IMEU Institute for Middle East Understanding
The Shati refugee camp in Gaza City has always been a symbol of poverty, a grey concrete jungle with 87,000 people packed into half a square kilometer, or about one fifth of a square mile. But now, overlooking the sewage-contaminated Mediterranean beachfront, the camp's houses are covered in vibrant colors.
on December 23, 2015
On a concrete wall in the alleyway of a Palestinian refugee camp in Irbid, Jordan, Laila Ajjawi works quickly, switching between the three spray-paint bottles that sit at her feet. Within 20 minutes, she has scrawled Arabic letters onto the veil of a girl with cavernous eyes and painted a feather quill by her side. Her mural is nearly complete.
on December 14, 2015
In the last few days, Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush both stressed that they view stopping the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement targeting Israel as crucial. Bush is apparently prepared to violate fundamental First Amendment rights. He faces an uphill fight against the Constitution and principled BDS advocates making their case from concert venues to university campuses.
on December 14, 2015
It was an LGBT-themed film festival held outside the borders of Palestine, featuring a number of works by directors who were neither gay nor Palestinian. But the first-ever Kooz Queer fest, which had a modest bow earlier this month in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, made little ripples of history in its own right.
on December 4, 2015
The group of girls, ponytailed and dressed in pink, stretched their arms out to the sides and pivoted onto their toes, trying desperately to hold still. Eagle-eyed, the instructor surveyed Gaza's latest crop of would-be ballerinas. Fifty girls aged five to eight are now enrolled in the ballet school at the Al-Qattan Center for Children in Gaza, making it one of the most popular classes the arts institute runs, under the watchful eye of a Ukrainian teacher.
on November 30, 2015
The Palestinian National Theatre “Al Hakawati” published today an appeal to Jerusalem institutions and businessmen in the city to save the theatre from closure during the next 48 hours. According to the theatre’s statement, director Amer Khalil, received a phone call on Thursday morning 11/26/2015 from the Israeli Enforcement and Collection Authority (ECA), responsible for debt collection and law enforcement, notifying him of the intention to complete the seizure of the theatre building in 48 hours.
on November 27, 2015
Reem Hajjaj finds it almost impossible to take an elective medical course outside the Gaza Strip. Unlike her fellow students in the Islamic University of Gaza’s medical school, she does not have a Palestinian Authority identity card. Hajjaj says that this situation has thwarted a lot of her plans.
on November 23, 2015
"How can I tour in Israel knowing Palestinian artists are denied the right to travel?" That's the question Tunde Adebimpe, lead singer of TV on the Radio, poses in a new video produced by Adalah-NY, a New York nonprofit that opposes Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian territories. Released as a part of the 10-year-old Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS Movement), the video also features, among others, Adebimpe's bandmate Kyp Malone, ex-Das Racist member Kool A.D. and singer-composer Tamar-kali.
on November 17, 2015
It was just like a Bollywood movie, the man said. He, a Palestinian groom, was smuggling his bride from Jordan into Gaza. The whole wedding party was with them, underground in the tunnels. And she was standing there, trembling, in her white dress and under erratic lights, dust falling into her hair, when he ran to her and kissed her.
on October 12, 2015