Comments on: 500 Artists Against Israeli Apartheid

By: Claude

Claude — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 02:33:06 +0000

Bonjour,
J’ai de la peine, parce que je vois qu’on cherche à promouvoir la haine entre les deux peuples alors que sur le terrain des ONG luttent pour permettre de se rencontrer, de voir comment vivre ensemble, réparer des injustices, etc. Regardez le travail aussi accompli à l’exemple de Wahat-al-Salam, la ferme collective où ensemble Arabes et Juifs travaillent cette terre que tous nous aimons. Regardez les acteurs palestiniens et israéliens qui tournent ensemble des films où l’on n’évite pas les réalités mais où on cherche des solutions. Boycott ? Alors tu mets aussi au chômage technique le petit producteur d’huile palestinien, tu boycottes du même coup tout le monde ? Et je perçois des relents nauséeux d’antisémitisme comme je ne suis pas du tout certain que ces “amis de la cause palestinienne” soit si ouverts au monde arabo-musulman, voyez la maltraitance contre les immigrés, au Québec autant qu’ailleurs, pas de leçon à donner. Tu veux la terre pour les Arabes ? Ok, mais tu traites comment l’Arabe dans tes rues ? Deux poids deux mesures. Et le Juif, tu ne l’as jamais accepté, et quand c’est un Juif de pays arabe, alors c’est la totale. Ne dis pas que je mens car j’en ai été témoin. Ici, comme en France et ailleurs, on n’aime pas plus les Juifs que les Arabes, c’est un fait. Alors qu’au moins on n’ait pas l’hypocrisie de se la jouer solidaires. Et s’il reste un tant soit peu de bon sens, au lieu de jaser apartheid et des mots/des maux qu’on ne connait pas, faisons plutôt bon accueil à nos frères arabes musulmans ou chrétiens, à nos frères juifs et à tous les autres, respectons les autochtones et travaillons pour la paix, la rencontre et le partage. Assez de paroles de haine déjà pour que nous en rajoutions !
Et si on se le demande, je suis bouddhiste mais je pourrais tout aussi bien être musulman, juif ou chrétien tant qu’on pratique la compassion/charité. Et je serais honoré d’appartenir à ces cultures qui ont donné le meilleur à l’humanité, loin de vos navrantes mesquineries actuelles.

By: Shimon

Shimon — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 19:48:48 +0000

Is there any “artist” out there that is known outside of his(her) district?

By: sg

sg — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 13:32:06 +0000

Apartheid Week – Hypocrisy at its Best

By: JONATHAN DAHOAH HALEVI
Published: March 2nd 2010

“…The Canadian artists blame Israel for intentionally harassing and bringing disaster to the peaceful Palestinian people during more than 60 years and fail to mention the word “terrorism” even once.

Their account of the historical events as they appear in the statement is to say the least distorted. One paragraph within the long list of “crimes” accuses Israel of deliberately oppressing the Palestinian cultural activity as follows:

“During the first and second intifadas, Israel invaded, ransacked, and even closed down cinemas, theatres and cultural centers in the occupied territories. These deliberate attempts to stifle the Palestinian cultural voice have failed and will continue to fail.” [1]

The five hundred Canadian artists virtually portray Israel as a pinnacle of human evil and their basic premise assumes, as it may be understood, that without Israeli “crimes,” the pluralist and liberal Palestinian culture in the Gaza Strip would be flourishing with cinemas, theatres and cultural centres.

This thesis has one little weakness. Not a single cinema house exists in the Gaza Strip and Hamas – NOT Israel – is responsible for “stifling the Palestinian cultural voice”. Saud Abu Ramadan, a Palestinian reporter working for the Chinese newswire Xinhua, published an article on July 26, 2009 reviewing the history of cinemas in the Gaza Strip while interviewing 57-year old Adnan Abu Beid, who used to run the most famous and biggest movie house in downtown Gaza city called al-Nasser, and today makes his living as a greengrocer. [2]

Abu Ramadan notes that “after Israel signed Oslo accords with the Palestinians, when the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) was established after the Israeli army withdrew from Gaza city, al-Nasser movie house was reopened for a few months, but later it was burned and destroyed by angry Islamic Hamas demonstrators in 1995.” Abu Beid told Xinhua that after al-Nasser movie house was burned and destroyed, “I hid my film archives and decided to become a vegetable vendor.” He added that his archives “are the only that remained after all the movie houses had either shut down, or been destroyed by Hamas activists during demonstrations in Gaza city in 1995.”

By 1994, after the PNA was established, there were nine movie houses in the Gaza Strip, including al-Nasser, al-Samer, al-Jalaa’ and Amer in Gaza City, al-Khadra and al-Hamra in the city of Khan Younis and three other movie houses in the town of Rafah. However, Abu Beid said, “Nowadays, there is ignorance of movie houses and the contribution they could make in developing our culture.” He went on, saying that “many people who think about reopening movie houses in Gaza are afraid that it would be attacked, burned and destroyed.”

Xinhua’s reporter mentioned in this regard that ”radical Islamic groups have carried out in the last several months a series of attacks against internet cafes, coffee shops and other entertainment sites in the Gaza Strip, claiming that these places are used to spread immoral principles among the young Palestinian generations.” He quoted the response of Osama el-Eassawi, the minister of culture for the Hamas government in Gaza, who conditioned the reopening of any of the closed Gaza movie houses upon respecting the laws and the traditions of the Islamic society by saying the following: “We support the art that respects the moral and religious traditions and cultures.”

