IMEU Institute for Middle East Understanding
Israeli Arab rapper Tamer Nafar's politically-charged lyrics have sparked the same kind of controversy that may have made his hero Tupac Shakur proud. Nafar, from the pioneering political rap group DAM, has touched a nerve with songs like "Who's the Terrorist?" skewering what he and others say is discrimination against Arabs in Israel.
on November 27, 2016
Ramallah, occupied West Bank - In the dead of a cold December night, Israeli soldiers came for Yasser. They rummaged through the shelves and behind the looms of a darkened factory, searching for the little man, only half a metre tall. They knew he would be easy to spot, wearing his signature black-and-white keffiyeh...
on September 15, 2016
Israel has extended the detention without trial of Palestinian circus performer Mohammad Abu Sakha for another six months, his circus school said Monday. Abu Sakha, 24, was arrested on December 14 in the occupied West Bank, and held since January in administrative detention, the controversial measure under which Israel can hold suspects without trial for periods of six months, renewable indefinitely.
on June 13, 2016
An astonishing new cultural institution for the Middle East has now opened to the public. Situated on a hilltop near Ramallah in the West Bank, the $24m Palestinian Museum was opened officially in a gala inauguration ceremony on 18 May. Over 700 guests mingled on a broad pavilion in the afternoon sun, while musicians played a classical Arab repertoire in the terraced gardens below.
on June 12, 2016
Ghassan al-Azzeh was detained by Israeli occupation forces and sent to prison when he was just 16 years old. As a young teen in an adult detention facility, al-Azzeh was lost until a group of older artists, also Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, took him in. Al-Azzeh was interested in art before he was arrested, but did not take the craft seriously until it became his only reprieve from the daily life of prison.
on June 11, 2016
sharp white crown rises from a hilltop in the West Bank, looking out across sun-scorched terraces of olive trees and sage bushes to the waters of the Mediterranean – a distant prospect that most Palestinians will never be able to reach. Seen from the valley below, this monolithic hangar could be the latest Israeli fortification, casting its beady eye over the surrounding Arab villages from the angular black windows slashed across its facade.
on May 17, 2016
Mahmoud Hawari, a research associate at Oxford University’s Khalili Research Center, was appointed the new director of the 37,000-square-foot Palestinian Museum in Birzeit, which will open its doors in May, Gareth Harris of the Art Newspaper reports.
on May 5, 2016
Nearly three decades ago, Aida Abu Sitta began to collect old dresses from Palestinian refugee camps, and redesigned them with a blend of contemporary and traditional elements. One of the models at Abu Sitta's latest fashion show told Al Jazeera that the goal was to preserve the Palestinian heritage that Israel has tried to destroy. The dresses are meant to represent the identity of the person wearing them, Abu Sitta said.
on April 23, 2016
Art
The Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish once said about the condition of exile, “Exile is more than a geographical concept. You can be an exile in your homeland, in your own house, in a room.” Darwish, who for many people stands out mainly as the spokesman of Palestinian exile and of the Palestinian cause, has put into words more eloquently than most the insecurity of our late-postmodern condition.
on March 28, 2016