Palestinians & Israelis Getting Real

 

Big Brother

Interesting news surfaced a couple of days ago on the Israeli newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, online. Arab-French director, Mohammad Waled, and French-Israeli friend Sophie Norman, have come up with a reality show idea, where 12 young Israelis and Palestinians live together in a French villa, getting their lives and debates on air.

You can read the article here.

The reality show, resembling “Big Brother,” will film 10 episodes, 26-minutes each. The cameras will follow their daily activities, paying close attention to their debates. The director hopes that by the end of it all, this group of 18-year-olds will reach conclusions that their fathers and grandfathers could not reach.

Hopeful, right?

It is quite an intriguing idea. I suspect there will be many debates, heated, perhaps censored ones, as soon as the Israelis and Palestinians get used to each other. The director realizes that it is “symbolic,” but we have yet to see how it turns out. The article does not mention which channels it would be aired on, or if Palestinians will have easy access to watching the show. After all, we want both sides to see this.

The commentators on Yedioth online do not seem that hopeful. Many dismiss it as a marketing and publicity show. Others seem to believe that there could be no conversation with the Arabs. The Lebanese Al-Akbar newspaper has published a piece about this earlier in February. You can read the Arabic version here. I have found an English version here.

Not many people seem to be excited about this. Either way, it is something to watch and learn from. It is something new that deserves a good benefit of the doubt.

“I Do Not Speak For Israel” by Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore

 

Clarissa Sebag-Montfiore

A freelance writer and a fellow blogger, Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore, wrote an interesting and strong Op-Ed piece for the British Guardian newspaper, titled “I do not speak for Israel.”

In this article, Clarissa explains her frustration at having to explain and justify Israel’s actions because she is a British Jew. She writes:

“British Jews are seen as representative of, and responsible for, Israel’s actions. But many of the young today like myself – second, third or fourth generation – see themselves as British and Jewish. And British and Jewish only. This does not mean we are affiliated to Israel by default.”

Although many British Jews associate themselves with Israel wholeheartedly, Clarissa’s point is that it is a choice, not a default position.

This article strikes quite an important chord. I recall several instances where Jews were asked to explain Israel’s actions because they’re Jewish. I especially remember a political lecture in my home country in the Middle East, this past January, where a columnist expressed loudly through the microphone her frustration and anger at the silence of the country’s small Jewish population over the war in Gaza. “They have not said one word,” she said, “not one word.”

They shouldn’t have to; just as Muslims shouldn’t have to say they condemn terrorism every time they speak. 

Opinions, as Clarissa points out, are a personal choice. They may follow a certain line of thinking according to religion or gender or community, but they have a life of their own most of the time.

Strings of Freedom Disbanded

 

Strings of Freedom - AP

I suppose that the international hype over a Palestinian youth orchestra performing for Holocaust survivors last Wednesday was not matched by Palestinian enthusiasm.

On March 25th, a group of 13 young musicians from the Jenin Refugee Camps in the West Bank performed for Holocaust survivors in the Israeli city of Holon. It was part of the annual “Good Deeds Day” celebration. See my post “Yes, We Can Do It Through Art.”

A friend alerted me to a follow-up article in the New York Times, about anger among Palestinians in Jenin over this “exploitation” of children. The anger was strong enough to disband the group, and ban the conductor, Arab-Israeli Wafa Younis, from the camp and the apartment where she taught.

News sources report that Holocaust denial is common among Palestinians. The anger here, stems from the idea that performing for Holocaust survivors represents an acknowledgment that undermines Palestinians’ own plight caused by Israel.

This is idiotic chaos.

People seem to be competing over who suffered more; who has more right to be acknowledged. It was a musical performance. The point was to bring people together through music, not politics. Those Holocaust survivors must have learned something about the Jenin Refugee Camps and the harsh life in it, and those young Palestinians must have learned something about the suffering of Jews and those who survived it.

The real victims here are the young students who gave much of their time and passion to Strings of Freedom. The Palestinians have effectively punished their own.

We need more brave acts like that of Wafa Younis and the Holocaust Survivor Center organizers. Acknowledging and sympathizing with the Jews who have suffered DOES NOT negate or undermine the suffering of Palestinians. It is NOT an either-or situation.

Jenin and the Theater

 

Animal Farm plays in Jenin - BBC

I realize that I’ve written quite a few posts about the arts lately, focusing a little less on politics. But there has been a wave of news about art-related events and I get a little too excited when I hear about a photography project, or a music performance, or this time, a play. So get excited with me!

The Freedom Theatre in Jenin, West Bank, opened its doors this week to a new student version of Goerge Orwell’s novel, Animal Farm. The BBC reported this, the AP reviewed it. Many people seem to be hyped up about it.

Here’s why.

Animal Farm was first published in 1945 as a satire against Russia’s Stalin era. In the story, animals rebel against the farm owner, kicking him out eventually and setting up a community where everyone has equal rights. Later, their utopia collapses due to their own corruption and greed.

In this Palestinian play, the word “intifada” is used for revolution (Arabic for uprising). The play director, Nabil al-Raee, and the theater’s director, Juliano Mer-Khamis, keep the original satirical edge, hinting at the Territories’ own corrupt leadership and the society’s restrictions against freedom of thought.  

