Israeli government attempts to shut down Nakba film festival in Tel Aviv

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

http://mondoweiss.net/2014/12/government-attempts-festival

Imagine if in the U.S. it were illegal to teach about the genocide of the Native Americans or the violent and gruesome system of slavery in North America. Imagine if you could be punished for simply mentioning the suffering of the indigenous people on Thanksgiving, or for questioning the nobility of Columbus of Columbus Day.

In Israel, this reality is not far fetched. Any Israeli institution with public funding that mentions, teaches, or mourns the Nakba (Arabic for “catastrophe”) can be fined, and individuals can be sentenced to prison for their involvement.

Recently this law threatened to cause trouble for the Israeli non-profit organization Zochrot as they prepared for their second annual “48 mm—International Film Festival on Nakba and Return” in Tel Aviv.

This year’s festival, which was attended by hundreds of people, mostly Israeli, featured three film shorts made by Israeli directors specifically for the weekend, as well as longer films made in Palestine, Israel, and abroad on the subject of the Nakba and the right of return for Palestinian refugees. Highlights of the festival this year included Mahdi Fleifel’s A World Not Ours, which documented life inside a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon including the residents’ hopes, dreams, and depressions; Fida Qishta’s Where Should the Birds Fly, a “visual documentation of the Goldstone Report,” that showed Israel’s horrific Operation Cast Lead of 2008-9 against the Gaza Strip and spent time with several young survivors of the attack; and the Israeli premier of the film A People Without a Land, Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon’s compelling documentary that takes a thorough look at both Israeli and Palestinian society before taking on the question of a solution to the “conflict.”

[King_David]

1. Mondoweiss?

Alex Kane the great white wannabe "leader" of Palestinians who advised Hamas to not accept the Egyptian cease fire?

Does anyone take that site seriously?

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

3. I'll wager more take the site seriously than your posts.

What's your readership, dave?

[King_David]

5. I'm not passing myself off as serious "Journalism"

Only in this group .

4 maybe 5 people take this vanity site seriously.

I never seen them posted anywhere else.

Seriously.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

7. "I never seen them posted anywhere else."

I really don't care what your limited opinion is.

Perhaps you have noticed.

[King_David]

9. Other people read these posts here too

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

11. Yes they do, and by extention read what I post.

I do hope that they read all of your little quips that lead nowhere or show complete lack of understanding of an issue.

[King_David]

14. OK

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

15. Oh-Kay.

[Shaktimaan]

23. Stormfront has a big readership too you know.

Do you also respect their reporting?

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

31. And the false equivalency award goes to shak.

Good job, shak, you've earned it.

[oberliner]

2. When is the genocide of the Native Americans film festival?

Are there regular yearly commemorations of that horrible period in American history held across major cities in the US and North and South America?

The US has its head in the sand about its own history, specifically with regard to the horrors cited in the OP. Namely, the genocide of the Native Americans and the violent and gruesome system of slavery.

It seems like most Americans avoid facing these hard truths about the founding of the US with great fervor.

We can't even seem to be able to change the name of the football team in Washington DC to something other than a derogatory term for Native Americans.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

4. "The US has its head in the sand about its own history..."

Perhaps where you come from...

[oberliner]

29. Perhaps

It would be encouraging to find that most Americans are aware of the specifics of that ugly history.

[Scootaloo]

6. You're right. And it's pretty awful, don't you think?

Now imagine if someone tried to hold a commemorative film festival on these subjects, and Washington tried to shut it down?

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

8. Oh, let's not go there.

That would mean that these well meaning personas would have to look inward. It might just frighten them to death to do that.

[King_David]

10. A lot more people are obsessed with Israel exclusively than the Jewish community.

A lot more people.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

12. "A lot more people are obsessed with Israel exclusively..."

Especially since it is an apartheid state.

But thanks in admitting that it is about Israel and not about the Jewish community.


You see, dave, we can all open up and admit the truth from time to time.

[King_David]

13. It's been like that for 1000s of years,

Fascinating really .

Cheers

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

16. Seing how Israel is a relatively new country...well no, but yes, dave, Anti-Semitism exists...

if that's what you meant...but doesn't really refer to modern Israel...refers more to the Jewish people's struggle.

[King_David]

17. Same thing.

"Am Yisrael Chai" is not referring to a land.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

18. Must I remind you that you are now contradicing yourself?

"A lot more people are obsessed with Israel exclusively than the Jewish community."

[King_David]

19. People have been obsessed with Jews, Jewish Power

Jewish Riches, Jewish States and everything Jewish to the exclusion of anything else for 1000s of years.

And most of the time it's not only the Jews who are the obsessors.

That's just a sad fact.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

20. Which does not change the fact of the contradiction.

"A lot more people are obsessed with Israel exclusively than the Jewish community."

Anti-Semitism exists. Sure, there are bigots everywhere.


But the OP was about Israel trying to stifle dissent.

[Scootaloo]

21. Could you rephrase that in the form of something that makes sense?

[King_David]

24. It made perfect sense

TYVM

[Scootaloo]

26. Indulge me, please

[oberliner]

30. Absolutely

I agree with your point completely.

[Shaktimaan]

22. Yet more bullshit.

Any Israeli institution with public funding that mentions, teaches, or mourns the Nakba (Arabic for “catastrophe”) can be fined, and individuals can be sentenced to prison for their involvement.

In reality it's not illegal to do any of this. The harshest penalty for using public funds to promote topics deemed to run counter to Israeli interests is to lose funding; a MAXIMUM of three times the expenditure in question.

So the worst possible thing would be a loss of funding equal to three times the public tax expenditure used to put on the film series. So it's not illegal, there are no fines, and no jail time.

Your sources are garbage. This is why you know so little about this conflict.

[Israeli]

25. Some background for you RDO ...

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4596259,00.html

http://972mag.com/why-the-inconvenient-truths-of-the-nakba-must-be-recognized/45666/

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.628539

(NB : no paywall )

Finally the source of all the wailing ....http://zochrot.org/
you want to learn ? there is a great place to start .

My apologies for my sources

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

32. TY for the reading.

[pugetres]

27. Why are 20 posts to this thread missing?

I see that there are supposed to be 26 replies but only six are showing.

Someone deleted a bunch of replies and the software is slow to reflect the change?

[oberliner]

28. Perhaps you have certain posters on ignore?

That would explain why you only see six replies.