Tuesday May 21, 2013 08:14 by Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies
Tuesday May 21, 2013; the Himaya Center for Journalists Defending Human Rights has reported that more than 2400 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip are currently stuck at the Rafah Border Terminal between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, awaiting to be allowed through.
![stuck_rafah[1]](http://occupiedpalestine.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/stuck_rafah1.jpg?w=636)
In a press release, the center demanded the Egyptian Authorities to open the terminal without any delays, and to refrain from involving the Palestinians in internal issues in Gaza and Egypt.
It also demanded providing the Palestinians, stuck on the terminal, with temporary shelter and the needed care, and added that the border crossing must be continuously operating as agreed upon during meetings and arrangements, and called for applying all related laws.
Egypt closed the Rafah Border Terminal more than four days ago, leaving 2400 Palestinians stuck on the crossing, and preventing thousands of Palestinians from…
View original post 714 more words
The National
AFP May 18, 2013
Filmmakers in Gaza have finished making what is believed to be the first Palestinian animated feature in 3-D, in a bid to show a fresh perspective on life through a child’s eyes. Called The Scarecrow, the 40-minute production tells the story of a 9-year-old orphan named Rima and the scarecrow she was given by her parents who died in a car crash.
One day, the scarecrow – who represents the guardian of Palestinian land – is taken away by an Israeli soldier from the family’s land near the border and Rima sets off with her school friends on a mission to find it.
It is a story which evokes some of the suffering of Palestinian refugees, says the director Khalil Al Mazen. “The world is used to seeing Palestinian children surrounded by death, destruction and war, but this film focuses on their simple dreams,” he said.
“Judgement (on the conflict) is left to the viewer,” says Mazen, who holds a diploma in filmmaking from the Saint Petersburg Academy in Russia and has already made several films and documentaries.
Exposing the ethnocentric nature of the state of Israel, the ethnic cleansing and denial of rights to the Palestinians and how we can put a stop to it all.
Ahdaf Soueif is the author of the bestseller novel, “The Map of Love” (shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1999 and translated into 28 languages), as well as the well-loved “In the Eye of the Sun” and the collection of short stories, “I Think of You”. Ms Soueif is also a political and cultural commentator. A collection of her essays, Mezzaterra: Fragments from the Common Ground, was published in 2004, as was her translation (from Arabic into English) of Mourid Barghouti’s I Saw Ramallah. She writes regularly for the Guardian in the UK and has a weekly column (in Arabic) in al-Shorouk in Egypt. In 2007, Ms Soueif founded Engaged Events, a UK based charity. Its first project is the Palestine Festival of Literature. Ms Soueif has recently edited Reflections on Islamic Art (BQFP: 2011). Her account of Egyptian events, “Cairo: my City, our Revolution”, was published in January 2012. She is a recipient of the Metropolis Bleu and the Constantin Cavafy Awards (2012) and the first recipient of the Mahmoud Darwish Award (2010).
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)
May 7, 2013 • 11:00 pm
BY ERIN BIEL
Cruising around Ramallah in June 2010, Yazan Samara, a thirty-two -year-old music and production supervisor, was fiddling around with the dials on his radio. “I felt like listening to some other genres of music than the ones that I have on the CDs in my car, which led me to check the local radio stations. Surprised, I heard one of them stand out with the name ‘96 NISAA FM!’” Samara recounted.
NISAA FM’s radio sweeper, the pre-recorded promotional used by radio stations as a segue between songs and programs, lilted across his radio [in Arabic]:
Wherever you are (female “you’ ’)
We shall talk about you
extensively and in details
So you won’t say
We have forgotten you
We have thought a lot about you
Nisaa means “women” in Arabic, and NISAA FM is the first and only radio station in the Middle East solely dedicated to women’s issues. “It grabbed my attention that we have a women’s radio station in Palestine, which is unique, and from that point I started listening to it,” Samara recalled. A month later, Samara heard that NISAA FM was hiring. The US-trained information technology specialist left his job at the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation and joined a team of what is now six women and three men, plus a number of volunteer stringers, who compose the staff at NISAA FM.
While his gender may make Samara seem an unlikely candidate for a radio station focused on women’s issues, Samara does not view his job in gendered terms—and neither does the station. As Maysoun Gangat, the director of NISAA FM, explained, “we recognize the importance of men as partners for change, rather than enemies or partisans.” As such, the radio station commonly interviews both male and female experts on a given program topic, and the daily segment Eileh (“Family”) caters to both husbands and wives.
