The first London Palestine Film Festival was held at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in Spring 1999. In response to public interest, the organisers decided in 2004 to establish the Palestine Film Foundation (PFF) as a body dedicated to the coordination of the festival and to the archiving of audiovisual materials related to Palestine.And details of the current year's festival are here.
The PFF is a nonprofit initiative which seeks to develop an audience for and to encourage the development of a Palestinian cinema and cinema related to Palestine. It is managed by a network of academics, curators, filmmakers, and volunteers from Palestine, the UK and elsewhere.
In addition to the annual festival, the PFF coordinates film and video related tours, special screenings and film linked seminars throughout the year and across the UK. These activities allow the PFF to introduce innovative and important works of documentary and fiction to new audiences and to provide a forum for visiting artists to engage UK audiences with work that is otherwise seldom screened.
From 2012, the PFF began developing a new web portal designed to increase access to its expansive archive of film and video related resources. Funding is currently being sought for this new online platform for research, exhibition, and distribution, with the site expected to launch in summer 2013.
The PFF relies on charitable donations, partnerships, and funding to deliver its projects. Please consider making a secure donation to the PFF using the button at the left of this page.
this House believes that the Government should recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel.There hasn't been much news about the debate and I have to say I don't feel particularly moved by it but then Ive never claimed to support the so-called two state solution. But Zionists here in the UK have gone into collective panic.
At end, add’, on the conclusion of successful peace negotiations between the Israeli Government and the Palestinian Authority.which of course means, this House believes that the Government should never recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel.
The [Zionist] activist said MPs backing the motion had been "very clever. The motion is very blandly worded and could be interpreted as being supportive of a two-state solution, which all key groups here support".Yup, it's certainly bland but how could the words "recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel" be open to any interpretation other than support for a two state solution?
this House believes that the Government should recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of IsraelBad news for one staters like me but why is the JC so down on it it won't even show it to its readers?
This reminded me of something I read on the Socialist Unity site a few days ago. It's actually a book review by Tony Collins of From Beirut to Jerusalem by Dr. Swee Chai Ang. This is the bit that the above twinning reminded me of:PLANS to twin Pendle with a town in the West Bank in Palestine have now been made official.Pendle’s mayor, Coun Asjad Mahmood, accepted the invitation to become president of the Pendle Palestine Twinning Group (PPTG) and signed the letter of confirmation to approve the link between Pendle and Beit Leed.
Before I left London, the representative of a Miners’ Support Group in Yorkshire had called on me and given me twenty-four greeting cards, from twenty-four mining families in her village, to take to the people of the camps. The coal-miners of Britain had been out on strike for a year, stretching from 1984 into 1985. Conditions were very difficult throughout the strike, and many mining families had to sell their furniture and possessions to survive.
During the strike, the British miners had their equivalent of the General Union of Palestinian Women. The miners’ wives, mothers, sisters and grandmothers organised themselves into Miners’ Support Groups, and these women ran soup kitchens to feed the community, travelled all over Britain on fundraising tours, and kept everyone’s morale up during the darkest moments. Like the Palestinian women, they formed the backbone of the community.
The British press scorned the ending of the strike as a “defeat”, but my Palestinian friends in Chatila camp called it a victory. Their reasong was simple: any group who could hold out for a whole year under those conditions won a great victory.
Discriminatory treatment of Palestinian children under Israeli law - infographic from @972mag #apartheid #Palestine goo.gl/kOCmN
— Gem (@whatgemmathinks) May 6, 2013
I wonder how Israel will react when they label the whole shebang, Palestine, rather than just the West Bank and Gaza.JERUSALEM - Israel on Friday questioned Internet giant Google's decision to replace the term "Palestinian Territories" with "Palestine" on the Palestinian www.google.ps page, after last year's UN decision to award Palestine observer status.
"This change raises questions about the reasons behind this surprising involvement of what is basically a private Internet company in international politics -- and on the controversial side," foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said.
The change went into effect on May 1, Google spokesman Nathan Tyler said in a statement.
