5 Broken Cameras - Palestinian Documentary

Byrnzie

This documentary shows the racism, violence, and theft of land, that Palestinians are subjected to on a daily basis. Pretty sickening when you consider that Israel's ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign is being largely funded by U.S tax payers.

'The film was nominated for an Oscar, and won the World Cinema Directing Award at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. The film also received the Special Broadcaster IDFA Audience Award and the Special Jury Award at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam in 2011.

The film won the Golden Apricot at the 2012 Yerevan International Film Festival, for Best Documentary Film, the Van Leer Group Foundation Award for Best Israeli Documentary at the Jerusalem Film Festival in 2012, and the Busan Cinephile Award at the Pusan International Film Festival in 2012. It was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 85th Academy Awards Nominated for Best Documentary Feature in the 85th Academy Awards, and for the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Documentary of 2012.'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K-mGWy9iUg

There are five cameras — each with its own story. When his fourth son, Gibreel, is born in 2005, self-taught cameraman Emad Burnat, a Palestinian villager, gets his first camera. At the same time in his village of Bil’in, the Israelis begin bulldozing village olive groves to build a barrier to separate Bil'in from the Jewish Settlement Modi'in Illit. The barrier's route cuts off 60% of Bil'in farmland and the villagers resist this seizure of more of their land by the settlers.
For the next year, Burnat films this struggle, which is led by two of his best friends, while at the same time recording the growth of his son. Very soon, these events begin to affect his family and his own life. Emad films the Army and Police beating and arresting villagers and activists who come to support them. Settlers destroy Palestinian olive trees and attack Burnat when he tries to film them. The Army raids the village in the middle of the night to arrest children. He, his friends, and brothers are arrested or shot; some are killed. Each camera used to document these events is shot or smashed.
Eventually, in 2009, Burnat approaches Guy Davidi – an Israeli filmmaker and together, from these five broken cameras and the stories that they represent, these two filmmakers create the film.

Halifax2TheMax

My solution, for what it's worth, defund all sides 10% per year for 10 years, putting them all on notice. Nations that trade together and cooperate for a common good, live in peace. Simplistic and unrealistic, I know. One can dream.

I don't mean any disrespect to either side but enough is enough. It's the 21st century for crying out loud.

Peace.

Byrnzie

Halifax2TheMax said:

My solution, for what it's worth, defund all sides 10% per year for 10 years, putting them all on notice. Nations that trade together and cooperate for a common good, live in peace. Simplistic and unrealistic, I know. One can dream.

I don't mean any disrespect to either side but enough is enough. It's the 21st century for crying out loud.

Peace.

Why don't you watch the film first and then make a comment?

Why do you think that a people subjected to an illegal occupation deserve to be further punished?

As for 'defundng' both sides, the U.S isn't giving $4Billion every year to the Palestinians. The Palestinians are being ethnically cleansed and terrorized on a daily basis, and the U.S stands alone as the only country in the World that supports this. The Israel-Palestine conflict is not a level playing field.

Halifax2TheMax

I will watch the film when my attention is better apt to absorb the content. I'm just frustrated with the current cluster and I'm well aware of how much we subsidize one side over the other and know full well it's not a level playing field. Hasn't been since well before 1948. I'm sickened by current events.

Peace.

Byrnzie

"Five Broken Cameras" screened to Israeli youth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1wEszQYEzg

yosi

Looks like a worthwhile movie to watch. Wish you would give the ethnic cleansing nonsense a rest. The brutal realities of the occupation are quite awful enough without your embellishments.

Byrnzie

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing
'Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic or religious groups from a given territory with the intent of creating a territory inhabited by people of a homogeneous or pure ethnicity, religion, culture, and history. The forces applied may be various forms of forced migration (deportation, population transfer), as well as mass murder, and intimidation.

Ethnic cleansing is usually accompanied with the efforts to remove physical and cultural evidence of the targeted group in the territory through the destruction of homes, social centers, farms, and infrastructure, and by the desecration of monuments, cemeteries, and places of worship.'

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/03/21/uk-palestinian-israel-un-idUKBREA2K1JM20140321
(Reuters) - A U.N. human rights investigator accused Israel on Friday of "ethnic cleansing" in pushing Palestinians out of East Jerusalem and cast doubt that the Israeli government could accept a Palestinian state in the current climate.