However, the radio station does not gloss over the evident gender disparities in Palestinian society. A 2009 study published by the Gaza-based Palestinian Women’s Information and Media Centre found that 67 percent of Palestinian women reported being subjected to verbal violence on a regular basis, 71 percent to psychological violence, 52.4 percent to physical violence, and 14.5 percent to sexual violence. Aware of the hurdles that women face in society, NISAA FM aims to project a discourse of women’s empowerment, rather than victimization. Gangat believes that by focusing on women’s stories of achievement, female listeners will realize their own potential as well: “NISAA FM is all about inspiration and empowerment. Inspiration is very important in our society. Through [the] airwaves we can share our experience and knowledge, and support women to realize themselves.”
The radio station first began as a web radio station in December 2009 with the support of the Womanity Foundation, a Swiss non-governmental organization that launches women’s empowerment programs around the world. Yann Borgstedt, founder and president of the Womanity Foundation, decided to test the concept in the Palestinian territories after starting a similar radio station for women in Afghanistan. Through personal contacts, Borgstedt was introduced to Gangat, then the managing director of RAM radio station, the first English radio station in the region. Funded by a South African businessman, RAM sought to connect Palestinians and Israelis on issues that concerned both parties through a neutral language. Having caught the “radio bug” while working there, “I came to NISAA FM with a spirit to create a station [that would] connect Palestinian women together…[and] engage more women in senior positions in media and empower them through media,” Gangat explained.
Borgstedt, impressed by Gangat’s experience and entrepreneurial spirit, provided her with the seed money necessary to officially launch NISAA FM in June 2010. Now the radio station can be heard in the central, northern, and southern regions of the West Bank, and can also be streamed online. While most of the listenership comes from the Palestinian territories, there is also significant listenership among European nations, the United States, and Egypt. In 2011 the station ranked as one of the top five most popular stations in the central West Bank, according to Jawal Telecommunications Company.
NISAA FM is markedly non-political and secular in a region commonly characterized as otherwise. As Gangat asserted, “Personally, I do not believe that religious beliefs fuel gender inequality. Islam as a religion has called for the equality between men and women… We still see some Christian families in Palestine who are more conservative than Muslim ones.” Only during the month of Ramadan are issues related to women and Islam tackled extensively.
During the rest of the year, the station runs three live programs that span 7 am to 6 pm on Sundays through Thursdays. The NISAA FM audience is diverse, reaching a blend of listeners based in urban, rural, and refugee camp areas, along with Palestinian diaspora communities throughout the world. As such, the programming is equally varied. The morning show, called Qahwah Mazboot (“Coffee Moderately Sweetened”) remains the most popular and commonly utilizes NISAA FM’s volunteer reporters who provide stories from the rural villages. Segments range from Turath, which seeks to unite the Palestinian community by highlighting various aspects of Palestinian culture, to Tamkeen, a daily segment that hosts women from rural and marginalized areas who have started projects through microfinance loans. By noon, the station transitions to heavier issues, such as domestic violence, poverty, and early marriage, targeting the housewives who tend to listen in at this time. The late afternoon show addresses issues related to Muasassat (NGOs), Eileh (family), and Iktisadiyat (economics). Topics include women’s rights in the workforce and how to launch social enterprise endeavors. Listeners are even encouraged to call in and explain ideas that they would like to develop.
Despite NISAA FM’s rapid success, the radio station has had to work hard to sustain itself. As Gangat explained, “there are 43 radio stations in the West Bank, so you can imagine the competition for the listenership and for the market share…. The economy is donor dependent and very volatile.” In an effort to reach out to even more women and augment their programming, NISAA FM has secured grants from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and other international organizations operating in the West Bank. Last year, with the additional UNESCO funding, NISAA FM was able to train four community reporters who now work at the station on a volunteer basis. Going forward, NISAA FM would like to hold focus groups with women to discuss their radio content. The station also hopes to extend their daily programming to 7 pm and add a Saturday weekend program.
Gangat was recognized in 2011 by the Palestinian Ministry of Women’s Affairs for helping to place women’s issues on the national agenda. As just one marker of women’s increasing empowerment, the proportion of women in Palestinian universities has been growing, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, such that there are now more women than men pursuing post-secondary degrees. Maysoun wants to see that trend continue, and she believes that radio is the answer: “Radio is a cheap, accessible communication medium for all socioeconomic groups; it also has a personal approach, [is] mobile…and reaches remote areas.” Just as education has long been viewed as the “great equalizer,” Maysoun views the radio, and the wisdom that it can bestow, as the new great equalizer for women— whether these women reside in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank or the more urban neighborhoods of Ramallah.
Erin Biel ’13 is a Global Affairs & Ethnicity, Race, and Migration double major in Ezra Stiles College. Contact her at erin.biel@yale.edu.
On Tuesday 7th May, BRICUP (British Committee for the Universities of Palestine) posted on their website and tweeted that Professor Stephen Hawking had declined an invitation to a conference in Jerusalem, to be hosted by war criminal Shimon Peres.
