This season, you’re invited to learn about another side of life in Bethlehem.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Film Showings of “Sacred Space Denied: Bethlehem and the Wall” in Saint Paul and Northfield

This groundbreaking documentary shares the gripping story of three men—a Palestinian Muslim, a Palestinian Christian, and an Israeli Jew—born into violence and willing to risk everything to bring an end to violence in their lifetime.

Northfielders for Justice in Palestine/Israel present an afternoon of entertainment & education:

Time: 2-4 pm

at the Just Foods Co-op Community Room

Speakers: “Making Room in Bethlehem Today” by Peter Mann @ 2:30 and

“A Presentation on MN Break the Bonds” by Bill McGrath @ 3:00

The film will be shown twice, at 2:00 and 3:30

The American Association for Palestinian Equal Rights – MN presents a film-showing and discussion:

Time: 2:00 – 3:30 PM

@ Rondo Community Outreach Library (461 N Dale St Saint Paul, MN 55103)

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To print a flier for the Northfield event click here: AAPER Event

To print a flier for the Saint Paul event click here: Northfield Event.

The Hebrew Lesson

by Esther Ouray

A “rite of return” about the right of return. “The Hebrew Lesson” is performed with live music and weaves myth, history, and personal narrative into the story of a thwarted journey to deliver an ancestor’s ashes to a homeland perverted by conflict.

December 8 – 11

7:30 pm

at Pillsbury House Theatre

3501 Chicago Ave
Minneapolis, MN 55407

Tickets: $15 adults. $10 students/seniors.

(Wednesdays @ The House are Pay-What-You-Can-Preview)

More information and tickets at 612-825-0459 or www.pillsburyhousetheatre.org.

Esther Ouray and M. Cochise Anderson share the program.

Watch the trailer below, click here to read the City Pages Review, and most importantly, go see:

BudrusThe Lagoon Theatre1320 Lagoon Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55408
(612) 825-6006

Playing November 26th – December 2nd @ 2:40,  4:50, 7:10

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From the official Budrus website: Budrus is an award-winning feature documentary film about a Palestinian community organizer, Ayed Morrar, who unites local Fatah and Hamas members along with Israeli supporters in an unarmed movement to save his village of Budrus from destruction by Israel’s Separation Barrier. Success eludes them until his 15-year-old daughter, Iltezam, launches a women’s contingent that quickly moves to the front lines. Struggling side by side, father and daughter unleash an inspiring, yet little-known, movement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories that is still gaining ground today. In an action-filled documentary chronicling this movement from its infancy, Budrus shines a light on people who choose nonviolence to confront a threat.  The movie is directed by award-winning filmmaker Julia Bacha (co-writer and editor of Control Room and co-director Encounter Point), and produced by Bacha, Palestinian journalist Rula Salameh, and filmmaker and human rights advocate Ronit Avni (formerly of WITNESS, Director of Encounter Point).

While this film is about one Palestinian village, it tells a much bigger story about what is possible in the Middle East. Ayed succeeded in doing what many people believe to be impossible: he united feuding Palestinian political groups, including Fatah and Hamas; he brought women to the heart of the struggle by encouraging his daughter Iltezam’s leadership; and welcoming hundreds of Israelis to cross into Palestinian territory for the first time and join this nonviolent effort. Many of the activists who joined the villagers of Budrus are now continuing to support nonviolence efforts in villages from Bil’in to Nabi Saleh to Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem.

Budrus includes diverse voices– from the Palestinian leaders of the movement and their Israeli allies to an Israeli military spokesman, Doron Spielman, and Yasmine Levy, the Israeli border police captain stationed in the village at that time. While many documentaries about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict either romanticize the notion of peace, or dwell entirely on the suffering of victims to the conflict, this film focuses on the success of a Palestinian-led nonviolent movement.

In a keynote address immediately following the world premiere of Budrus at a Gala screening at the Dubai International Film Festival in December 2009, Her Majesty Queen Noor Al Hussein of Jordan praised the film, stating that Budrus: “Gives an enormous amount of hope… It’s a story which will have an impact and can help bring [about] change.”

Budrus received the Panorama Audience Award, Second Prize, at the Berlin International Film Festival in February 2010.

DVDs of Lectures and Presentations on the Palestine-Israel Issue recommended for showing on Duluth PACTV (Cable Channel 20) by Twin Ports Break the Bonds, local affiliate of Minnesota Break the bonds.

All showings are at 2 p.m. and 11 p.m.  on the dates listed below. Each one is an hour in length.

