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U.S.-based Arab filmmaker Jackie Salloum’s documentary Slingshot Hip Hop has made waves in the film world, including at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. She was in Lebanon last week showing the film to Palestinian youth in three of the country’s Palestinian refugee camps.

By JACKSON ALLERS
Posted August 12th, 2008

R.R.
BEIRUT, August 12, 2008 (MENASSAT) – “The moment I stepped into the camps here in Lebanon, I thought I was in Palestine,” Arab-American filmmaker Jackie Salloum said after an August 6 nighttime screening in Chatila of her documentary, Slingshot Hip Hop.

“I hope people living in Beirut come to see the film,” Salloum said anxiously before a previous screening on August 5 in Bourj al-Barajneh. In Lebanon, the Palestinian refugee camps are virtual no-go zones for most non-Palestinians.

Luckily for Salloum, the 2008 Sundance Film Festival entry about the Palestinian hip-hop movement in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip was shown last week to large audiences in Bedawi, Bourj al Barajneh and Chatila – three of Lebanon’s 12 official Palestinian refugee camps.

More importantly, Palestinian youth from each of the camps came out in force to see what Salloum called “a window into Palestine – maybe feel a little more connected to the Palestinian hip-hop scene there.”

It’s gratifying for the filmmaker who spent five years on Slingshot Hip Hop, raising money at times by working at her parents’ ice cream shop in Farmington Hills, Michigan.

Her production company, Fresh Booza Productions, is a nod to this period – booza being the Arabic word for ice cream.

Loss of history

“This film is about a loss of identity as much as anything else,” Salloum told MENASSAT. “Hip-hop is a way of telling their stories as they reclaim that history.”

The film’s primary protagonists are the hip-hoppers Tamer, Mahmoud and Suhell of DAM – touted in the film as the first Palestinian hip-hop group. DAM’s members hail from Lod or Al-Lyd in Israel; they’re called 48ers because they are Palestinians who remained in Israel after the formation of the state in 1948.

WATCH THE TRAILER FOR SLINGSHOT HIP HOP

As the film depicts, whole generations of Palestinian youth growing up inside Israel’s borders are not being taught their history, including the fact that Israel’s founders expelled some 700,000 Palestinians from historic Palestine in 1948 in an event Palestinians call Al-Nakba, or the “great catastrophe.”"If there parents aren’t teaching them, they’re simply brought up as Israeli-Arabs and not Palestinians,” Salloum explained.In one exchange during the film, DAM’s Tamer Nafar is leading a talk at an elementary school class in his hometown of Lyd.

“Let’s talk about what it means to be Palestinians living in the state of Israel,” he says.

One child asks, “I’m Palestinian?”

“Why? What do you think you are?” Nafar asks in return.

“I’m an Arab,” the youngster says.

“You’re grandfather was from Palestine so you’re Palestinian.”

Role models

Sama Abdelhaddi, an 18-year-old female MC (rapper) and DJ from Ramallah in the West Bank attended the Slingshot Hip Hop screening at Bourj al Barajneh on August 5.

Abdelhaddi, who has a small cameo appearance in the film, said that Palestinian rap groups like DAM are acting as an inspiration to the youth.

“You saw in the film how that one kid called himself an Arab and not a Palestinian. This is what my [Palestinian] friends are taught in Israeli schools,” she said.

“DAM has affected the youth in their hometown especially because they are active in the schools, and it doesn’t hurt that their music has gotten really popular. Kids are listening and wanting to read more books by Palestinian writers and know more about their cousins in the West Bank and Gaza. They want to be like DAM.”

DAM’s socially conscious lyrics are a nod to their American rap predecessors. Rappers like 2Pac Shakur and the revolutionary New York-based rap group Public Enemy figure prominently as models for DAM.

“We saw our hood [neighborhood],” Tamer Nafar says early on in Slingshot when describing what he felt after seeing 2 Pac’s video, Holla If Ya Hear Me.

And like the social issues explored by 2Pac in his raps, Slingshot Hip Hop plunges head first into the very real social problems affecting Palestinians within Israel: drug abuse and graft being two of the biggest problems.