We understand that Professor Stephen Hawking has declined his invitation to attend the Israeli Presidential Conference Facing Tomorrow 2013, due to take place in Jerusalem on 18-20 June. This is his independent decision to respect the boycott, based upon his knowledge of Palestine, and on the unanimous advice of his own academic contacts there.”
Wednesday 8th May, the Guardian, Reuters, the BBC and much of the mainstream media had picked up the BRICUP news and were reporting it as Hawking joining the academic boycott of apartheid Israel. Guardian headline:
Physicist pulls out of conference…
View original post 919 more words
Greek Orthodox Christians marked the beginning of Easter Sunday with a four-hour midnight service in Gaza’s 1,606-year-old Church of Saint Porphyrius last night.
On Friday, Israeli occupation authorities turned “dozens” of church members back from the Beit Hanoun checkpoint, despite their permits to spend Easter in the West Bank.
Those who reached Jerusalem faced “a battle camp scenario,” Hanna Amireh, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee and head of the Presidential Committee on Church Affairs, told the AFP.
“It is not only that Israel has isolated our occupied capital from the rest of our country – forcing our people to apply for special military permits to access their families and holy places for religious occasions – but even Palestinians from Jerusalem were beaten when trying to reach the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,” Amireh said. “Even praying has become an act of resistance for Palestinians.”
Under…
View original post 103 more words
| Date posted: April 29, 2013 By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH |
||
|
||
Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad’s latest narrative feature film, Omar, has been selected for the Un Certain Regard sidebar section at the Cannes International Film Festival in France from May 15 to 26.
Omar, the tale of three childhood friends and a young woman who are torn apart in their fatal fight for freedom, is said to be the first film to be fully financed by the emerging Palestinian film industry. It stars Palestinian-American actor Waleed Zuaiter (American television series Homeland), and is reportedly produced by him and David Gerson for new American-Palestinian production company ZBros. German international sales agent Match Factory introduced the title to buyers at the last Berlinale’s European Film Market.
It’s Abu-Assad’s first time to be competing at Cannes, after the success of his previous narrative features Paradise Now in 2005 (three prizes at the Berlinale, European Film Award for Best Screenplay, first Palestinian nominee for an Oscar) and Rana’s Wedding in 2002 (Golden Antigone at the Montpellier Mediterranean Film Festival).
He thus follows in the footsteps of fellow Palestinian director Elia Suleiman who has attended the Cannes film festival multiple times, notably with Divine Intervention in 2002 (FIPRESCI Prize and Jury Prize), The Time that Remains in 2009 (Palme d’Or contender), and Seven Days in Havana, a film that he co-directed, in 2012 (selected for Un Certain Regard).
But there is even more good news for the Palestinian film sector. For the first time, a Palestinian film is to vie for the Short Film Palme d’Or this year.
Gazan brothers Mohammed and Ahmad Abou Nasser (also known as Arab and Tarzan Nasser)’sCondom Lead has been selected from 3,500 short films as one of the nine contenders for the world-famous award. The film, whose title is a pun based on the Israeli military’s name for the 2008 Gaza War, Operation Cast Lead, explores what becomes of ordinary passions between a man and his wife in the long interludes of a war’s heightened reality.
Condom Lead is the brothers’ second short after Colourful Journey and the first to be shot in Jordan. It is its lead actor Rashid Abdulhamid’s first production for Made in Palestine, as well as his and his fellow actress’ first time to act in a film, co-director Arab Nasser told Euromed Audiovisual by phone from Jordan.
The film’s idea and story was written by another Gazan filmmaker, Khalil al-Muzayen, whose DOCmed-supported documentary Gaza 36 mm, a film that notably stars the Nasser brothers, recently premiered in Beirut.
In 2011, the Nasser brothers told the Guardian that they had never watched a film in the cinema in their life. Now, less than two years later, their efforts are taking them to one of the most prestigious screening venues in the world.
“We have to go to Cannes,” Arab Nasser told Euromed Audiovisual. “It’s the chance of a lifetime!”
Alice Hackman
Picture: Condom Lead – Facebook page
Article appeared on EUROMED Audio Visual
|
Posted on April 30.
|
“I’m even happier than I appear.” With these words, Palestinian artist Reem Talhami began the concert to launch her first album in Gaza City, a place where musical concerts have typically been banned since Hamas came to power. She received warm applause from the audience, which swayed in delight to the beat of two songs that she sang from the new album, “Carried by the Night.”
The album features 10 songs. The lyrics were written by Gazan poet Khaled Jumaa, and Saeed Murad composed the melodies. Talhami sang these songs, which primarily aim to describe Gaza, she told Al-Monitor, “as we see it and as we hope for it to be, far removed from the news reports that only contain killing and destruction in this ancient city.”
Talhami noted, “The words of these songs are far removed from killing, destruction, war and bombing. They take you to a wider horizon and another space, filled with love and hope, as seen by the writer and as we all wish to see.”
