Author Archives: Arab America

“There was something there that I fundamentally couldn’t understand,” Ethan R. Pierce ’15 says of his first trip to Israel and Palestine last spring. “I felt a need to further explore Israel-Palestine for myself. I went to the region and found this multiplicity of narratives that were often conflicting but were very real for the people who were experiencing them and living them.” For Pierce, a Visual and Environmental Studies concentrator, these unresolved tensions led to “here, without,” a year-long collaborative artistic exploration of the region’s culture, history, and contemporary life. The project, part of which Pierce submitted as his senior thesis, will culminate in a final exhibition of works by participating artists, opening at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts on May 4.

“here, without” has brought a creative discussion of Israel-Palestine relations to Harvard’s campus in a variety of ways over the past year. During Wintersession 2015, Pierce organized a week-long conference featuring lectures and workshops led by contemporary artists, curators, and scholars from both the Israel-Palestine region and the United States. The conference coincided with an exhibition of works in progress from “here, without” in the Arthur M. Sackler Museum. The Carpenter Center opening in May will also serve as the launch for two books related to the project—one a collection of participants’ poetry, another a catalogue of their visual art and critical essays—the publication of which Pierce funded with help from both a Kickstarter campaign and the VES department.

Pierce, who grew up on a farm in Maine, had little experience traveling before coming to Harvard. He participated in the Harvard College Israel Trek over spring break last year, an experience which provided the inspiration for his project. “The trip was supposed to be this very neutral look at the region, but we spent 10 days in Israel and an afternoon in the West Bank,” he says. “I came away feeling a need to continue working with this material, to continue exploring it not just academically but within an artistic context, within a framework of other individuals who were interested in the topic.”

His idea for a collective exploration of Israel-Palestine relations developed over the course of his senior year into a program of biweekly seminars and workshops for 35 participating Harvard- and MIT-affiliated “artist-residents.” Pierce also returned to Israel and Palestine last fall to contact artists and curators working in the region, who became mentors to the participants.

The artists, who ranged from 19-year-old students to alumni in their mid-forties, produced a variety of creative works examining life in the Middle East today. English concentrator Josh L. Ascherman ’17 created a mixed-media work entitled “Palimpsest,” a layered collage of newspaper clippings partially obscured by black acrylic paint. “I’ve been able to do a lot of exploration of my personal history and my relationship to art, and I’ve had a chance to do some thinking about ethics as well,” Ascherman says in an email.

Professional dancer Rossi Lamont Walter, Jr. ’14, who has been living in Tel Aviv for the past year, contributed a poetic essay entitled “Questions for a Foreigner” based on inquiries he often receives as an American in Israel. Walter says that the “here, without” project had both personal meaning for him and a broader significance for the university. “For me, ‘here, without’ was important because I was part of a group of colleagues who were actively interested in learning about what ‘Israel-Palestine’ means—about history, about contemporary circumstances, and about art,” he says.

Pierce says that he faced a variety of challenges as he developed the project. For instance, the international Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement, initiated in Palestine in 2005 as a means to pressure the Israeli government to grant broader rights to Palestinians, calls for the boycott of Israeli cultural institutions. “So it gets really complicated,” Pierce says. “If you have a curator who works at an Israeli institution or has curated in Israel come to speak at Harvard as part of this project, have you broken the cultural boycott? With breaking the cultural boycott, you could very quickly lose the support of any Palestinian artist or be cut off from that community.”

Exploring and representing a deeply divisive political issue presented many challenges to Pierce. “How do you deal with this really complicated area ethically and responsibly, and also just knowing that no matter what you do, you’re going to offend a lot of people because this is a contentious issue on which people have very set and very strong views?” he says. Despite these difficulties, Pierce says that the project was transformative, both for himself and, he hopes, for Harvard. “It was personal exploration and personal growth, and also creating an alternative discursive space at Harvard…to explore these really complicated issues.”

