IMEU Institute for Middle East Understanding
The Cordoba Students' Center started a recent meeting with the sounds of musical instruments and Arabic melodies. The attendees gathered in the Cordoba Restaurant, in southern Gaza City, where the meetings are held on the first Tuesday of each month in a private room. Arab originality and Palestinian heritage are showcased in the room's books, photos and other decorations.
on December 24, 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
Few entertainers are as openly critical of the Israeli government as Roger Waters, a stance that has caused some of the country's defenders to label him an anti-Semite. In a soon-to-be-published interview with the Pink Floyd co-founder about his upcoming Wall tour CD and DVD/Blu-ray, Waters defends himself and his call for a cultural boycott of Israel.
on October 23, 2015
My Facebook feed is filled with terrifying videos. Fadi, a 19-year old Palestinian youth, is chased by a lynch mob of Israeli settlers in Jerusalem screaming for his death and is shot, execution-style by Israeli forces. Ahmad, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy is shot by Israeli police in an illegal Israeli settlement near Jerusalem.
on October 17, 2015
Black musicians have been some of the most outspoken figures in the movement against what they see as police state policies in America. Now singer Lauryn Hill has joined several African American artists and activists in connecting their cause with the Palestinian rights movement in Israel.
on October 15, 2015
Often in the past I have written detailed, and sometimes even persuasive, letters to colleagues in the music business, encouraging them not to give succor to the Israeli government’s apartheid policies by performing in Israel. Having read Jon’s comments last week in Yedioth Ahronoth, I won’t waste my time drawing parallels with Apartheid South Africa and the moral stand that so many artists took then and that thousands are taking now in the face of decades of Israeli oppression of Palestinians.
on October 2, 2015
A Palestinian boy and a Jewish girl get stuck in the elevator. The girl changes her military uniform to civilian clothes, and the boy pays her a compliment: “Looks better on you, the green don’t suit you.” The girl responds: “Without the sniper lens, you look cute too.” This is the scene described in “Mama I fell in love with a Jew”, one of the most recent hits from Palestinian hip hop group DAM...
on August 18, 2015
When the first Palestinian uprising began in the late 1980s, the images from the intifada showed exploding tear gas canisters launched by Israelis, answered by Palestinian youngsters shooting slingshots and hurling rocks. A photographer snapped a photo of a boy with tears in his eyes, an 8-year-old named Ramzi Aburedwan. The image came to represent the rage and frustration of life in the refugee camps. But although his face was famously stuck in time, Ramzi's life changed dramatically when he was introduced to music at age 16.
on July 12, 2015
Under the name El-Funoun Palestinian Popular Dance Troupe, Mohammad Yaacoub and friends Mohammed Atta and Wassim al-Kurdi embarked on a journey of interpreting Palestinian folk songs accompanied by dance and dabke (Levantine Arab folk dance) shows with the objective of preserving Palestinian heritage and folklore.
on June 10, 2015