Talhami was born in the Arab Israeli city of Shefa-Amr. She studied singing at the Rubin Institute in Jerusalem, where she currently resides, for five years, graduating in 1996. She has participated in a number of local and international festivals, singing songs that primarily express Palestinian heritage and nationalism.
On why she selected Gaza City to launch her first album, Talhami said, “In recent years, I’ve noticed that, whether intentionally or not, Gaza and Gazan intellectuals have been marginalized in Arab and Palestinian cultural activities. Through my participation in these activities, I found that Gaza was absent. So, through this album, I wanted to express my absolute rejection of this marginalization of Gaza City, a city I love.”
Since the imposition of the Israeli blockade, the Gaza Strip has been characterized by a state of cultural stagnation. This is due to the difficulty artists and intellectuals have faced traveling between the West Bank and Gaza through the Rafah crossing since the first years of the blockade. This is compounded by the pressures resulting from the political divide between Fatah and Hamas.
Talhami explained, “It was a great honor for me to be a part of this artistic work, which was in preparation for two and half years before now being revealed to the public. I am very proud of it. Although I wanted to record the album in a studio in Gaza, circumstances prevented us from doing that.” She described as “shameful” the West Bank–Gaza political divide and lamented the inability of the Palestinian people, “who have confronted various challenges,” to force politicians to reach a compromise to restore unity between the two parts of the nation.
Those attending the Gaza concert, mostly youths, of both genders, swayed to Talhami’s songs at times and applauded at others. The joy was apparent in their faces.
Ahmed Rizaq, 21, was one of those in attendance, listening intently to the words and music and applauding warmly. He said to Al-Monitor, “I’m here so that I can live in the Gaza I want and desire. We have been lacking these types of cultural and artistic activities. My presence here and listening to the lyrics of Talhami’s songs helps me to confront the difficulties we face in Gaza.”
Rahaf al-Batniji, 22, agreed with Rizaq, and offered that it was the first time she had attended a concert with singing of this kind. These songs left a notable impression on her psyche, which has endured political and psychological pressures in her daily life.
Reem Talhami sings “Gaza Bitghanni”
She told Al-Monitor, “What we see and hear today is an exception. This is not the reality we live. Every time I’ve left the country I’ve made an effort to attend a musical concert. I’m amazed today to see a small concert in Gaza City.”
Since taking power, the Hamas-led government in Gaza has typically banned all private music concerts. They justify the ban by arguing that the concerts do not reflect the “customs and traditions” of the Palestinian people.
Speaking to Al-Monitor, Talhami directed a message to the government in Gaza: “Everyone must realize that goal-oriented singing is a means of resistance. Our battle today with the Israeli occupation is a cultural battle, not another type of battle.”
Following the concert to launch her album, held in the courtyard of the French Cultural Center, she said, “I think that differences of opinion do not undermine the entire cause. The Palestinian people are simple. They love art and singing. I think that it’s an integral part of our culture, which reflects Palestinians and is a part of the primary struggle.”
Hazem Balousha is a Palestinian journalist based in Gaza City. He has worked as a news producer for BBC World Service, as well as contributed to Deutsche Welle, The Guardian, Al-Raya (Qatar) and other publications. Balousha covered Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in 2008 and the conflict between Fatah and Hamas in 2007. He is also the founder of the Palestinian Institute for Communication and Development (PICD) and has a master’s degree in international relations and a BA in journalism. On Twitter: @iHaZeMi
This article appeared in Al-Monitor http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/04/palestinian-singer-gaza-concert.html#ixzz2Rzs9RiWT
Sarah Irving writes a moving obituary sharing her personal memory of Palestinian actor Rabea Turkman ” Palestine always teaches one to seize the moment, because it really may never come around again. Rabea, you will be deeply, sorely missed.” RIP Rabea Turkman and may we have the strength to continue our “cultural intifada” until we attain our vision of freedom, justice and liberation.
A few hours ago the Freedom Theatre in Jenin put out this short statement:
The Freedom Theatre mourns the death of one of our graduated Acting School students, the brave resistance fighter who chose to replace the gun with the stage, Rabea Turkman. Under Juliano‘s guidance Rabea developed his talent as an actor and later as a stand-up comedian. Our thoughts go to Rabea’s loved ones at this difficult time. May you rest in peace Rabea, you will be greatly missed and you will always be part of The Freedom Theatre.
I had the privilege of meeting Rabea in Jenin in 2010. I first encountered him in the cafe behind Cinema Jenin in the city centre. He and one of his friends, also an actor from the Freedom Theatre acting school, were arguing over the respective merits of Brechtian and Stanislavskian theories of performance. Rabea’s argument was passionate…
View original post 288 more words
Tales of a City by the Sea 