Source: www.thecrimson.com

The room was overflowing with people who had come to witness the opening of the play The Siege. Pushing our way through the throng we managed to find some seats, squashed in the middle of a diverse and lively audience. We were sitting in the Freedom Theatre, a Palestinian community-based theatre and cultural centre located in Jenin Refugee Camp in the northern part of the West Bank. Started in 2006, the theatre’s aim is to generate cultural resistance through the field of popular culture and art as a catalyst for social change in the occupied Palestinian territories. So, after two months of rehearsals, they were finally ready to show us their eagerly anticipated new play.

The day started off with a theatrical memorial for Juliano Mer-Khamis, one of the founders of the Theatre School who was shot and killed in 2011 by a masked gunman. We then watched Journey of a Freedom Fighter; a documentary that recounts the story of Rabea Turkman, a talented student of the theatre who turned from armed resistance to cultural resistance. He was subsequently shot by the Israeli army and died a few years later as a result of his injuries.

Inspired by the true story of a group of freedom fighters, now exiled across Europe and Gaza, The Siege tells of a moment in history that took place during the height of the second intifada in 2002. The Israeli army had surrounded Bethlehem from the air and on land with snipers, helicopters and tanks, blocking all individuals and goods from coming in or out. For 39 days, people were living under curfew and on rations, with their supply of water cut and little access to electricity. Along with hundreds of other Palestinians, monks, nuns and ten activists from the International Solidarity Movement, these five freedom fighters took refuge in the Church of the Nativity, one of the holiest sites in the world.

Source: mondoweiss.net

Screening at the 11th edition of Festival des Rencontres de L’Image, the animated dark comedy Tarot, directed by Ahmed Roushdy, follows a struggling poor fisherman experiencing a change in destiny because of a deck of tarot cards.

Tarot was created during the 48 Hour Film Project, an international competition which challenges filmmakers to create a film in two days, providing each of the participating teams with a character, a prop, a line of dialogue and a genre.

The film was among the best 13 out of 4,500 submissions, and will be screened at the Cannes Film Festival on 20 May 2015, among another 12 films from the 48 Hours Film Project 2014. It has won ten awards and an honour certificate. 

Roushdy will be present after the screening for a discussion with the audience.

Rencontres De L’Image festival, which takes place between 2 and 8 May, was first launched in 2005, aims at offering an opportunity for young film directors to screen their very first films, said Isabelle Siegneur, cultural attaché at the French Institute in Cairo, during a press conference.

Source: english.ahram.org.eg

Sixth graders at Fresh Water Elementary School are learning about Egyptian history through artwork.

During an event on Friday night, students put Egyptian masks that they made on display at Eureka Art and Frame.

Teachers said the students are fascinated with the history of Ancient Egypt because of the mysteries surrounding it.

As part of the lesson, 36 students created masks using plaster molds of their faces. The students then decorated the masks using newspaper, spray paint and other materials.

The students were proud to have their artwork on display and said it took teamwork to create them.

“Painting them (masks), you really got to see it come to life,” student Thea Lamers said. “You got to see all the colors, how they work together and everything.”

Student, Zoe Butch added, “I really liked plastering my face because I liked the risk of it, having to trust my partner.”

The masks will be on display at Eureka Art and Frame through May 11th.

The community can see them Monday through Friday between 9:00a.m. and 5:30p.m.

Copyright 2015 by KAEFTV.com All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: www.krcrtv.com

In Headscarves and Hymens, Egyptian American journalist Mona Eltahawy provokes a globally critical question: Can genuine democracy take root in countries where half the population is oppressed by the other half? Her answer will be obvious, her prescription less so: For real political revolution in the Middle East, a sexual revolution must also happen, one that liberates women and brings them to equality.

In post-Mubarak Egypt, nearly 100 percent of women have experienced sexual harassment. In Yemen, where “nearly all women are covered up from head to toe,” it’s 90 percent. So much for the widespread claim that women invite sexual violation because of their immodest dress. Even in relatively liberal Tunisia, laws require women to “prove that the harassment occurs on a regular basis.”