It’s a glimpse inside Palestinian-Israeli culture not often discussed in the media.

Who’s a terrorist?

Yaseen is a young rapper from a Lebanese-based Palestinian hip-hop crew I-voice, or Invincible Voice, out of the Bourj al Barajneh refugee camp. His rap influences are more immediate than 2Pac or Public Enemy, citing other Palestinian rappers like Ramallah Underground and Taste of Pain as his main inspirations.

But DAM’s most famous song, Min Erhabe? (Who’s a Terrorist?), had wide-ranging affects on the entire Arab rap diaspora when it was released in 2003, including on Yaseen and his rap partner, TNT.

At the Bourj al Barajneh screening of Slinghsot, Yaseen told MENASSAT, “The film inspires me to want to break down the social barriers that exist for Palestinians living in the refugee camps here.”

Like the 1948 Palestinians in Israel, Yaseen said that Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have no idea what Palestinians in the diaspora are going through.

“Our music is as much for Palestinians there as it is for the Lebanese here.”

Slingshot Hip Hop also documents the rise of the Gaza Strip-based group, the Palestinian Rapperz, or PR; the West Bank-based group Arapeyat, made up of two female MC’s, Safa and Nahwa; and two other Lyd residents, Abeer Zinati, “the first lady of Palestinian rhythm and blues,” and Mahmoud Shalabi, formerly of the Palestinian hip-hop crew MWR.

Internet exchange

Of course, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the dire conditions faced by Gazans since the Israeli pullout in 2005 are unmistakable backdrops to much of the action in Slingshot Hip Hop.

“There is a very real geographic separation within the Palestinian hip-hop movement,” Salloum said.

“These groups are all restricted physically by the Israeli government, and the film shows how they use their music to channel their frustrations and connect with their peers.”

As Salloum explained, the Internet has become the primary medium for that exchange.

“They can’t travel to see each other, so they trade beats and vocal tracks over the Internet. Right now, all the groups are reaching out to other Arab rappers throughout the world: the U.S.-based crews The Philistines and The NOMADS, the Iraqi hip-hop crew from Canada, Euphrates; and they are also working on collaborations with several African and Latin-America-based hip-hop crews.”

Speaking from his home studio in the Bourj al Barajneh camp, Yaseen from I-voice told MENASSAT, “We’re working with DAM and another group from the West Bank, Ramallah Underground. My partner TNT and I are laying down our vocals and we should have something finished soon.”

“One day I hope we can perform together, but it will probably be in Europe before it’s either here or in Palestine.”

(Slingshot Hip Hop is scheduled to be screened for the general public in Lebanon during the Beirut International Film Festival in October. For more information about dates and venues, see www.slingshothiphop.com.)

His face occupied the front pages of virtually every newspaper in the Arab world today. In the inside pages, everyone tried to define who and what Mahmoud Darwish was or wasn’t. When someone departs who impacted Arab awareness, culture and identity as much as the ‘Resistance Poet’ did, a void is left which only his legacy can hope to fill.

By OLFAT HADDAD
Posted August 11th, 2008

R.R.

He left us. Still,
he lives inside us.

Mahmoud Darwish’s body is dead,
but his spirit lives on.

He left, but he still is,
the poet of place and time,
we long for you
as you longed for your mother’s bread.

Poetry’s titan has left us,
but he left for us
poetry not like anything else.

Etchings on hearts
and journeys into souls.

He planted in us the love of country,
and the beloved,
his words flourished like almond blossoms
deeply rooted in the homeland.
Thorn-less flowers,
the color of bravery and steadfastness,
of justice and freedom.

He never subdued,
he besieged the siege,
but fate is inescapable,
death triumphed.
Yet his name is engraved
on an eternal sun.

Death insisted on taking him at the peak of his time,
kidnapping him from his glory,
defeating him this time,
in his final battle. 

Mahmoud Darwish, 1941-2008

Mahmoud Darwish will be buried on Wednesday in Ramallah, where preparations are under way for an official funeral. He will be buried close to the cultural palace but far from his hometown of Berwe in the Palestinian territories occupied in 1948, from where he was deported.

