"It's just basically a song that asks for freedom and dignity for any nation anywhere any time," he said. "It can apply to Cuba, Syria, Egypt, Palestine. I did that on purpose because I wanted my musical message to be universal in all mankind."" Malek Jandali
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/07/29/syria.homs.musician/
GAZA |
It's not just the dearth of funds, equipment and studio facilities that prompts such laments from film-makers in the Gaza Strip. Four years into Islamist Hamas rule, cultural censors are fraying the already threadbare local movie industry.
Locked in conflict with Israel and vying against secular Palestinian rivals in the occupied West Bank, Hamas has long invested in television- and Internet-based news, educational shows and even animated clips that advance its political views.
But independent artists say Gaza's Culture Ministry, where projects must be approved before public screening, is quick to crack down on content that does not conform to Hamas edicts.
Such was the case with "Masho Matook" ("Something Sweet"), a 2010 short film directed by Khalil al-Muzzayen, which depicts the interaction between Israeli troops and soccer-playing Palestinian children in once-occupied Gaza.
Though the video vignette was submitted to the Cannes Film Festival, Hamas banned its screening locally, citing a four-second scene where Israeli soldiers appreciatively eye a comely Palestinian woman who breezes past them, her hair uncovered.
Culture Ministry director Mustafa al-Sawaf described the images as "out of context."
"She was leaning and laughing, looking at the Israeli soldiers, and that was not appropriate. Palestinian women would not do that," said Sawaf, who described his ministry's intervention in film and television productions as minimal.
Much of the dispute stems from the fact that the film, set in the 1970s, shows a bare-headed woman -- now a rare sight in Gaza, where Islamist mores have taken root.
DENYING REALITY
While censorship is commonplace in conservative Arab and Muslim societies, some Palestinians see in Hamas's version an over-zealousness born of its efforts to impose order on the poor territory penned in between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean.
"It was unjust to ban a movie just because of a scene showing a girl without a scarf. Why deny reality?" said 23-year-old filmmaker Ahmed Abu Naser, who, like his twin and artistic partner Mohammed, helped Muzzayen with Masho Matook....READ MORE
The event marked the end of Summer Games 2011, during which the children of Gaza have smashed the world records for the largest number of people flying parachutes from the ground, the largest number of people dribbling footballs simultaneously and for producing the world’s largest-ever handprint painting.
The Games give 250,000 children across Gaza a much-needed respite from the difficulties of their daily lives – offering them a safe place to swim, play and make new friends.
To see all the action from the last six weeks of Summer Games, join us on Facebook or visit our Summer Games section.
This world record was funded by the people of:
United States
European Union
Finland
Australia
Bedouin Falah Hedawa herds sheep in the Rashayida area, in the desert between the West Bank town of Bethlehem and the Dead Sea, July 25, 2011. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman* Israel demolishes cisterns restored to harvest rainwater
* Old cisterns, many ancient, rehabilitated in recent years
* Israel West Bank authority says cisterns in firing zones
* Bedouin say Israel aims to drive them off land
By Tom Perry
RASHAYIDA, West Bank, July 28 (Reuters) - Hewn from rock, the cavernous cisterns which dot the desert beyond Bethlehem have for centuries harvested winter rain to provide shepherds and their flocks with water through summer.
Under a baking sun, an elderly Bedouin explains how cisterns he remembers from childhood, many of them restored to full working order in the last few years, are once again helping his goat-herding community to survive.
That, he concludes, is why the Israeli authorities who control the West Bank have demolished at least three in the area since November.
"Maybe they are doing this to make us leave. We will not leave," said Falah Hedawa, 64, sitting on cushions in his tent home pitched in the hills that slope down to the Dead Sea.
Out into the desert, a stagnant pool marked the spot where one of the cisterns, chiselled out of a hillside, had stood until its recent demolition. A mud trail on the otherwise dry ground indicated where the water inside had drained away towards a wadi, a valley which becomes a river when the rain falls.
Israel has demolished 20 rainwater collection cisterns in the West Bank in the first half of this year, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which monitors conditions in the Palestinian territories.
Their razing is part of a marked acceleration in demolitions of Palestinian structures...READ MORE
RE: Before a Diplomatic Showdown, a Budget Crisis
With the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000, travel restrictions between the West Bank and Jerusalem gradually tightened until in 2003, Israel effectively stopped issuing Jerusalem residency permits to PalestiniansWhen Sana, who comes from the West Bank city of Hebron, married her Jerusalem-born husband Mohammed 13 years ago, she never imagined their union would lead to a life of fear and hiding.
At first, their different residency permits -- hers for the West Bank, his for Jerusalem -- weren't much of an issue. She could live with her husband in Arab east Jerusalem with a temporary permit, and movement between the city and the West Bank was still fairly easy.
But, with the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000, travel restrictions gradually tightened until in 2003, Israel effectively stopped issuing Jerusalem residency permits to Palestinians in what caught Sana and Mohammed in an impossible bind.
Without an Israeli permit, Sana can't live in Jerusalem with her husband and children. But if Mohammed moves to the West Bank, he risks losing his Jerusalem residency and all access to the city of his birth.
Palestinians say it has never been easy to get a residency permit to move from the West Bank to east Jerusalem....READ MORE
Among their plans are the convening of an international conference of religious leaders in New York ahead of the 2012 UN General Assembly, a North America public relations campaign and training future clerics on the importance of environmental issues, one of the organisers said...READ MORE
