photo essay by Farah Kobaissy in Lebanon

Photo: Farah Kobaissy. Palestinian youth plays football in Nahr el Bared

Nahr al-Bared, a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon, center to a major military conflict between the Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam in 2007, remains destroyed in 2009.

Palestinian civilians in Nahr al-Bared faced massive displacement during the armed conflict in 2007, as the civilian infrastructure in the camp was bombarded by the Lebanese military and dozens of Palestinian civilians killed. Until today the overwhelming majority of the 30,000 Palestinian refugees from Nahr al-Bared remain displaced, living within other Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

Years after the military conflict in Nahr al-Bared, the refugee camp remains largely rubble, while millions in international aid dollars for reconstruction have equaled little concrete reconstruction on the ground in Nahr al-Bared. Lebanese activist and photographer Farah Kobaissy visited the camp in October 2009 and took these photos.

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Norman Finkelstien in Montreal for premier, presented by Cinema Politica & Tadamon!

Monday November 16, 2009
Screening 19h00
1455 De Maisonneuve Blvd. West
Concordia University
Montreal, Quebec

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New York Times by Jimmy Carter, November 5, 2009

Photo: Zoriah (c) Open sky over the Gaza Strip, Palestine.

Judge Richard Goldstone and the United Nations fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict have issued a report about Gaza that is strongly critical of both Israel and Hamas for their violations of human rights. On Wednesday, a special meeting of the U.N. General Assembly began a debate on whether to refer the report to the Security Council.

In January 2009 rudimentary rockets had been launched from Gaza toward nearby Jewish communities, and Israel had wreaked havoc with bombs, missiles, and ground invading forces. Judge Goldstone’s claim is that they are both guilty of “crimes against humanity.” Predictably, both the accused parties have denounced the report as biased and inaccurate.

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solidarité avec Bil’in, le village palestinien de résistance populaire!

Vendredi le 27 novembre, 2009
à partir de 18h
au Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN)
1601 de Lorimier
métro Papineau
Montreal, Quebec

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Al Jazeera Monday, November 09 2009.

Photo: ActiveStills Palestinians in Nil’in break Israeli wall.

Palestinians and foreign activists have torn down segments of Israel’s separation wall in a demonstration marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In the town of Qalandiya in the occupied West Bank, a group of masked activists using a lorry pulled down a two-metre cement block before Israeli security forces confronted them with tear gas grenades.

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photo essay and text by Valerian Mazataud

Photo: Valerian Mazataud. Palestinian farmers harvest olives in the West Bank.

Palestine The olive harvest in the West Bank, used to be a joyful time. But now it is defined by burned trees, missing crops, and confrontations. Having become a significant source of strife for Palestinian farmers and Jewish settlers, Israeli media now refers to the harvest as the “Olive War.” Photographer Valerian Mazataud is currently visiting Palestine and documented the Palestinian olive harvest in the Israeli occupied West Bank.

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Adbusters 9 November 2009

Photo: Palestinian flag admits crowd in Spain.

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign was launched in July 2005 by the Palestinian BDS National Committee and is endorsed by over 170 Palestinian organizations from the occupied Palestinian Territories, from Palestinian citizens of Israel and from the vast diaspora of Palestinian emigrants and refugees. The campaign calls upon “people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era.”

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Adbusters by Craig Smith, October 2009.

Photo: Masser Faces within buildings in Palestine / Israel.

The public relations (PR) industry has made exceptional use of the communications revolution. But for all the globalizing effects of multinational campaigns, many brands seem inextricably tied to their home country. Injecting products into foreign markets has, to a certain extent, acted as a driving force in the way nation-states are perceived internationally.

Coke, Marlboro and Starbucks are inseparable from their provenance, and Brand America is intimately tied to its products. But consumerism alone doesn’t tell the story of how America is perceived in the world; military adventurism and moral exceptionalism undermine the feel-good aspects of consuming Americana. A nation’s brand is inextricably tied to its actions in the world.

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Jerusalem Post October 2009, by Kenneth Roth

Photo: Zoriah (c) Palestinian building destroyed by Israel in Gaza.

A series of detailed human rights reports about serious Israeli abuses during the recent Gaza conflict has given rise to an intense campaign by the Israeli government and some of its uncritical supporters to smear the messengers and change the subject.

Irwin Cotler’s attack in these pages on Judge Richard Goldstone’s UN-mandated investigation of the conflict is of a piece with these efforts (“The Goldstone Mission – Tainted to the core,” August 17 and 19). Rather than addressing the sad reality in Gaza, he effectively offers an apology for Israeli abuse.

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Interview with Palestinian artist Suleiman Mansour by Aaron Lakoff

Photo: Painting on the apartheid wall near Ramallah by Suleiman Mansour

Suleiman Mansour is one of Palestine’s most renowned painters. Active in the Palestinian artist community since the 1970s, he has contributed greatly to art education and promotion in the West Bank. He is a co-founder of the Wasiti Art Center in Jerusalem, and is also a member of the “New Vision” artist group, which focuses on the use of local material in artwork.

On the eve of the 60th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba in 2008, Suleiman Mansour was interviewed at the Palestinian International Academy of Art in Ramallah about the struggles of Palestinian cultural producers over the decades, and what the significance of art is in the face of this historic milestone.

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