The Palestinian Culture Minister, Tahani Abu Hadqa, said Darwish’s funeral will probably be the largest since Palestinian president Yasser Arafat died in 2004.

Fahmi Zureiq, a friend of Darwish from inside the Green Line, said in a phone call with Menassat, “His death was not a surprise; we were expecting it lately because he has had several heart operations, all which were life-threatening. He insisted on undergoing the last operation against his doctor’s advise, wanting to defeat death, as he always did.”

Remembering moments spent with Darwish, he added, “I lost my friend twice, first in 1972 when he traveled from Moscow to Cairo without telling anyone – we only found out his whereabouts later – and again when he was announced dead [last Saturday in Houston, Texas.] I was still expecting to hear other news from him, but then his death was confirmed.

“Our consolation is his valuable heritage. His poetry is global, and I felt his importance when we were students in Russia, meeting other poets and international writers. He was respected by all of them. His cause was the concerns of all humans, not only the Palestinian cause; he carried the concern of his people and nation, and of all the oppressed in the world.”

Three days of national mourning

We tried in vain to reach his mother, Hourieh, but his brother Zaki spoke to us about what happened between her and Mahmoud before he returned to the United States.

“Mahmoud came to his mother, he hugged her, kissed her, and held her hand, and told her he is going through with the operation, and he wanted to see her before he left.”

Zaki added, “His mother cried a lot, and begged him not to go, and not to have the operation, maybe because she felt with her mother’s heart, like all mothers, that her son would not return. But he had already made up his mind”.

The Palestinian cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, held an exceptional session in memory of the deceased.

Afterwards, Fayyad read a statement after the session which read: “With the loss of the poet of sweet and beautiful words, the Palestinian people loses one of the main contributors to our national and cultural identity, who with his words immortalized the struggle of a people, the sufferings of a nation whose culture was meant to be obliterated and marginalized. He told the whole world about the Palestinian pain, hope, determination and livelihood, about its mountains, valleys and plains. About the scent of almond blossoms and beyond.”

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday declared three days of national mourning.

Declaration of Independence

With his words, Darwish chronicled the chapters of  the Naqba (Tragedy), the struggle for survival and the long epic steadfastness. His poems became an integral part of the living national memory. He detailed the lives of people, the dreams of children, the pains and hopes of mothers, and the aspirations of the Palestinian people.

With his pen, Darwish drafted the dreams and aspirations of the Palestinian people when, in 1988, he wrote the official Palestinian Declaration of Independence, which was read by Arafat, at the National Council of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Algiers.

in his declaration of Palestinian independence, and derived his vocabulary from the spirit of the popular uprising in 1987, its aspiration to freedom, independence and sovereignty, to draw the moment of strength and determination for a life without wars, and without occupation and oppression.

Khalled Alhroub, a friend of Darwish, is the head of Middle Eastern studies at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom.

“I received the news of his death with great sorrow,” he told MENASSAT.

“Darwish is one of the most revered international Arab and Palestinian names. He was the one who presented the Palestinians and the Palestinian cause from a human perspective – not as victims, and not as terrorists; he wanted to tell the world the Palestinian is just human.”

Mahmoud Darwish represents a unique poetic phenomenon that won’t be repeated much. He enjoyed both a wide popularity and an artistic depth that baffled critics. His poetry is a mold of history, philosophy, religion and myths all wrapped up in an alloy that enriches the art of poetry.

He was always in favor of liberating the Palestinian poetry from ideology. No one owns his poetry, although his poetry owns us all.

When Darwish left politics – he resigned from the executive committee of the PLO in 1993 to protest the Oslo agreements – some thought he had left his cause, and ours. But his poetry never left its origin, very close to the heart of the Arab individual.

“Darwish is the essential breath of the Palestinian people,” the poet Naomi Shihab Nye once said, “the eloquent witness of exile and belonging.”

‘From now on, you are another’

Darwish was born in 1941 in the village of Berweh in Galilee, which was destroyed in 1948. He left with his family to Lebanon but they returned to Occupied Palestine a few years later in order to be close to his old village. After high school Mahmoud Darwish joined the Israeli Communist Party and started writing for the party newspaper. From 1961 onwards, he was arrested many times by the Israeli authorities.
In 1972, he went to Moscow, then to Cairo, then to Lebanon where he headed the Center for Palestinian studies. After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, he moved to Tunis, then to Paris.