He spoke against a backdrop of deadlocked peace talks and accelerating Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem which Palestinians say is dimming their hope of establishing a viable state on contiguous territory.
Richard Falk, United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, told a news conference that Israeli policies bore "unacceptable characteristics of colonialism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing".
"Every increment of enlarging the settlements or every incident of house demolition is a way of worsening the situation confronting the Palestinian people and reducing what prospects they might have as the outcome of supposed peace negotiations."
Asked about his accusation of ethnic cleansing, Falk said that more than 11,000 Palestinians had lost their right to live in Jerusalem since 1996 due to Israel imposing residency laws favouring Jews and revoking Palestinian residence permits.


http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/29/britons-protest-israel-plan-remove-palestinian-bedouin
Britons protest over Israel plan to remove up to 70,000 Palestinian Bedouins

More than 50 public figures including Antony Gormley and Brian Eno put names to letter opposing expulsion from historic land
Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem
The Guardian, Friday 29 November 2013

More than 50 public figures in Britain, including high-profile artists, musicians and writers, have put their names to a letter opposing an Israeli plan to forcibly remove up to 70,000 Palestinian Bedouins from their historic desert land – an act condemned by critics as ethnic cleansing.

...The eviction and destruction of about 35 "unrecognised" villages in the Negev desert will, the letter says, "mean the forced displacement of Palestinians from their homes and land, and systematic discrimination and separation".

The population of these villages will be removed to designated towns, while plans for new Jewish settlements in the area are enacted.

...Adalah, a human rights and legal centre for Arabs in Israel, says: "The real purpose of the legislation [is] the complete and final severance of the Bedouin's historical ties to their land."

yosi

I don't want to derail the thread. Briefly, I think Falk's statements are a massive bit of hyperbole. Both of these cases may very well be deplorable, but I don't think they can responsibly be described as rising to ethnic cleansing.

Byrnzie

Benny Morris (Hebrew: בני מוריס; born 8 December 1948) is an Israeli professor of History in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel.
...Regarding himself as a Zionist, he writes, "I embarked upon the research not out of ideological commitment or political interest. I simply wanted to know what happened."

http://www.haaretz.com/survival-of-the-fittest-1.61345
Survival of the fittest
Historian Benny Morris, who opened the Pandora's box of Zionism, has found a new way to deal with the demons he unleashed. He justifies the expulsion of the Arabs in 1948, bemoans the fact that the job was left unfinished and doesn't rule out future population transfers. In an interview, Morris lays out his self-described 'politically incorrect' views.
By Ari Shavit | Jan. 8, 2004

'...Without the uprooting of the Palestinians, a Jewish state would not have arisen here...There are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing. I know that this term is completely negative in the discourse of the 21st century, but when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide - the annihilation of your people - I prefer ethnic cleansing."

And that was the situation in 1948?

"That was the situation. That is what Zionism faced. A Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians. Therefore it was necessary to uproot them. There was no choice but to expel that population. It was necessary to cleanse the hinterland and cleanse the border areas and cleanse the main roads. It was necessary to cleanse the villages from which our convoys and our settlements were fired on."

The term `to cleanse' is terrible.

"I know it doesn't sound nice but that's the term they used at the time. I adopted it from all the 1948 documents in which I am immersed."

yosi

You didn't use the term in relation to 1948. You used it in relation to current events.

Byrnzie

More ethnic cleansing 'nonsense':

"We must expel Arabs and take their places."
-- David Ben Gurion, 1937, Ben Gurion and the Palestine Arabs, Oxford University Press, 1985.

"Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population."
-- David Ben Gurion, quoted in The Jewish Paradox, by Nahum Goldmann, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978, p. 99.

"Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves ... politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves... The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country."
-- David Ben Gurion, quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky's Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan's "Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.

"We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, What is to be done with the Palestinian population?' Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said 'Drive them out!"
-- Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979.

"[Israel will] create in the course of the next 10 or 20 years conditions which would attract natural and voluntary migration of the refugees from the Gaza Strip and the west Bank to Jordan. To achieve this we have to come to agreement with King Hussein and not with Yasser Arafat."
-- Yitzhak Rabin (a "Prince of Peace" by Clinton's standards), explaining his method of ethnically cleansing the occupied land without stirring a world outcry. (Quoted in David Shipler in the New York Times, 04/04/1983 citing Meir Cohen's remarks to the Knesset's foreign affairs and defense committee on March 16.)

"The Partition of Palestine is illegal. It will never be recognized .... Jerusalem was and will for ever be our capital. Eretz Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. And for Ever."
-- Menachem Begin, the day after the U.N. vote to partition Palestine.

"The past leaders of our movement left us a clear message to keep Eretz Israel from the Sea to the River Jordan for future generations, for the mass aliya (=Jewish immigration), and for the Jewish people, all of whom will be gathered into this country."
-- Former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir declares at a Tel Aviv memorial service for former Likud leaders, November 1990. Jerusalem Domestic Radio Service.