“To be free is to be able to criticise,” said Mer-Khamis to the BBC. “To be free is to be able to express yourself freely. To be free is to be free first of all of the chains of tradition, religion, nationalism – in a dark way I mean.”

It is always refreshing to see critics from within the society, not from the outside. Despite threats and a burnt theater door, this play performed safely. The fact that it is getting this much publicity is beyond satisfying.

Again I say, when politics fail, we must pave the way for the arts.

A silly thought crossed my mind, however. I wondered how the Muslim audience received the pig characters of the play, knowing that pigs are considered quite filthy, rather than cute, in Islam. What would you think?

Al-Kamandjati Music Center set on fire

 

"Oud" instruments burned at the center - Yedioth Ahronoth

Continuing my previous posts about art-related events and incidents, I found this piece of news on the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth online.

Al-Kamandjati Music Center in Jenin, West Bank, was found burned to the ground on Monday night. The center’s director and staff have informed the police, but no one really knows who exactly caused this. The fingers seem to be pointed at Hamas sympathizers and fundamentalists in the mainly Fatah-run territory.

This is truly a tragedy. The center’s press release called it “a crime against humanity and against the right of Palestinian children and Palestinian society to culture and education.”

Around 80 young Palestinians from the Jenin Refugee Camps come to this center to learn music. Its expertise, as its name indicates, is the violin (al-kamandjati means the violinist). Founded in Ramallah in 2002 by a stone-thrower-turned-violinist, Ramzi Abu Radwan, it has hosted and encouraged so many cultural and musical events around the West Bank, Gaza and southern Lebanon. Its international headquarter is in Agers, France, where Abu Radwan studied violin professionally.

I emphasize again how important art in all its shapes for the difficult life of a Palestinian living in the Territories, and anyone in any conflict. This center has filled the time of so many young Palestinians with productive knowledge when they could have been violently protesting outside or serving jail time in Israeli prisons. To destroy it is to destroy a bright opportunity, a window to vent frustrations and a better life.

Nothing has been mentioned about the finances needed to restore the building and buy new instruments. I reckon it would be quite expensive and restoration will be slow.

Until then, these Palestinian youth must find another hobby. 

Ramzi Abu Radwan - UNRWA article

Yellow Farce

The British Times online, along with the Israeli Haaretz,  published news lately that the famous, long-running American TV show, The Simpsons, will go to the “Holy Land” next season.

“The premise will be that the Christians, the Jews and Muslims are united in that they all get mad at Homer,” said the show’s creator Al Jean.

“It’s the only thing they can agree on.”

Poor Homer! The butt of all jokes again.

Homer won’t really solve the conflict in the Middle East (as the Haaretz’s headline humurously suggests). That’s a little too heavy of a burden for our clueless, goofy, yellow man.  What the Simpsons and their likes do best is provide an outlet of humor to really serious topics.

The show has generally been cautious when it comes to religions. It’s safe to say that it’s taken a different policy than say, South Park.

One of the Simpson’s favorite characters is Krusty the Clown: a Jew with scattered, curly, tealish hair who got disowned by his rabbi father for wanting to “act up” and making people laugh. Bart and Lisa reunite the two in a sarcastically funny episode later on.

As for Islam-related episodes, in one episode Bart comes back home from school in the afternoon, and right at the door, he yells “Salam Alaykom” to a South-Asian-looking kid walking outside. The kid responds with another “Salam Alaykom.”

I’m not a Simpsons’ die-hard fan, but this episode I’m looking forward to watch. 

Cartoons on the offense

 

Pat Oliphant's cartoon

Cartoons are making the headlines again. Australian-American, award-winning cartoonist, Pat Oliphant, recently published a black-and-white cartoon (as you can see above) portraying an Israeli soldier as a Nazi; headless, with his right arm raised in the air, going after a small Gazan woman carrying a child.

The outrage has been quite loud and astonishing. Numerous editorials appeared in mainstream media, not to mention a wave of blogging and ranting. Check out The Jewish Journal, and the Atlantic Magazine’s Jeffery Goldberg. The Anti-Defamation League that fights anti-Semitism had called this cartoon “hideously anti-Semitic.” Much of the opinion on the street is that it is so.

This reminded me of the Danish cartoons portraying the Muslim prophet, Muhammad, as a terrorist with a turban-bomb. Remember the chaos about those cartoons? The level of offense and insult carried out in this Israel-related cartoon competes with that of the prophet’s cartoons.

My Muslim fellows should, then, understand and even sympathize with the outrage about this. And those who cried “freedom of speech” about the Danish cartoons shouldn’t dare to yell “anti-Semitism” this time around.

Political cartoons are important. They are a way of expressing opinion, just as protests do. Granted they can be brutal and unrealistic, but that’s the point, isn’t it? Now I agree with the opinion that this cartoon, much like the Danish ones, can incite hatred, portraying a whole population as evil and murderous. That is why people should, and normally do, take cartoons with a grain of salt.

Here is a detailed analysis, from an Israeli side, about this cartoon by famous professor and writer, Barry Rubin. This was posted on several websites, and fellow blogger on The Lid. You may not agree with all of it but it is a good analytical piece. 

We will continue to debate the role of cartoons in our society and the limit of cartoonists. This is one case study to consider.