The Israeli authorities allowed him entry to the Palestinian Territories only in 1996. In the final years of his life he divided his time between Amman and Ramallah.

Darwish published his last poem on the 17th of June of last year, after Hamas took over Gaza strip. “It was titled “From now on, you are another”, and in it he criticized the in-fighting between Hamas and Fateh.

(Excerpted from ‘From now on, you are another’)

“He asked me,
should a hungry guard
defend a house
whose owner is holidaying
in the French or Italian Riviera,
no matter what?

I said: No, he doesn’t. 

He asked: Does me + me = two?

I said: You and you are less than one. 

…

From now on, you are another.” 

(Writing by Olfat Haddad in Gaza; Additional writing and editing by Saseen Kawzally in Beirut.)

? http://bodyontheline.wordpress.com/2008/08/11/memorializing-mahmoud-darwish/ ? http://umkahlil.blogspot.com/
? http://farfahinne.blogspot.com/2008/08/mahmoud-darwish.html

International condemnation of the military coup which deposed the Mauritanian president on Wednesday has been swift. MENASSAT took to the streets of Nouakchott to gauge local reactions as well as the effect of the coup on the local media.

By MOHAMMAD SALEM and JACKSON ALLERS

Troops loyal to the military junta guard Mauritania’s state radio and TV, which was seized in the first hours of the coup. © Mohammad Salem

NOUAKCHOTT, August 7, 2008 (MENASSAT) – Respecting a long-held African tradtion, the army generals who overthrew Mauritanian President Abdallahi on Wednesday headed straight for the state radio and television building, where they sacked and arrested the manager, Kabir Ould Hammoudi.

Hours later, the putschist generals had state TV broadcast a statement promising that free and transparent elections will be held in the country soon.

Sources said the seizure of the state broadcaster was an obvious bid to control any outflow of information. It came on the heels of the arrests of elected president Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, Prime Minister Yahya OUld Ahmed Waghf and other top officials.

The coup was led by Army General Ould Abdel Aziz, who had been fired by President Abdallahi earlier on Wednesday, together with tree other high-ranking military officers. Sources said that the dismissals were part of a move by the president to strengthen his grip on the army by appointing his own men to the top military posts.

Wednesday’s coup was bloodless and apparently interfered very little with daily life in the capital Nouakchott.

As Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Nouakchott, Mohamed Vall, reported, “There is no sight of any military presence in the streets except in front of the presidential palace and the TV and radio stations. There isn’t even a curfew here. This situation is calm, people are going about their usual business.”

International condemnation

Nevertheless, Mauritania is now one again a country under military junta rule. The rebels announced on Wednesday afternoon that an 11-member council would be appointed to ensure the functioning of the state institutions until presidential elections are held. No date for these elections was specified.

Demonstrators in the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott hold pictures of deposed president Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi. © Mohammad Salem

International media have reported widespread condemnation of the coup. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said, “I deeply regret the overthrow of the government of President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi,” echoing a similar statement by the African Union and a call by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to restore the constitutional legitimacy of the presidency.

In front of the presidential palace in Nouakchott today, demonstrators chanted, “No to the Army, we support Sidi, the elected president!”

In response, coup leaders embarked on a public relations campaign through the former presidential adviser, Ahmad Baba Ould Ahmad Meskeh, who issued statements in support of the coup.

“The events of Wednesday were a correctional movement against [Sidi’s] corrupt regime,” an August 7 statement said, adding, “The military has managed to save the country over the years whenever there was a crisis that was caused by unjust rule.”

Reactions

On August 6 and 7, MENASSAT went to the streets of Nouakchott to gauge the mood. One young taxi driver said, “It was a good decision for the military men to control everything.”

A woman disagreed and said, “Sidi is the elected president and he had a right to sack any army commander he wanted.”

Some were not surprised by the coup.

Sidi al-Mukhtar told MENASSAT, “I was terrified, but at the same time I was expecting this.”

