Closing a school, abusing civilians at a check point, following orders, staying in a family’s comandeered home, posing for trophy photos with enemy bodies, being the law, enjoying power, feeling ashamed, getting addicted to controlling people, dispersing a funeral, wanting to forget, not caring, the ease in which you actually do whatever you want to do unsupervised, the unbearable lightness of these things that happen. 12,643 words of testimonies. What follows is a compilation of written and photographic testimonies by IDF soldiers who served until recently, or are still actively serving, in the West Bank city of Hebron. Read more about Breaking the Silence: Occupation soldiers give visual and written accounts of their experience in Hebron
Waleed Zuaiter, a professional actor in his early thirties now living in Brooklyn Heights, New York, never thought his life would change the way it has after reading a book. While taking part in the US West coast premier of Homebody/Kabul, a play by the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning playwright Tony Kushner, Zuaiter’s wife Joana came across On the Hills of God, a novel by Ibrahim Fawal, a Palestinian writer and filmmaker now residing in Birmingham, Alabama. Although he was preoccupied with acting at night while living in Berkley, California, Zuaiter’s captivation with the 450-page book sparked him into action. Read more about Palestinian film-maker, novelist hope to make award winning book into a movie
Sitting perched on a hill in the suburb of Al-Masyoon, the Ramallah Cultural Palace has an almost conspicuous air of tranquillity to it. Just down the road lie the mangled remains of half a dozen cars destroyed by Israeli tanks as out in the distance one can see the first signs that the separation wall is finally beginning to encroach on the city. The gleaming new building, however, almost seems to rise above these troubling reminders of the enduring Israeli occupation, offering instead a sense of hope and renewal. The grand opening of the West Bank’s first and only Palestinian cultural centre of its kind is generating a great deal of buzz in the occupied territories. From Ramallah, Jaideep Mukerji looks at what the centre means for the Palestinians’ sense of identity. Read more about Culture for All
As soon as he’s done saving New York, perhaps Spiderman can take his act to Palestine, where his uncanny ability to scale high walls will be welcomed by those imprisoned by the concrete barrier walls that enclose Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. After all, Spiderman’s connection to the Middle East is pretty close, considering that Palestinian-born cult-animator Ralph Bakshi, was executive producer of the animated Spiderman series in the late ’60s. Bakshi’s other claims to fame include animating America’s first X-rated animated film Fritz the Cat, directing The Rolling Stone’s video “The Harlem Shuffle,” and inspiring the Comic Book Guy character on the Simpsons. Read more about The Spiderman-Palestine Connection!
The 77-minute HBO/Channel 4 production Death in Gaza is a story about the last moments of the life of award-winning British cameraman James Miller, 1968-2003. Miller travelled to the occupied Palestinian territories to make a film on children and was fatally shot by an Israeli soldier when filming in Rafah. The film’s commentator, Saira Shah, is an award-winning journalist of Afghan-Scottish decent. Miller and Shah had collaborated on other award-winning documentaries such as Beneath the Veil and Unholy War (Channel 4 / CNN), both filmed in Afghanistan. Read more about Review: "Death in Gaza"
Lebanese Families in Solidarity with Palestinian Families with the cooperation of the Palestinian Cultural Club at AUB invites you to a night of stand up comedy featuring Maysoon Zayid and Dean Obeidallah. The two Arab-American stand up comedians will be performing for the first time in Beirut in support of the “family to family program” which supports 130 Palestinian families under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza. Proceeds from this event will go to benefit the displaced families in Rafah, whose homes have been destroyed. Read more about Palestinian-American stand-up comedians Maysoon Zayid and Dean Obeidallah to perform at refugee benefit in Beirut
“People who have been [to the West Bank and Gaza Strip] always say it’s very difficult … to speak about it” to others who haven’t been there, says French director Samir Abdallah, creator of the film Writers on the Borders: A Journey to Palestine(s). Abdallah adds that his film “brings some proposal to this question of how to speak about it and show what’s happening in Palestine and … [informs how to] not only be a storyteller but an actor, in an active position” in striving for justice for the Palestinians. EI’s Maureen Clare Murphy caught up with Abdallah who was in Chicago for the North American premier of Writers on the Borders. Read more about Interview: "Writers on the Borders" director Samir Abdallah
Rolling hills unmarred by the hands of man, the water of the Jordan river trickling along its way, olive trees rustling in the breeze — this is the land of the Galilee that Melkite priest Elias Chacour so loves, and this is the imagery he says Jesus enjoyed when he was living in what is now referred to as the Holy Land. To understand Chacour’s background is to understand his connection, and his family’s ties, to the land of the Galilee, and so it is appropriate that filmmaker Claude Roshem-Smith opens with beautiful scenes of Galilean pastoral greenery in his biographical film Elias Chacour: Prophet in His Own Country. Read more about Review: Elias Chacour: Prophet in His Own Country
The New York Arab-American Comedy Festival is seeking submissions from Arab-American artists for its 2nd annual Festival, which will take place in New York City from October 10 -13, 2004. The Festival will be divided into three parts: comedic theater, stand up comedy and comedic films. Last year was an overwhelming success, with the entire Festival playing to standing room only crowds. The Festival showcased a diverse group of Arab-American comedic plays, stand up comics and short comedic films, with the participation of over 40 Arab-American artists. Read more about New York Arab-American Comedy Festival seeking submissions
“Mafateeh,” or “keys,” is a word that holds symbolic meaning for Palestinians, and refugees in Rafah, Amman, and Jenin alike can show you the keys to their houses that they temporarily fled or were expelled from during the time leading up to and during the 1948 war. And like Ali Nimer Harami does in the film Keys, these refugees can show you well-preserved pieces of paper that prove their legal claim over land that is currently inhabited by Jewish Israelis in what is now Israel. Maureen Clare Murphy reviews the beautifully shot film for EI. Read more about Documentary film review: "Keys"