"We're changing the name 'Palestinian Territories' to 'Palestine' across our products. We consult a number of sources and authorities when naming countries. In this case, we are following the lead of the UN ... and other international organisations," he said.
Chavez has ordered Ambassador Shlomo Cohen to leave in protest over the attacks in Gaza. Israel says Cohen was given until Friday to depart, and the nation is considering expelling Venezuelan diplomats in response.I got that from AP via google news but it's no longer there. I kept the whole report here.
I'm rushing now but here are some bits which leapt out at me:WASHINGTON (JTA) – An in-depth comparative study of Palestinian and Israeli school textbooks is offering some conclusions that already are making some Israeli government officials very unhappy: Palestinian textbooks do not have as much anti-Israel incitement as often portrayed.While this finding might appear to be welcome news for supporters of Israel, it also threatens to undercut one of the central elements of the official Israeli narrative. For years, the charge that Palestinians “educate to hate” has been an Israeli trump card in undermining claims that Palestinian statehood is overdue, and it is an article of faith among many lawmakers in Congress.
“This obviously cuts down one of the pegs and a linchpin in the argument that the Israel government makes, that the Palestinian Authority is teaching hatred to their kids,” said an official who works closely with mainstream Jewish organizations in the United States. The official declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.Hmm, mustn't be identified with a factual report, we don't want another Goldstone.
Titled "Victims of our own Narratives?" and funded by the U.S. State Department, the study finds both Israel and the Palestinians lacking in making the case for the other side's presence in the Holy Land. It also scores Israeli books as better than Palestinian ones at preparing schoolchildren for peace.Might that be because peace is more in Israel's hands than the Palestinians'?
The Israeli government did not formally cooperate with the study; Palestinian Authority officials did.
He hasn't seen the report but he knows he can't endorse it because it doesn't say what he wanted it to.Yale University psychiatry professor Bruce Wexler convened the study team, which was headed by Daniel Bar Tal of Tel Aviv University and Sami Adwan of the University of Bethlehem. They assigned Hebrew-Arabic bilingual research assistants to plow through more than 3,000 passages from textbooks -- 74 from the Israeli side and 96 from the Palestinian side....Most of the advisory panel, including several Israelis, signed onto a statement Sunday endorsing its findings....At least one Israeli member, Arnon Groiss, said he has reservations about the methodology and could not attach his name to the final report, which he said he has not seen.
Detractors of the study say its rigorous analytical methodology rips biased and sometimes inflammatory passages from each cultural context. They contend that triumphalism is more incendiary in a Palestinian society that they say is more forgiving of terrorism.Of course Israel's triumphalism couldn't possibly be considered incendiary in a Palestinian society which has suffered such triumphalism for several decades now. Still, the whole thing's worth a look at.
Here is Manger Square in Bethlehem where the church of the nativity, the site of the first Christmas, is seen in the background along with a snow dusted Christmas tree.
Not too far from Manger Square snow accumulates on an iconic key above the entrance to a Palestinian refugee camp in Bethlehem.
Moving north, Bab Al-Amood, or the Damascus Gate to the Old City of Jerusalem, which has withstood much throughout its long and storied history, face flurries in this shot.
Bab al-Khalil, or the Jaffa Gate, is seen here.
Through the gates and behind the walls, the crown jewel of Jerusalem's skyline, the Dome of the Rock, can be seen here amidst surrounding snow covered domes.What is more majestic than that moment when the sunlight hits Jerusalem? That same moment in the snow.
What's this? A Palestinian snow man visits the Dome of the Rock.To the north, a Palestinian stands atop the iconic lions of Ramallah covered in snow.
While snow is certainly a welcome distraction for life under occupation, it is also a vehicle for political expression. This Palestinian snowman commemorates the Nakba, or the depopulation of Palestine in 1948.
Here, a kufiyeh wraps the image of a Palestinian prisoner on hunger strike atop the snow.Some took to creating snowmen to express loyalty to one Palestinian political faction or another. Here is a Hamas snowman.Another snowman, draped in a Fateh scarf, comes complete a with kufiyeh on its head shaped the way Yasser Arafat made famous.While some used the snow to show their party allegiance, others used it as a call for unity and reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah.Some snowmen wanted nothing to do with politics at all.