Naming the problem provokes misogynist rage. Eltahawy received vituperative responses to her op-ed piece on sexual harassment in a privately owned Egyptian newspaper. ” ‘Who would want to grope you?’ ” wrote one man, “as if being sexually assaulted were a compliment.”

Street harassment is only the beginning. Eltahawy presents a thoroughly researched and uncompromising analysis of damning practices: government-sanctioned rape, child marriage, female genital mutilation, and the infantilization of women throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

She does not rely on statistics alone. Her concern is with the stories of actual women. This includes an account of her own detention, beating, and sexual assault by Egyptian government forces in 2011. At least 12 other women were similarly attacked during this protest. None has spoken out. “The political will never truly change,” Eltahawy writes, “unless it is accompanied by a parallel fight in the realm of the personal – the double revolution.”

By making it personal, Eltahawy undercuts the belief that such violations “couldn’t happen here” in modernized Middle Eastern nations. In fact, victim-blaming is widespread, and the silence of women is grossly misunderstood. “I want to move beyond my privilege,” Eltahawy writes, “to remember the millions of women who have none.”

Mona Eltahawy is a women’s-rights genie loosed from the bottle of male oppression. Outrageous and provocative, her words and actions have flown too far to be stuffed back inside.

Source: www.philly.com

American Pharaoh won the 141st Kentucky Derby on Saturday afternoon in front of 170,513 screaming fans under sunny skies at Churchill Downs. Dortmund and Firing Line traded the lead early on before American Pharaoh stepped on the gas to take a slight lead coming in wide on the outside off the turn. Dortmund faded slightly down the homestretch, forcing the favorite to overpower the charge of Firing Line for the victory. The victor finished about a length ahead of his nearest competitor.

The winner finished in a time of 2:03.02, making the fastest two-minutes in sports a few ticks slower than usual. Secretariat owns the record in the race for three-year-old thoroughbreds 1:59 2/5 seconds in 1973. Firing Line placed and pace-setter Dortmund showed. Carpe Diem, entering with odds of 7-1, finished a disappointing tenth.

The win gave the silver-haired Bob Baffert his fourth triumph at the Kentucky Derby. “It never gets old,” Baffert reflected on NBC post race. Ahmed Zayat, the Egyptian-American owner, called himself “blessed” after the victory.

“I feel like the luckiest Mexican on Earth,” rider Victor Espinoza told NBC on horseback after the win. “Growing up, I wanted to be successful.” The win in the Kentucky Derby makes it two-in-a-row for Espinoza, who jockeyed California Chrome to victory at Churchill Downs last year. The 5-2 favorite’s win immediately fuels talk, a la the chatter that followed California Chrome last spring, of American Pharaoh chances to become the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978.

Espinoza, in winning his third Derby and second in a row at Churchill Downs, reflected: “I’m just a lucky Mexican.” He looks for more such luck at the Preakness in two weeks and the Belmont Stakes on June 6.

Source: www.breitbart.com

“To Beirut, From my heart, I send peace to Beirut, And kisses to the sea and homes, To the Rock that is as the face of an old sailor. She comes from the soul of the people, from wine, She comes from their sweat, from jasmine. Then how did her taste change to smoke and … Continued

The Lebanese Information Center, along with other Lebanese-American organizations, will host the 10th Annual Commemoration of Lebanon’s Cedar Revolution on Thursday, April 30, from 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM, in the Rayburn House Office building at the US Congress. As has become custom, the LIC will commemorate the independence uprising that took place onMarch 14, … Continued

For the third year in a row, the city’s Palestinian-American community celebrated its heritage with a flag raising outside of the city hall on Sunday afternoon.

“Raising the flag at the heart of this city means a lot to us,” said Diab Mustafa, president of the Palestinian American Community Center. “Raising the flag is a recognition of the substantial contribution we’ve been making to this great city.”