Contact Person: Bob Kosuth, 1224 E. 11th Street, 218-724-4800, rkosuth@hotmail.com

Twin Ports BBC:  http://twinportsbbc.blogspot.com/

Title                                                                               Producer                             Length                  Date

Life in Occupied Palestine                                            Anna Baltzer                      59 minutes              11/11

Jennifer Lowenstein                                                      Our World in Depth           58 min. 57 sec.       11/18

Gaza One Year Later, Part I

Jennifer  Lowenstein                                                     Our World in Depth            59 minutes              11/25

Gaza One Year Later, Part 2

(Also Q & A and David Rovics mini-concert)

Omar Barghouti                                                            Our World in Depth            58 min. 15 sec.         12/2

The Need To Boycott Israel, Part I

Omar Barghouti                                                            Our World in Depth            58 min. 15 sec.          12/9

The Need To Boycott Israel, Part 2

From One West Bank to Another:                                 Our World in Depth         58 min. 45 sec.             12/16

Two Locals’ Stories from Palestine

You’re invited to hear Daoud Nasar!

Wednesday, November 10, 2010 from 3:30-5:00

Carlson L-110, University of Minnesota

321 19th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN

Daoud Nassar is a Palestinian Christian farmer whose family works its 100-acre farm and olive grove just outside the West Bank town of Bethlehem. Daoud will discuss his activities at Tent of Nations (TON), a dynamic peace and local education center where Israelis, Palestinians, and internationals join together in solidarity in the pursuit of peace through non-violent activities.

Faculty for an Israeli-Palestinian Peace (FFIPP) is an international network of faculty and students working for a just peace in the Middle East. FFIPP sponsors annual semester-long and summer Israel/Palestine internship programs for University students interested in gaining first-hand experience in the region. Past interns have worked at UN agencies, local human rights organizations, political think tanks, and cultural associations in both Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

Please learn more at: (www.tentofnations.org) (www.fotonna.org) (ffipp.org)

From left to right: Nail Albarghouthi, Sylvia Schwarz, Susie Gad, and Susanne Waldorf. Photo by Amber Michel

150 students recently attended a panel discussion coordinated by the group, Students for a Free Palestine, at Saint Cloud State University. The four panelists were all members of MN BBC, but each came with a different perspective. The following article by Anazthasya Anthony published in the the University Chronicle of St Cloud State on October 24, 2010 relays more of the story:

On Tuesday, Atwood Little Theatre came to life when students, faculty, and the public engaged with a panel about Israeli-Palestinian issues. Students for a Free Palestine hosted a discussion containing history, personal stories, resistance, and legal violations in Palestine. The panel consisted of speakers, Sylvia Schwartz, Nail Albarghouthi, Susie Gad, and Susanne Waldorf.

Schwarz, a Jewish American, spoke about her childhood memory and what brought her Palestinian solidarity. “We learned in my Sunday school that Israel had the most moral army in the world,” Schwarz said. In 1982, she said she began having doubts, “Suddenly I was aware that I had been lied to.”

Albarghouthi, SCSU student and president of Students for a Free Palestine, shared his view.

“As a child, I had a lot of questions why was I born in Kuwait, raised in Jordan and living in the U.S.,” Albarghouthi said. He also said he was curious why he could not return to his home country, Palestine.

Zionism, Albarghouthi said, is a European colonial movement formed to relocate European Jews in Palestine. “The real problem is the Zionists and the Zionists’ ideology,” Albarghouhi said.

Gad, the third panel speaker, related how the Israel-Palestine conflict was a blur to her until 2006. “Everything was background noise,” Gad, an Egyptian American said. In 2006, while on her study abroad program in Egypt, she and her friends decided to visit Jerusalem.

“My fiancée and I were of Arab descent and we realized right away how drastically different we were treated,” Gad said. The guards at the checkpoint held them for more than seven hours because they were assumed to be Palestinians. She enlightened the crowd on Israel’s legal violations despite stipulations in International Law. “I learned that international law was to ensure that Palestinians received equal civil rights, human rights, political rights, cultural rights, social rights,” Gad said.

The audience learned about various organizations combating oppression of the Palestinians, including Minnesota Break the Bonds Campaign through Waldorf. “For some reason, we are invested in Israeli bonds and we are asking the State to divest,” Waldorf said.

One question raised was the position of the U.S. in the conflict. “Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid, and a lot of aids are given in forms of grants for Israel to purchase U.S. weapons,” Waldorf said.

When asked about a resolution idea, Albarghouthi stressed the importance of education. “The more educated the general public is, the more they can pressure their government to act upon it,” he said.

Albarghouthi told the crowd about proposed the two-state solution where Palestinians and Israel will be given rights to their own land. “To me, no matter how many states we want to slice it into, giving people their rights, their bite to eat, will reduce the conflict at least by 80 percent,” Albarghouthi said.

Farzona Dzhabbarova, an SCSU student at the event said,“This event taught me even more than I expected.”

Students for a Free Palestine is a relatively new student organization established last March. “The panel is at times much more effective than showing a film, where the conflict is distant, the people involved are distant, and therefore doesn’t hit home,” Albarghouthi added.

Posted by: http://www.universitychronicle.net/index.php/2010/10/24/students-free-palestine-discuss-misconceptions-surrounding-conflict/