And why should men have all the fun? This snow woman, or snowmaneh as the Facebook caption on her photo reads, chills in the shade in Bethlehem.
Apparently the "justice" later claimed that his ruling applied to "both sides".Supreme Court President Asher Grunis should be pleased. A mosque under construction in the West Bank, whose demolition he supported, was pulled down last Tuesday - another performance by the Civil Administration bulldozer, underreported in the media. As in an increasing number of cases, the demolition was a result of pressure applied by Regavim - a nongovernmental organization whose goal is preserving lands of the (Jewish) nation.On November 15, the High Court of Justice considered Regavim's demand to demolish the concrete building under construction, covering an area of 97 square meters in the small village of Al Mufaqara - which Israel is trying to wipe off the map, like its other Palestinian neighbors in the south Hebron Hills. In addition to Regavim's demand, the High Court justices also considered a request by Mahmoud Hamamda, a village resident, to freeze the demolition order and grant the building a construction permit. For about 400 Muslims in the area, there is no place of worship within a reasonable distance, said the petition submitted by Hamamda via the Society of St. Yves - Catholic Center for Human Rights. A few weeks ago, though not yet completed, the building began operating as a mosque.And now we learn from the website Hakol Hayehudi ("The Jewish Voice," whose tagline is "News for Happy Jews" ) that Justice Grunis expressed his viewpoint in the courtroom in a paraphrase of a well-known, vulgar expression: "You have to demolish them while they're small." The website for happy Jews, which interpreted Grunis' comments as relating to the mosque, rejoiced. The State Prosecutor's Office promised that demolition was imminent, and Regavim and Hamamda's petitions became superfluous.
Sarcasm? Er yes:In its response to Haaretz, a spokesman for the court system clarified Grunis' comments: "These words do not reflect everything said by the president in the courtroom on this matter. His words were presented in a partial way that creates a distortion. We would therefore like to quote the words in full, as detailed below. The president did indeed say the words concerning the procedural question, but he later added that it refers to both sides. In other words, when it comes to petitions submitted in connection with illegal construction in the territories - whether by Jewish or by Palestinian groups - the demolition should be carried out before construction is completed."There is no reason to doubt this statement and the fact that Grunis was referring not only to Palestinians. It's not his fault that nobody submitted a petition urging the authorities to demolish a synagogue under construction in the nearby illegal outpost of Avigail - a scion of the settlement of Ma'on, which is also illegal but nevertheless has authorization.
Cutting, as they say, to the chase:Oops, but wait. Surfing the Internet led me to an article by Yossi Algazi in Haaretz from 11 years ago, where he tells about the beginning of the Avigail outpost, created under military camouflage of some kind and with ongoing military protection. The article indicates that there was, in fact, a petition, by attorney Shlomo Lecker on behalf of two Palestinians who own the land. And this is what Algazi wrote:"In his petition to the High Court, attorney Lecker claims that the construction of the outpost at the Avigail site is taking place before the closed eyes of the political leadership, and particularly Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer [Labor], who is not doing anything to prevent the invasion of Palestinian land by settlers, and is thereby encouraging them. 'In recent months, the Defense Ministry has adopted a new and unacceptable method,' accuses Lecker. 'The ministry allocates money to construct buildings and outposts, and instructs the Israel Defense Forces to protect those who are doing the work, and the settlers who are preparing the ground and setting up means for protecting and guarding it. The work on the ground is being done without valid permits ... in order not to leave official fingerprints on the settlement activities that Israel promised in the international arena not to carry out, and which include, among other things, the invasion of private land and construction without a permit.' In response, the spokesman for the Civil Administration claimed this week that the water tower at the Avigail site 'was built on state land within the jurisdiction of the settlement of Ma'on, while the container was installed for the benefit of the guards at the site."
What we have is a judge who supports colonial settlement, ethnic cleansing and racist laws.we have no reason to doubt that Grunis was referring to all "illegal" construction work.A judge who creates symmetry between those who rule by force and their subjects who are denied their rights, knowingly and deliberately sides with the powerful.
