While on a visit to Canada, the Arab-Israeli member of the Knesset describes the conditions experienced by her people in and outside Israel and the pressures she faces.
Paul Weinberg
Paul Weinberg is a Toronto-based freelance writer and journalist. His website is www.paulweinberg.ca.Haneen Zoabi in conversation
Nazareth, Haneen Zoabi's home city in northern Israel, is a chaotic mess of streets and nondescript buildings that has seen better days from an architectural and planning perspective.
It is a kind of metaphor for the member of the Knesset's major constituency, the little over a million Palestinian-Arabs or Arab-Israelis living inside the state of Israel today.
The childhood home of Jesus was actually a small, beautiful historical town in 1948 that never really recovered from an overwhelming flood of refugees that had managed to escape the ethnic cleansing of 700,000 Palestinians in what is called the Nakba or catastrophe by the armed forces of the then new state of Israel.
A preview of the Toronto Jewish Film Festival
Israel may have problematic politics but it is also a hothouse for remarkable storytellers and journalism as demonstrated by some upcoming offerings at the upcoming Toronto Jewish Film Festival, on from April 17 to 25.
The latest available episode of the Israel TV sitcom, "Arab Labour" is only on at 12 p.m. on April 23 at the Al Green Theatre in Toronto, but you may be able to rent it eventually in some video and DVD outlets along with past episodes. Sayed Kashua, the scriptwriter and creator of this remarkable series may be among the funniest men in the Jewish state. I wish someone could do something as biting in Canada.
Reel Injun is real interesting
The image of Atanarjuat, the Fast Runner, in the great Inuit movie, is what still stays in my mind almost a decade after its release -- one lean desperate man dashing naked across the choppy Arctic ice and snow to flee from the murderers of his brother.
An interview with Norman Finkelstein: Israel 'has lost a lot of ground'
Controversial Jewish American scholar Norman Finkelstein does not feel like a pariah anymore.
Visiting Canada again this week on a tour of campuses to deliver lectures and answer questions about the seemingly intractable situation in the Middle East, he reports receiving more invitations to speak than ever these days.
"It is much more difficult in public life to defend Israel than to criticize it," Finkelstein explains in a telephone interview with rabble.ca. "I've gotten more invitations from more mainstream places."
The Face of Imperialism: An interview with Michael Parenti
This fall, Michael Parenti's timing as a writer could not have been better. The independent scholar and lecturer has produced 22 books on political and cultural subjects. But his latest, The Face of Imperialism, jives completely with the current Occupy movement in cities around the world.
Parenti spoke to rabble.ca this week while on a three-city tour of Ontario university campuses. Parenti's short Canadian tour took him to Toronto (Tuesday), Guelph (Wednesday) and Hamilton (Thursday).
A revulsion for repression: In conversation with Amira Hass
Amira Hass, the award-winning Ha'aretz newspaper columnist, brings the hardships and repressions experienced by Palestinians to her readership in Israel every week. As a resident and correspondent reporting from the West Bank, she is in a better position than most Israeli journalists to paint an accurate picture of life there. She has been on a Canada-wide speaking tour and will appear in Toronto tonight. For more information, click here.
Toronto Palestine Film Festival holds a mixture of laughter and tears
French filmmaker Vanessa Rousselot took a very nervy path to gain a fresh insight into the life of Palestinians in the occupied territories. The result is the 2010 documentary, (No) Laughing Matter, which is being shown on Oct. 6 and is one of the highlights at this year's Toronto Palestine Film Festival, which starts Friday.
With a TV camera, she approached people, young and old, male and female, in shops, stores, the classroom and on the street across the West Bank, Haifa in Israel and in Gaza (via Skype) to ask if each of whom could provide a joke.
Poor...but not broken
"Where is the political outrage?" asks University of Regina professor John Conway at the start of Bert Deveaux's excellent new documentary, Poor No More, which takes us on an enlightening, infuriating tour through Canada's new rust belt. Here, the permanent poverty, lost industrial jobs and food banks are reaching proportions not seen since the Great Depression.
"What happened to the social safety net that the generations after the Second World War had fought for so that Canadians would never again experience the deprivations of the 1930s?" asks Mary Walsh, comedian, actor and moderator for the documentary.
Dodgy rumours
The speculation that incoming prime minister Paul Martin might appoint current Bank of Canada governor David Dodge to head the Privy Council Office (PCO) — an advisory body for the prime minister — is spurring Judy Wasylycia-Leis's call for a public inquiry into Dodge's former role as deputy minister of health between 1998 and 2000.
Wasysclia-Leiss, an NDP MP (Winnipeg North Centre) says that Dodge's loyalty and friendship with Martin makes the rumours of such an appointment plausible.