Amina, a trader in a central Nouakchott mall said, “The army deposed the regime of [former dictator Maaouya Ould Sid’Ahmed] Taya in a coup in 2005, and they basically brought Sidi to power. So they took him down too. I don’t think there’s any need to panic or be surprised.”

But Mohammad Ould Mohammad Mbarak, a leader in the government-aligned Tawasol (Communication) Party, said it was a dangerous move, especially given the positive developments made by Mauritania since 2007.

“We lost three years and three days. The army has set us back,” he said.

“Let me be clear in my opposition of the coup. It is also imperative to boycott the elections under this illegitimate regime. The situation is no longer acceptable when a military man changes an elected civil regime in less than an hour.”

On Thursday, four Mauritanian political parties aligned with the government held a sit-in in front of the parliament building in Noukchott. The ADEL Party, the National Collective for Reform and Development, Tawasol and the Progressive Forces Union said they were forming a “united front against the coup” and immediately began lobbying foreign embassies for support.

Newspapers blocked

Reuters reported that riot police used tear gas to disperse a demonstration by supporters of the president on Thursday.

Earlier, AFP reported that around 1,000 people also marched through the capital in support of General Aziz, bearing giant portraits of the general and chanted “Aziz, Aziz” as they marched to the presidential palace.

Apart from the takeover of the state broadcaster, the coup also had an impact on other Mauritanian media.

A number of Mauritanian newspapers failed to publish on August 6 after General Aziz’s troops blocked the road leading to the only printing press in the country, which is owned by the state.

Newspapers blocked from publishing quickly resorted to the Internet, and many Mauritanian news websites witnessed unprecedented traffic in the hours and days following the coup, several editors said.

Journalist Sidi Ahmad Ould Bab, editor-in-chief of the online newspaper Al Akhbar, told MENASSAT, “Those weeping for the loss of democracy now are fooling themselves. Everyone knows Sidi Ould Al Sheikh Abdullahi was not the real ruler of Mauritania, and that it was Ould Abdul Aziz all along. So nothing has changed really.”

But Fatima, a university student, said she worried about the reaction of the international community. “They already don’t give us any attention. Things will be even more complicated now.”

Indeed, international supporters of the deposed president, including the European Union, have already said that $241 million in previously pledged aid could be in jeopardy if democracy is not restored in Mauritania.

(Jackson Allers contributed to this story from Beirut. Mohammad Salem reported from Nouakchott.)

B’Tselem, a Jerusalem-based NGO, released video footage this week of a handcuffed Palestinian detainee being shot in the leg by an Israeli soldier. It is part of a new trend to use video to document abuses against Palestinians by Israeli soldiers and settlers.

By GEORGE N. RISHMAWI
Posted July 25th, 2008

The video of Ashraf Abu-Rahma being shot in the knee by an Israeli soldier was shot by a 14-year-old girl on her cellphone. © B’Tselem

NI’LIN, West Bank, July 25, 2008 (MENASSAT) – On July 20, Jerusalem-based human rights group B’Tselem released video footage showing an Israeli soldier shooting a handcuffed Palestinian detainee in the knee with a rubber-coated steel bullet.

A 14-year-old Palestinian girl, Salaam Kanan, shot the footage two weeks earlier in the West Bank village of Ni’lin, using nothing but her own cellphone camera.

B’Tselem, also known as the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, decided to go public with the information after it had sent the footage to the Israeli army in early July to no effect.

No army investigation into the incident was launched, nor were the soldier or his commanding officer relieved from active duty. Villagers in Ni’lin reported seeing both soldiers on duty after the shooting incident.

Shooting back

To human rights groups like B’Tselem, the Ni’ilin incident is further proof that abuse that is not recorded often goes unpunished.

It is the reason why B’Tselem launched its “Shooting back” project last year.

For a long time. Palestinians have been complaining that many Israeli abuses in the Occupied Palestinian Territories go unnoticed. On the ground, critics blamed the media coverage and what Palestinians see as a biased narrative that dominates any coverage of the events.

The Arab media are full of eyewitness reports of settler and army abuse and human rights violations in the West Bank. Unfortunately, the vast majority of these atrocities are not supported by photographic evidence. The bruises and cuts on people’s bodies are not sufficient evidence to get the Israeli authorities to act.