"(The Palestinians) would be crushed like grasshoppers ... heads smashed against the boulders and walls."
-- Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) Yitzhak Shamir in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988

"Israel should have exploited the repression of the demonstrations in China, when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories."
-- Benyamin Netanyahu, then Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, former Prime Minister of Israel, speaking to students at Bar Ilan University, from the Israeli journal Hotam, November 24, 1989.

"It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialization, or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands."
-- Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wing Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998.

"Everybody has to move, run and grab as many (Palestinian) hilltops as they can to enlarge the (Jewish) settlements because everything we take now will stay ours...Everything we don't grab will go to them."
-- Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of the Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, Nov. 15, 1998.

"If I was an Arab leader I would never make [peace] with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country." - First Prime Minister of Israel, David Ben Gurion

Byrnzie

yosi said:

You didn't use the term in relation to 1948. You used it in relation to current events.

Are Palestinians still being driven out of their homes today to make way for the ever-expanding Jewish-only settlements? Yes, or no?

Byrnzie

yosi said:

You didn't use the term in relation to 1948. You used it in relation to current events.

Did you watch the documentary?

yosi

See above.

Byrnzie

More ethnic cleansing 'nonsense':

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/israel-steps-forced-evictions-west-bank-palestinians-2010-07-01
'According to the UN, in 2009 more than 600 Palestinians – over half of them children – lost their homes after they were demolished on order from the Israeli authorities.'

11th September 2013: http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE15/013/2013/en/0ec8aa4e-1524-4b77-b9d2-4437f43dd231/mde150132013en.pdf
'Some 1,000 Palestinians living in the south of the occupied West Bank, nearly half of
them children, are still facing forced eviction by the Israeli army; the Israeli High Court of
Justice did not rule in favour of their rights.'

http://palsolidarity.org/2013/01/palestinian-village-of-bab-alshams-violently-evicted/
Palestinian village of Bab Alshams violently evicted
Press Releases January 13, 2013

Although established on privately owned Palestinian lands, Israel forcefully expelled residents of the village in a pre-dawn raid this morning. Six required medical attention.
Shortly before 3 am, hundreds of Israeli policemen and soldiers staged a raid on the newly founded Palestinian village of Bab Alshams (Gate of the Sun), violently evicting its 150 inhabitants. Use of police brutality is even more objectionable in light of the passive resistance offered by the residents. No arrests were made, and all persons detained were released shortly after.
In light of harsh international criticism over the plan to expand the Ma’aleh Edomim settlement, and in an attempt to draw away attention from the case, eviction took place early this morning. Following its arrival at the scene, a massive police force began by removing journalists from the residents’ immediate surroundings and proceeded to drag people away, beating some of them. Six Palestinians later required medical care at the Ramallah Hospital...

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.539057
Eviction of 1,300 Palestinians necessary to save IDF time, money
State responds to two High Court petitions to stop planned evacuation of eight villages in south Hebron hills.
By Amira Hass | Aug 1st, 2013

The state wants to evict 1,300 Palestinians from their homes in an army firing zone in the West Bank in part because training there saves the Israel Defense Forces time and money, according to the state’s response to two petitions against the mass eviction.

The petitioners’ lawyers – Tamar Feldman and Maskit Bendel, both of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, and Shlomo Lecker – dispute the state’s claim that the villagers aren’t permanent
residents of the area. They say the villagers have maintained a traditional lifestyle there for generations, tending their herds and working the land, while also maintaining social, familial and economic ties with their mother town of Yatta.

The petitioners also submitted a legal opinion by senior Israeli jurists who argue that evicting the villagers would violate international law and could constitute grounds for indictment in the International Criminal Court.

yosi

All bad. Not ethnic cleansing.

badbrains

yosi said:

All bad. Not ethnic cleansing.

So it's just bad? Looks like cleansing to me. Lots of big names on those posts telling it pretty crystal clear about what to do and what they want to do.

badbrains

And I saw the doc last year. Should've won an oscar instead of searching for sugar man.

I also believe I read that they tried to stop entry for the guy who made the doc. Wonder why????
And if it wasn't for that anti-Semite Michael Moore, he wouldn't have entered the country for the oscars. Thanks mr Moore.

yosi

I'm sorry that my language isn't extreme enough to suit you. And yes, big names, talking about events in 1948, not today. Kind of disingenuous, is it not, to claim ethnic cleansing in the present and then present "proof" that relates to events from 60+ years ago? Plus, you know, selective quotes presented entirely without context are kind of iffy evidence in the first place, but let's not even go there.

Byrnzie

yosi said:

All bad. Not ethnic cleansing.

Yes it is. Read the definition of the term.

Forcibly expelling people from their homes, stealing their land, and replacing them with members of your own ethnic group constitutes ethnic cleansing.

cincybearcat

Looks interesting