A UN nuclear watchdog report suggests Iran could be developing a nuclear bomb, apparently confirming long-held suspicions in the West. But Tehran denies the claims, again insisting that its atomic intentions are peaceful. Michel Chossudovsky, who’s from an independent Canadian policy research group, believes that what Iran says hardly matters, because the U.S. is planning for war…
A “docu-music-video” of Detroit MC Invincible’s song People Not Places. Kabobfest calls it the “greatest hip hop song for Palestine ever.”The video, like the song, is a powerful indictment of both the ongoing dispossession of the Palestinian people, and attempts to shield young American Jews from this reality through programs like Birthright.
Be sure to watch the entire thing. The video continues after the song is over to show how there are some very similar conditions to Israel/Palestine right here in the US, and that as hopeless as the situation might feel at times there is an amazing capacity for change.
Lyrics
Jenin Jenin depicts the true story of Israeli colossal barbarism. There is no doubt left, the Jewish State is the ultimate enemy of humanity and humanism. It also presents the Palestinian ordeal facing the Zionist evil. Clearly, surviving the Israeli occupation is nothing but heroism.
Soon after Jenin Jenin was released, after only three showings, the film was banned by the Israeli Film Board (2002), accusing the film of being libellous for calling itself a documentary despite documenting only one ‘side’ of the story. One may ask the Israeli Film Board whether they also ban holocaust documentaries for failing to present the Nazi or even the SS ‘side’ of the story.
Bakri petitioned the High Court of Justice against the censor for prohibiting the screening of the film on the grounds that it distorted the truth. After a long fight, the court rejected the censor’s decision.
In 2004, the Israeli High Court finally upheld its earlier overturn of the ban, but joined the Film Board in labelling the film a “propagandistic lie,” based on Israeli sources which acknowledged only 52 Palestinian deaths, 38 of whom Israeli sources argued were armed fighters.
In 2007, five IDF soldiers who participated in the Jenin refugee camp massacre sued the Cinamatheques in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem for screening the film in the midst of the ban, and sued Bakri for 2.5 million NIS for producing the film. In July 2008 Bakri was acquitted of the charges.
Jenin-Jenin earned two awards: the “Best Film” award at the Carthage International Film Festival, 2002, and the International Prize for Mediterranean Documentary Filmmaking and Reporting.
Lyad Samoudi the film’s Executive Producer, was killed at Alyamoun at the end of the filming by Israeli soldiers on 23 June 2002.
A member of the ElBaradei family sporting this great home-made T-shirt.But before I do that, I think it’s fair to note that yesterday’s welcoming committee was a success. There were over 1,000 people at the airport, the story got covered everywhere, and it has legs. It energized his campaign, even if many were disappointed that ElBaradei did not speak at the airport. I think he probably should have, but the conditions there were not good: supporters and journalists were crushing each other, there was no platform, and too many people to be controlled easily. One important reason for the success of the welcome was its timing. I think it might be no coincidence that ElBaradei decided to return to Egypt on the day that Egypt faced its Universal Periodic Review at the UN Human Rights Council and the day that Barack Obama met with Egyptian democracy activists Gamal Eid and Bahai Eddin Hassan. There was a lot of international attention on the question of democracy and human rights in Egypt that day. The regime’s propaganda may have scared off some (newspapers had reported on-the-spot fines of LE1,000 — $182 — and massive security presence, both of which were untrue) but plenty turned out and a repressive approach was simply not possible.
In the first of its lecture series, In Translation, AUCs newly established Center for Translation Studies, hosted leading Arabic-English translator Denys Johnson-Davies who shared his memories and encounters with Arab writers during his extensive literary career, including Naguib Mahfouz, Tawfik Al Hakim, Yusuf Idris, Yahya Hakki, Edwar Al Kharrat, Tayeb Saleh and Salwa Bakr.
Start speech Denys Johnson-Davies at 23:40