Organizations like B’Tselem are trying to change this picture. As part of the “Shooting Back” project, B’Tselem has distributed one-hundred cameras to a number of Palestinians in the West Bank, especially those living in remote villages.

The project was launched in January 2007, with an initial focus on the Hebron area, and subsequently spread to all of the Occupied Palestinian territories.The project aims to bring the reality of the lives of Palestinians under military occupation to the attention of the Israeli and international public, exposing and seeking redress for violations of human rights.

Apparently these little cameras are doing their job.

Since the launch of the project, a significant number of tapes have been sent to B’Tselem from various sources. Just a few of them have gained widespread attention because, according to Oren Yacobovich, program coordinator at B’Tselem, the media choose to air only the most extreme and violent ones.

On its website, B’Tselem features some of the videos it has received. Most is from the Hebron area, where civilians face almost daily abuse from Israeli settlers. There is also footage from the village of Qalqilia. And since last Sunday, there is 14-year-old Salaam Kanan’s cellphone footage from Ni’lin.

Israeli investigation

On July 7, Ashraf Abu-Rahman had been taking part in a demonstration against the ongoing construction of a “separation barrier” around the village Ni’lin.

Ni’lin had been a hotspot for several weeks. Last month, it had been placed under Israeli curfew for four days after protests by villagers, international activists and Israeli sympathisers against the expropriation of village land for the building of the separation barrier and the extension of the neighboring Israeli settlement of Modi’in.

Ashraf Abu-Rahma, an active member of the Ni’lin Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements, had been arrested three times before.

[IPS has an interview with Ashraf Abu-Rahma which is available here.]

According to IPS, when Salaam Kanan pointed her cellphone camera at Abu-Rahma, he had been arrested, beaten up and forced to sit blindfolded and handcuffed in the sun for three hours before he was shot.

“I thought I was going to be arrested but not shot,” Abu-Rahma told IPS.

This week, Israeli media said an investigation was being launched against the soldier, who was detained on July 21 but released the next day.

When questioned by investigators, the soldier stated, according to press reports, that the battalion commander had ordered him to shoot the detainee. The commander, however, admitted only that he had ordered the soldiers to frighten the Palestinian.

Israel’s Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, promised a full inquiry.

“The Israeli military will investigate the incident, learn its lessons and hold those responsible to account,” Barak said. “Warriors do not behave like this.”

Video power

For B’Tselem, the Ni’lin incident is just one of many.

Last June, one of its cameras caught four masked Israeli settlers beating Palestinian farmers with baseball bats because they refused to move from the land where they were tending their sheep. The farmers, a man and his wife with their nephew from the Al-Nawaja family in the village of Susiya near Hebron, suffered moderate injuries to different parts of their bodies.

According to B’Tselem’s Yacobovich, “Palestinians who file complaints against settlers or the army have to go through heavy bureaucratic procedures, and usually do not receive any attention, which makes them hesitant to do so. The presence of a video and media scrutiny, however, forces the authorities to take them seriously.”

“B’Tselem also uses these videos as a tool in filing complaints and as powerful supporting evidence in court cases,” he added

The fact that incidents of soldier or settler abuses against Palestinians have been rarely reported or documented meant that these abuses often happened with impunity. According to B’Tselem, using video documentation has been a means of redressing this imbalance of power.

Sarit Michaeli, another spokesperson for B’Tselem, told The Guardian, “I see no better way of encouraging accountability among members of the security forces.”

(George N. Rishmawi is the founder of the International Middle East Media Center, IMEMC.)

Denied basic human rights, refugee children are growing up in an environment of injustice, poverty, lack of education and carrying great psychological burdens. On World Refugee Day 2008, MENASSAT’s Simba Russeau takes a look at the children of Iraqi refugees in Lebanon.

By SIMBA RUSSEAU
Posted on June 20th, 2008

Iraqi children at a center in Southern Beirut play in the courtyard in between classes. © Simba Russeau

BEIRUT, June 20, 2008 (MENASSAT) — Millions of refugee children around the world suffer from and witness some of the worst forms of violence committed either against them or the people they love during war.