Speaking in front of a crowd of roughly 1,000 people, Mustafa said Palestinians began to immigrate to the United States in the late 1800s along with other Arabic-speaking immigrants from the Levant. However, it wasn’t until the 1950s and 1960s, when large number of Palestinians fled the turmoil in their homeland to America, did substantial number of Palestinians arrive in the Silk City.

The city has the largest diaspora of Palestinians in the United States, said mayor Jose “Joey” Torres. “In Paterson it’s an industrious, hardworking community, and has contributed greatly to the city’s economy in progress,” said the mayor referring to the city’s Palestinian-American community.

Torres proclaimed the week of May 3-9 Palestinian-American Heritage Week. He received two presents from Riyad Mansour, ambassador and permanent observer of Palestine to the United Nations. Mansour presented Torres with a medallion that featured the pope, the patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, highlighting religious diversity of the small strip of land that has been the subject of dispute between Muslims, Christians, and Jews.

Torres was also presented with a pictorial history book of Palestine that starts from the invention of the camera in the 1800s, said Mansour.

Mansour proposed a sister city relationship between Paterson and Ramallah, the de facto capital of Palestinian state. He said documents can be signed in either here or in Palestine or in both places.

The city has its own Ramallah in South Paterson called Little Ramallah where Palestinian-American businesses power a large portion of the city’s economy bringing ethnic food hunters and Arabs from throughout the Northeast.

The governor of Ramallah Laila Ghannam was present during the flag raising.

Mansour said the city’s Palestinian-American community serves as an example to the diaspora elsewhere in the United States. “Let all cities across the United States, where we have a presence of our community, let them do the same thing that you are doing in Paterson,” said Mansour. “You Palestinian-Americans from Paterson are carrying the torch.”

Imam Mohammad Qatanani of the Islamic Center of Passaic County said history will remember what happened in Paterson when the local Palestinian community came together to raise their flag over the city hall.

In 2012, the city’s then mayor Jeffery Jones, allowed the Palestinians to hoist their green, white, red, and black flag over the city hall.

“We need to celebrate our heritage day peacefully as any other community in Paterson,” said Khader “Ken” Abuassab, president of the Arab-American Civic Organization, who lobbied city officials for the flag raising.

The organization and the center worked together to put on this afternoon’s event, said Abuassab.

There was a large police presence around city hall as traditional Palestinian music overcame the sound of Market Street traffic and young men performed a distinct dance called the “dabke.”

Abuassab said the police were there to ensure peace.

Mansour, the ambassador, said he would like to see the flag of the Arab revolt hoisted over the United Nations, sometime in the near future. Although a large number of countries around the world recognize the State of Palestine, the United States does not due to its close ties with Israel.

Haytham Younes, who unsuccessfully ran for a city council at-large seat last year, said his family still has keys and deeds to their properties and homes from which they were forced to flee in 1948.

More than 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from the land that later became the State of Israel, according to the United Nations. “We are refugees in our country,” said Qatanani. “We’re suffering because we’re Palestinians.”

“You have to make sure your community remembers their countries. Every community, they raise their flag, they celebrate their heritage, we must do that,” said Younes. He said cultural events like the flag raising expose Palestinian children to their heritage.

“Hopefully one day peace prevails in the Middle East and Palestine and we’ll be able to raise our flag all over Palestine,” said Awni Abuhadba, who served as deputy mayor for eight years under the two previous Torres administrations representing the city’s Arab community.

Source: patersontimes.com

R&B, soul and hip hop singer-songwriter Lauren Hill may cancel her planned show in Israel, scheduled for May 7 at Rishon Letzion.

Producers of the show in Israel told Walla! News that they have received messages in recent days signalling that Hill wants to cancel the performance, and that they are making “massive efforts” to avert this.

Hill is under pressure from the anti-Israel “BDS” movement that compares Israel to apartheid-era South Africa.