And here are the offending tweets:This episode in moral relativism is brought to you by the letter "M" - for Maria.
Sonia Manzano, who plays Maria on the long-running PBS series "Sesame Street," isbashing Israel via her Twitter feed.The actress sent out two pro-Palestinian messages relating to the latest unrest in the Middle East, first calling Israel bullies and then comparing the Jewish state to early American settlers who wiped out Native Americans.
Israelis retaliate the simple recognition ofPalestiniansby UN by deciding to build 3,000 more settlements. Bullies!
— Sonia Manzano (@SoniaMManzano) December 1, 2012
Why do Israelis need to be "recognized" by Palestinians. Did Native Americans need to "recognize" their tormentors?
— Sonia Manzano (@SoniaMManzano) December 3, 2012
We are gathered here because we have recognised the potential of the youth of Palestine. Against all the odds, they continue to learn, to work, to dream and aspire to a better future. And the days when we remember young people who have been killed in all sorts of terrible circumstances - the Belgian children having lost their lives in a terrible tragedy and when we think of what happened in Toulouse today, when we remember what happened in Norway a year ago, when we know what is happening in Syria, when we see what is happening in Gaza and Sderot and in different parts of the world - we remember young people and children who lose their lives. Here are young people who are asking not to be leaders of the future, but to be taken seriously as leaders of today. And it is to them that we should look and to them we should listen and it is to them that I pay tribute.omitted the words, "and Sderot". Before it became known that Sderot had been mentioned the Israeli government tipped a wink to its commentariat. YNET led the way with a report claiming that
Catherine Ashton compared the children who were murdered in Monday's shooting attack on a Jewish school in Toulouse, France with children who are killed in Gaza.Of course she didn't actually compare them and she didn't even isolate Gaza according to the misreport but Harry's Place got the message and Sarah AB ran a post headed, Unbelievable: Baroness Ashton on Toulouse. Sarah allows for the obvious fact that she was simply saying that it is awful when children die by ending her post by saying:
she might say she was simply saying it’s awful when children die, whatever the cause – but she can hardly be surprised that her words are being greeted with outrage.Note that no context is offered as to where Ashton was and what she was doing when she mentioned Toulouse and other places where children have met with tragic unnatural death, whether violent or not. Oh, except I think Sderot, where I am not sure if any children have been killed. But Sarah didn't know about the mention of Sderot when she did the post.
If this is accurate – that the original speech referred to Gaza and Sderot, not just Gaza, then the speech cannot, I think, be seen as so particularly objectionable. Maybe it would have been better to leave I/P out of the equation, but the fact she mentioned Sderot certainly needs to be noted.
Update: Here’s a video – the relevant bit is about 12 minutes in.Eh? Let's have that bit again, "Maybe it would have been better to leave I/P out of the equation, but the fact she mentioned Sderot certainly needs to be noted."
Palestinian poet Taha Muhammad Ali from Nazareth passed away.
Taha Muhammad Ali is one of the leading poets on the contemporary Palestinian literary scene. Born in 1931 in Galilee village of Saffuriya, he fled to Lebanon, together with most of the inhabitants of his village, during the Arab-Israeli war of 1948. A year later he slipped back across the border with his family and settled in Nazareth, where he has lived ever since. The Saffuriya of his childhood has served as the nexus of his poetry and fiction, which are grounded in everyday experience and driven by a storyteller’s vivid imagination. He is self-taught and began his poetry career late (in 1983). Taha Muhammad Ali writes in a forceful and direct style, with disarming humor and unflinching, at times painful, honest—the poetry’s apparent simplicity and homespun truths concealing the subtle grafting of classical Arabic and colloquial forms of expression. In Israel, in the West Bank and Gaza, and in Europe, audiences have been powerfully moved by Taha Muhammad Ali’s poems of political complexity and humanity. He has published several collections of poetry and is also a short story writer.(Sakakini)
Ambergris
Our traces have all been erased,
our impressions swept away -
and all the remains
have been effaced...
there isn't a single sign
left to guide us
or show us a thing.
