is best known for conceptually based photography, video and installation projects that do not hide her political sympathies or ignore the highly charged atmosphere in which she lives. Read more about Exhibiting Politics: Palestinian-American Artist Emily Jacir Talks About her Work
Futbol Palestina 2006 (working name) is a documentary about a soccer team and the unique challenge of representing a nation under occupation: Palestine. The story is told through five of the players, Palestinians from around the world, including those from the territories occupied by Israel and others from as far as Latin America. The team’s stated purpose has been to claim a spot in the World Cup, the most important single sporting event in the world. The film crew is currently in the Middle East collecting material ahead of Palestine’s last World Cup qualifying match against Iraq in Amman, Jordan, in November. Read more about Chicago film crew explores Palestine through the lens of soccer
“Tomorrow our band Primal Scream, together with Spiritualized and some other special guests, are playing in London for the children of Palestine. As far as I know, it’s the first time that a benefit gig has been staged on this scale in Britain for the Palestinian people. It is often said that the Palestinian issue is so difficult and sensitive that it’s better not to get involved. But the truth is, it’s not. It’s easy. There is no shortage of musicians ready to show their support for the Palestinians at this time in their struggle.” Bobby Gillespie spreads some hope in the pages of The Guardian. Read more about Here's hoping: Primal Scream for Palestine
“When the Palestinians come we put on our show,” says a youthful Israeli soldier manning a checkpoint at Nablus’ Jericho road. This “show,” as it is richly documented in the new Israeli film Checkpoint, serves a seemingly dual purpose. First and foremost, it is intended to remind Palestinians just who is in power; and secondly, it serves as a form of entertainment to the young Israelis whose compulsory military service finds them wasting their time and talents at these roadblocks in the occupied Palestinian territories. Read more about Documentary film review: "Checkpoint"
September 11 brings into the open, forcing into the daylight of consciousness, the legacies of history - of racial hubris, of disequilibria imposed by wars, of messianism, of reincarnated fossils, of tribalism sanctified by religion, of racial hubris, of social science in the service of power, of naked greed disguised in the rhetoric of the civilizing mission, of citizens fed on lies and sedated by amusements, of cruelty cultivated as a racial virtue, of injustices that cannot be allowed to stand. September 11 establishes beyond reasonable doubt that the United States is deeply, irrevocably connected to the Arab world, the Islamicate world, in ways it cannot ignore or deny. Read more about Making sense of our times: Excerpts from "Is There an Islamic Problem?"
Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center Director Adila Laidi explains that the role of culture evolves over time and raises to the public questions like the normalcy of the Israeli Occupation. If Edward Said and Noam Chomsky argue that the role of the intellectual is to speak truth to power and Bill Moyers says the same of journalism, then what Laidi is arguing is much the same for art and culture in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Laidi says that since the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000, there has been no normal life. And that as the role of art and culture develop as a means of expression in the context of the Occupation and the current intifada, the Sakakini Cultural Center has a duty to reach beyond the middle, educated classes. Read more about Culture and dissent: Khalil Sakakini Center looks towards creative resistance
For many of us, the Nelson Mandela Freedom concert at London’s Wembley stadium in June 1988 was the “beginning of the end” for apartheid in South Africa. Sixteen years later, could music help to overcome an even greater challenge - to end the Israeli military occupation of Palestine and allow its people to live, at last, in peace and freedom? This month, the Sheffield branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign hosted a “global” Concert for Palestine - webcast live over the internet - to call for an end to more than 37 years of Israeli military occupation. Read more about Sheffield calling: Palestine activists take a page from concert against apartheid
A three-day festival, “Aqoolu Lakum - Let Me Tell You: The Western Massachusetts Palestinian Film Festival,” will take place in the Pioneer Valley on October 1-3, 2004. The festival, organized by Valley residents from a range of backgrounds, will include twenty-six films and an exhibition of rare photographic material. The festival will show a mixture of documentaries and fiction films about Palestine made largely by Palestinians, with a selection by Israeli and other international filmmakers. Read more about Western Massachusetts Palestinian Film Festival to be held October 1-3
“THEKINGS of peace” is how Saeed Daoud, director of the Qalqilya Zoo, describes the three lions, Jafer, Jaras and Naboko who have recently settled into their new home in the West Bank along with two zebras and a deer. On September 5, the animals were moved from the Ramat Gan Safari Park just outside Tel Aviv to Qalqilya after the Israeli safari park announced plans to help rebuild Qalqilya Zoo by providing it with a number of animals. The zoo has been ravaged by four years of Intifada, with several animals dying and a dramatic drop in the number visitors. The zoo, the only one of its kind in the West Bank, was built in 1986 and is currently home to almost 170 animals. Read more about The Lion Kings of Qalqilya
Samia Halaby was twelve-years-old when Israeli soldiers arrived in Jerusalem. Born in the midst of Palestine’s bloodiest uprising against British occupation, Halaby was no stranger to colonial oppression, but something was different this time. She sensed it in the indescribable arrogance a British soldier used when he searched her school bag: His expressions, his motions, were the presage of a storm. As a Palestinian artist, Halaby’s work is, intrinsically, cultural resistance. Compared to many of her contemporaries, her circumstances have been rather fortunate. Following several years of exile in Beirut, her family moved to the U.S., where Halaby studied Cubism, Soviet Constructivism, American Abstract Expressionism and the Mexican Mural Movement. Read more about Liberation Art of Palestine