“The presence of artists is routinely used by Israel to legitimize its policies and maintain its reputation as a normal member of the international community,” the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation said in an action alert urging people to press Hill to boycott Israel.

Members of the anti-Israel movement prepared a version of the song “Killing Me Softly with His Song,” a 1971 song to which Hill recorded a successful cover version.

Hill performed in Israel in 2007. 

British pop sensation Robbie Williams performed exuberantly before tens of thousands of Israeli fans Saturday night at Yarkon Park in Tel Aviv, ignoring fellow British musician, Roger Waters, who noted William’s role as UNICEF’s UK ambassador and ardent support of its Children in Danger campaign, and asserted the pop star was turning his back on Gazan children killed during last summer’s Operation Protective Edge. 

“Dear Robbie, playing this concert on May 2 would be giving your tacit support to the deaths of over 500 Palestinian children last summer in Gaza,” Waters wrote. 

Source: www.israelnationalnews.com

Sonia M’Barek The French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) has programmed the World Nomads Tunisia Weekend from Friday, May 8 through Sunday, May 10. Envisioned as a forum for dialog between cultures, World Nomads is FIAF’s biennial celebration of 21st-century transculturalism in the Francophone world. This spring, FIAF returns to focus on the innovative work emerging … Continued

Eight months after last summer’s war between Israel and Palestinian militant groups, Gaza remains in ruins. Drive five minutes into the territory from the crossing point in southwestern Israel and you reach Beit Hanoun, one of the areas hit most severely by land and air during the conflict. Bright blue sky spreads over buildings with big bites taken out of them. Half-eaten bedrooms and kitchens yawn open to reveal tangled wires, broken rock, and household goods: a slipper, a pack of sanitary pads, a ripped-up schoolbook. People peek over mounds of rubble from tents behind their former homes, like aliens come to settle an abandoned planet.

In Gaza City, the flags and slogans of Hamas, the Islamic militant group that governs Gaza, cover the street corners: “Resist, O Palestinian people, your perseverance is our only hope for freedom.” Driving through the city, you see murals of doves and children holding hands, UNRWA cartoons about saving water and picking up trash, and then a stick figure blowing up an Israeli tank. Across the street, someone has scrawled a Star of David on a garbage bin.

But ask what people are doing, and they say, “Sitting. Waiting.” Hamas’s rhetoric is all about resistance, but most people I met in Gaza were not so much defiant as desolate, not so much resisting as resigned. Those who survived last summer’s war are trapped in 360 square kilometers of trauma and contradiction, choking on war and blockade, disillusioned with the Palestinian leadership and disempowered by the aid community. They sit without jobs, relief, or means of rebuilding, waiting for things to change.

“Gaza is hell,” 20-year-old Ahmad told me in Shejaiya, one of the worst-hit neighborhoods in Gaza City. He and his 19-year-old brother were picking over the leftovers of their home. Sometimes they sell salvaged iron and rubble for recycling; other days they search for their old photos, papers, and clothes. “Gazans have Israel on one side, Hamas on the other, and here we are just eating shit,” he said. “People are only living because they are not dying. If death was nicer, we’d go for it.”

Gaza, which was under Israeli occupation from 1967 until 2005, when Israeli troops and settlers withdrew from the territory unilaterally, has been overseen by Hamas since the organization defeated the PLO-affiliated Fatah party in Palestinian elections in 2006. Fighting broke out between Hamas and Fatah the following year, leaving Hamas running Gaza and Fatah running the West Bank. Israel responded by imposing a blockade on Gaza to deter Palestinian rocket attacks and other militant activity against Israeli civilians—forbidding all access by air and sea, controlling physical movement through its crossings, and placing restrictions on access to commercial goods as well basic supplies like fuel, electricity, food, and medicine. Israel has also launched three military operations in Gaza since the Hamas takeover, with the latest leaving 2,131 Palestinians and 71 Israelis dead. Almost 70 percent of the slain Palestinians were civilians, including at least 501 children.

Source: www.theatlantic.com