mondoweiss by Hatim Kanaaneh July, 2010

Photo Palestinian boy views photos of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails.

I have known Ameer Makhoul since the day he came to my office at the Galilee Society to be interviewed for the position of director of our then new and ambitious project called ITTIJAH, the Arabic acronym for Union of Community-Based Arab Associations. I knew of him before as another troubled Arab student at Haifa University who couldn’t square away Israel’s bogus claims to democracy, as in ‘the only democratic state in the Middle East,’ with his experience as a member of a minority gagged and shackled by draconian security-based regulations.

This had led at the time to his dismissal from his studies and banning from entering the university campus as another ‘trouble maker.’ Ameer went on to obtain his Bachelor’s degree through the accumulation of credits in after-hours and off-campus courses. Two decades later the administration of Haifa University was still formally advising its foreign students and other international guests against visiting Arab communities for their own safety. In1964-6, during my own university studies, I had rented a room in Vermillion, South Dakota from an old lady that warned me daily against the ‘wild Indians’ in the Prairies. I could relate to the deep-seated apprehensions of the aggressor.

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photos on Artists Anti Apartheid by Heri Rakotomalala, Anthony Côte & Khalil Allioui

Photo Kalmunity Jazz collective performs at Artists Against Apartheid, La Sala Rossa.

Artists in Montreal are uniting in unprecedented ways in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for liberation, last winter 500 artists from Montreal signed a collective declaration to support the global boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israeli apartheid.

Artists Against Apartheid concert series has featured many groundbreaking artists from Montreal and the thirteenth edition at La Sala Rossa on July 22nd featured Algonquin hip-hop artist Samian (featuring Nomadic Massive), Kalmunity Jazz collective and Amérythmes. Featured in this photo essay are images captured at Artists Against Apartheid by Heri Rakotomalala, Khalil Allioui and Anthony Cote.

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Hazem Jamjoum, Electronic Intifada, 21 July 2010

Photo Palestine Remembered Palestinian refugees fleeing ‘Imwas village in 1967 turned into Canada Park by the Jewish National Fund (JNF)

For anyone taking a road trip along the highways of the part of Palestine that became Israel in 1948, one is bound to spot a blue and green structure in the shape of a bird marked with the Hebrew letters KKL, which stands for Keren Kayemeth L’Yisrael, the Hebrew name of the Israeli branch of the Jewish National Fund (JNF). All around the bird one will see expanses of forests planted sometime in the past few decades. A walk through one of these forests will take the visitor past fruit trees, cactus plants, terraced hillsides and the ruins of buildings. In some cases, these ruins are explained in a JNF brochure pointing to their ancient history; in other cases, one is left to the devices of one’s imagination. In all cases, these sites are what remains of some of the more than 500 villages depopulated and destroyed through the course of Israel’s establishment, the homes of millions of Palestinian refugees struggling to return to them for more than 60 years. By walking through a JNF park or forest, one inhales the fresh smell of the greenwashing of Palestine’s Nakba.

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Jimmy Johnson, Electronic Intifada, 21 July 2010

Photo: Women march against the Israeli wall in a scene from Budrus.

Event-based storytelling is an infamous form most prominent in the science fiction sub-genre of the Space Opera. The main failing of the style is the general inability of event progression to effectively substitute for character development. Budrus is an event-based story without all but the most minimal character development, yet it still succeeds by compellingly capturing a moment. Director Julia Bacha combines conventional point-and-shoot with in situ interviews, beautiful and sometimes chaotic footage of protests, maps, graphics and a bit of expository text to piece together a lovely film exploring the evolution of the West Bank village of Budrus’ resistance to Israel’s wall, and its reclaiming of its destiny.

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Max Blumenthal, Electronic Intifada, 22 July 2010

Photo Oren Ziv ActiveStills Haneen Zoabi speaking in Tel Aviv, July 2010.

On 13 July, the Israeli Knesset voted by a large margin to strip the parliamentary privileges of Haneen Zoabi, a member of the Palestinian Israeli party Balad. The measure was a punishment for Zoabi’s participation in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. As described in the Israeli daily Haaretz, during the raging debate, Member of Knesset (MK) Anasatassia Michaeli rushed toward Zoabi and handed her a mock Iranian passport with Zoabi’s photo on it.

“Ms. Zoabi, I take your loyalty to Iran seriously and I suggest you contact Ahmadinejad and ask him to give you an Iranian diplomatic passport that will assist you with all your diplomatic incitement tours, because your Israeli passport will be revoked this evening,” said Michaeli, who is a member of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s explicitly anti-Arab Yisrael Beiteinu party (“Knesset revokes Arab MK Zuabi’s privileges over Gaza flotilla,” 13 July 2010).

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guardian.co.uk Harriet Sherwood in Al Walaja Thursday 8 July 2010

Photo Israeli apartheid wall colonizing Palestinian lands.

Sixty-three-year-old Ahmed Bargouth sits in the shade of a walnut tree and contemplates the view before him.

Across the valley is Jerusalem’s zoo, which his grandchildren have never been able to visit, although they have watched animals through binoculars.

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18/07/2010 Dr. Salman Abou Sitta, As-Safir le 12 juillet 2010

Photo Travailleur palestinien à l’implantation d’entreprises.

Quelle est la situation d’”Israël” d’aujourd’hui ? Notons tout d’abord qu’”Israël” n’aurait pas été “Israël” si elle avait laissé tomber le sionisme ; elle serait restée la Palestine avec une minorité juive, aussi grande soit cette minorité. Il est alors inutile de chercher un chef israélien qui croirait aux droits des Palestiniens, il est inutile de chercher parmi la gauche ou parmi la droite israéliennes.

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July 4 2010 New York Times

Photo Chinese construction workers at their camp on Tel Aviv’s outskirts this month. Their presence has increasingly clashed with Israel’s Zionist ideology.

Tel Aviv — Perched 22 stories above an affluent suburb of this prosperous seaside city, three Chinese construction workers inched their way along the arm of a crane last autumn and refused to budge. Facing deportation because of expiring visas, theirs was an act of desperation aimed at getting thousands of dollars in wages they claimed their Israeli employer had illegally withheld.

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Eva Bartlett, Electronic Intifada, 8 July 2010

Photo Eva Bartlett Explosive experts and Palestinian civilians are working together to clear Gaza of remaining white phosphorous shells.

Gaza City, occupied Gaza Strip – At precisely 12 noon on a Thursday afternoon, among the rolling sandy hills in southern Gaza, a controlled explosion destroys another round of white phosphorous shells left in Gaza following the 2008-09 Israeli assault on Gaza.

Explosives experts from the Mines Advisory Group (MAG) and the United Nations Mine Action Team (UNMAT) are working together to eliminate the remainders of a deadly Israeli attack. The Israeli bombings from land, sea and air left behind large amounts of unexploded ordnance (UXO) in civilian areas.

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Sonja Karkar, Electronic Intifada 9 July 2010

Photo Palestine solidarity vigil.

It is five years since Palestinian civil society first made the call for a global boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against the apartheid state of Israel. At the time, introducing such action in Australia seemed impossible when the public barely knew anything about the Palestinian struggle for justice and freedom. Education had to be a priority if there was to be any overturning of the long-accepted and indulged Zionist narrative.

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