The first and yet only movie produced by the Hamas government was Imad Aqel which was screened at the Islamic University of Gaza, in the absence of cinemas in the Gaza Strip. The movie tells the heroic story of the senior terrorist of Hamas, who established its military wing, and is held accountable for the killing of 13 Israeli soldiers and civilians. The film cost $120,000 and was written by Mahmoud al-Zahar, a senior leader of Hamas. Reuters’ reporter, Nidal al-Mughrabi, describes the reaction of Palestinian spectators who came in masses to watch the first movie ever to be screened under Hamas Islamic rule. “The audience in the Gaza Strip clapped and cheered as the actor delivered the movie’s most memorable line: “To kill Israeli soldiers is to worship God.” Majed Jendeya, the movie’s German-trained director, was quoted as saying that he hopes to screen the film at the Cannes festival in France. [3]

In conclusion, it is tremendously hard to comprehend how a huge group of Canadian artists are speaking with big words on human rights and at the same are silent on Hamas oppression of any free cultural activity, and even worse on its pursuance of nurturing a culture of death. I desperately want to believe that the Canadian artists were not familiar with the facts before signing the distorted statement.

By: Bob

Bob — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 05:19:36 +0000

Et aussi parce qu’Israël est le seul pays à s’être assis sur 500 résolutions de l’ONU, seul cadre de référence admis par la communauté internationale pour la négociation, ce qui signifie qu’Israel méprise totalement et la France, et le Québec et tous les pays, hormis les États-Unis.

By: Bob

Bob — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 05:17:37 +0000

Justement : La France est classé 44 e pour la liberté de la presse : c’est tout dire.

Le Québec n’est pas la France.

En outre, le boycott a été utilsé dans diverses situations, y compris contre l’Afrique du Sud, dont Israël, sans surprise, a été allié solide et durable.

De ce fait, Israël mérite 2 fois le boycott.

By: Chris Thomas

Chris Thomas — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 10:03:23 +0000

This is pure propaganda. What an astounding lack of fact and truth! It’s just shocking and sad.

By: Jérémie Lockwell

Jérémie Lockwell — Fri, 21 May 2010 05:30:09 +0000

Encore une fois nos artistes les plus engagés n’ont pas peur de se mouiller pour une cause. Félicitations. Juifs, Palestiniens et tout autres assoiffés de justice pourront trouvés une solution. Il faut cesser de voir le Moyen-Orient comme une pièce de théâtre au dénouement fatal. Il faut agir.

By: Louis Asfour

Louis Asfour — Thu, 06 May 2010 22:15:33 +0000

Greetings.
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It occurs to me that the world does not know who are the Palestinians.
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It goes like this:
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The Canaanite civilization was comprised of dozens of city state like communities. Not unlike ancient Ireland or Scotland.
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Enter into Canaan, the Jews with the beginnings of monothesim, from Eastern Arabia; likely, what is now called Iraq. Fleeing from what the Jews described as famine, they entered Egypt. The Egyptians welcomed them at first, yet if what Mark Twain declared, (paraphrase) Let us quote Genesis chapter 47, We’ve all heard of the years of plenty, and the years of famine in Egypt, and with that, Joesph and the Hebrews decided to make a corner in the markets. So, during the years of plenty, Joesph and the Hebrews bought up all the land to the last acre, all the livestock to the last hoof…all the wheat to the last bussel…This, contended Twain, was why the Egyptians enslaved the Jews.
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Well, somehow, some of them escaped, not a million, it’s ridiculous, and found their way back to Canaan, monotheism shawdowing them. Monotheism began to be embraced by the Canaanites. A Canaanite peasantry revolt occurred, was successful, and the birth of Israel began.
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Decades more than a thousand years later, while under the Roman ” occupation” (they didn’t like it), the Jews revolted and Jerusalem suffered the consequences. Not all of the Jews were killed or fled, however. Tens of thousands remained. Many had or were converting to Christianity, many weren’t.
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Circa 170 CE: Roman Emporer Hadrian (Hadrian’s Wall – UK) renamed the region Palestine. Eventually many of the Jews, who were Christians as well, came to know themselves as Palestinians.
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Circa 650 CE: Islam swept across the region and conversions ensued.
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Circa 1948 CE: Zionism conquers Palestine. So, who are the Palestinians; who are the Zionists?
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Circa, decades after the year one: Some Jews flee, some remain. The Jews that flee incorporate European, Russian and other DNA into their identity. The Jews that remain, largely come to know themselves as Palestinians.
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Many of the Zionists are the decendants of the Jews, with additional, non indiginous DNA, who are descended from the original Canaanites. Their ancestors left, and they returned.
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The Palestinians are largely the direct descendants of the original Jews, who were descended from the original Canaanites.
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The Palestinians ancestors never left. Two, three, four thousand years of the same, indiginous people. The Canaanites became the Jews who became the Palestinians.
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The Palestinians are the direct descendants of the original, indiginous people.

By: Sonia Eladi

Sonia Eladi — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 16:56:18 +0000

Je suis fiere d’ajouter ma voix a celles de nos artistes . Israel est un etat voyou qui ne respecte pas les resolutions de l’ONU , qui pratique l’Apartheid envers ces propres citoyens non juifs et qui menace la paix dans le monde.
Ceux et celles qui supportent le regime sioniste font partis d’un club select HASBARA , ils surfent 24heure sur 24 et sont payes par le gouvernemt pour desinformer, amalgamer et essayer de justifi

By: Geneviève PIRET

Geneviève PIRET — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 16:26:00 +0000

Oui, nous appuyons cet engagement des artistes canadiens à faire prendre conscience aux peuples de l’est de la Méditerranée qu’ils doivent se respecter mutuellement et vivre en paix, en arrêtant de se mettre les bâtons dans les roues de leurs développements respectifs !