The age has grown old,
the days long,
and I, if not for the lock of your hair,
auburn as the nectar of carob,
and soft as the scent of silk
that was here before,
dozing like Arabian jasmine,
shimmering like the gleam of dawn,
pulsing like a star -
I, if not for that lock of camphor,
would feel not a thing
linking me
to this land.This land is a traitor
and can't be trusted.
This land doesn't remember love.
This land is a whore
holding out a hand to the years,
as it manages a ballroom
on the harbor pier -
it laughs in every language
and bit by bit, with its hip,
feeds all who come to it.This land denies,
cheats, and betrays us;
its dust can't bear us
and grumbles about us -
resents and detests us.
Its newcomers,
sailors, and usurpers,
uproot the backyard gardens,
burying the trees.They keep us from looking too long
at the anemone blossom and cyclamen,
and won't allow us to touch the herbs,
the wild artichoke and chicory.Our land makes love to the sailors
and strips naked before the newcomers;
it rests its head along the usurper's thigh,
is disgraced and defiled in its sundry accents;
there seems to be nothing that would bind it to us,
and I - if not for the lock of your hair,
auburn as the nectar of carob,
and soft as the scent of silk,
if not for the camphor,
if not for the musk and the sweet basil,
if not for the ambergris -
I would not know it,
and would not love it,
and would not go near it...Your braid
is the only thing
linking me, like a noose, to this whore.(ofblog)
Empty WordsAh, little notebook,
yellow as a spike of wheat
and still as a face,
I’ve protected you
from dampness and rodents
and entrusted you with
my sadness and fear,
and my dreams—
though in exchange I’ve gotten from you
only disobedience and betrayal…
For otherwise where are the words
that would have me saying:
If only I were a rock on a hill…
unable to see or hear,
be sad or suffer!
And where is the passage
whose tenor is this:
I wish I could be
a rock on a hill
which the young men
from Hebron explode
and offer as a gift to Jerusalem’s children,
ammunition for their palms and slings!And where is the passage
in which I wanted
to be a rock on a hill
gazing. out from on high
hundreds of years from now
over hordes ,.
of masked liberators!And where is what belongs
to my dream of being
a rock on a hill
along the Carmel—
where I call on the source of my sadness,
gazing out over the waves
and thinking of her
to whom I bade
farewell at the harbor pier
in Haifa forty years ago
and still…
I await her return
one evening
with the doves of the sea.Is it fair, little notebook,
yellow as a spike of wheat
and still as a face,
that you conceal
what you cancel and erase,
simply because it consists of empty words—
which frighten no enemy
and offer no hope to a friend?from NEVER MIND, Twenty Poems and a Story, translated by Peter Cole, Yahya Hijazi, Gabriel Levin, Poetry dipatch
Young Arabs, she said, had no opportunity to choose their own rulers. "For them an external enemy was a unifying way to address some of their frustrations."They were also united by the plight of Palestinians, a view that the west was exploiting their oil and supporting dictators. "It was wrong to say all terrorists belonged to al-Qaida," added Manningham-Buller.OMG! Spy chief states obvious, shock!
If Israel ends its occupation of the West Bank, and allows it to join with Gaza, the result could be two states – a Palestinian one alongside an Israeli one. But if you accompany that with a civil rights movement inside Israel, the goal could be very different – a secular, democratic state "for all its citizens", where Jew, Christian and Muslim are equal. A one-state solution in which Jewish citizens lose an inbuilt majority. The end of Zionism, no less.It's a fairly innocuous article but it seems to have caused some panic at Harry's Place.
Aggression? No, just an error
Your have referred to the Israeli raid on the Gaza aid convoy last year which killed nine men as "bungled", and I've lost count of the times commentators describe the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in terms such as "an error of judgement".If, as the terms imply, these people have evidence that the aggressors in these cases had benevolent intentions that went awry through want of skill or foresight, would they please reveal it? Otherwise some of us cynics might continue to see in the smirks of Blair and Netenyahu something other than the philosophical resignation of loveable failures.Mark Kesteven, York