Eventually it becomes a way of life.

Ali, 14, came to Lebanon two years ago with his parents and five brothers after fleeing Baghdad after their lives were threatened.

“The conditions were very bad,” says Ali. “The crime. They would slaughter people in front of our eyes.”

“If you were Shia and wandered into a Sunni neighborhood then they would kill you. And if you were Sunni in a Shia neighborhood then you would be killed,” adds Ali.

Ali told MENASSAT that his family decided to leave Baghdad despite the fact that they had no car to get to the border.

The trip was an arduous one having to make a good portion of the journey by foot until a car was willing to pick them up and travel to the Syrian border. Eventually, they made it to Syria and beyond – entering Lebanon illegally via taxi.

In a 19-page report titled, “Trapped! The Disappearing hopes of Iraqi Refugee Children,” the aid organization World Vision warned of a lost generation of Iraqi youth in 2007.

World Vision has released two reports highlighting the plight of Iraqi youth in Jordan and based on interviews with children the organization estimates that out of 10 million refugees worldwide, up to five million of these refugees are children.

“To preserve the young generation growing up today, we need to shield children from violence, enhance humanitarian access and provide more resources targeted to children’s specific needs,” World Vision says.

According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), nearly 50,000 Iraqis are fleeing across the border each month. Estimates put the number of Iraqi refugees in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon at more than two million.

As many as half, of the estimated 50,000 Iraqis in Lebanon are children.

Catching up

Residing in a mainly Shia suburb of Beirut, Ali is one the few Iraqi children with access to education.

“I am learning to read, write and how to use the computer here in Lebanon,” says Ali. “We can go outside and play in Lebanon. In Iraq we couldn’t. I would rather go back to Iraq because here the kids pick on us because of our refugee status.”

© Simba Russeau

Access is limited in Lebanon’s overcrowded public schools and private schools are too expensive for most refugees. Those already enrolled in schools face the risk of dropout due to differences in curriculum.

“English is by far the most difficult subject for my children in school. By the time we came to Lebanon, before the war in 2001, my children had been out of school for nearly two years,” says Fatima, a mother of five from Basra.

“Transport is so expensive here. It’s nearly US$50 per month,” she said. “I can’t afford that. I would rather not eat or drink if it means my children could go to school. Not going to school is like being put back in time.”

A recent survey by the Danish Refugee Council found that only 40 pct. of Iraqi children living in Lebanon have pursued studies after elementary school. More than half of the 560 households interviewed did not send their children to school.

“They are unable to be put inside of a structured learning environment at the moment,” says Robert Beer, Education Project Coordinator for the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) in Lebanon. “What these children need is an intensive program 5 or 6 days a week.”

The Norwegian Refugee Council opened an Education Resource Center to support the Iraqi refugee community in providing intensive learning to Iraqi children. And one element of the assessment is providing mental health services and treatment.

“What we do is we academically test children through the center,” says Beer. “So they come in for a half a day’s academic and behavioral assessment. And then we create an individual file on each child and then the idea is that we then tailor an academic program to filling in the gaps in their education so that they are enabled to perform at a mainstream Lebanese school.”

Violence

“Iraqi children have faced problems because of the Iraqi violence,” says Charles Nasrallah, Director of Insan Association in Lebanon. “Here in Lebanon they are also facing problems of not being welcomed.”

Iraqi children preparing for math class. Beirut, Lebanon. © Simba Russeau

Since the US-led invasion of Iraq, more than 12 pct. of the refugees that have fled to Lebanon say they were kidnapped, threatened or experienced traumatic events, according to the Danish Refugee Council.

Sitting in the courtyard of her school day Hanin, 14, has already had a traumatic life. Hanin fled Baghdad with her mother and brother after witnessing the death of her father.

“I’m not happy nor sad,” says Hanin. “They poured gasoline on my father and set him on fire.”

Grace period

Life is anything but stable for Iraqis residing in Lebanon. Many live in hiding for fear of being discovered by the Lebanese authorities.

“I was afraid for my brother,” says Hanin. “He was detained in prison because he didn’t have the legal papers to stay in Lebanon.”

Kids in the courtyard after school. © Simba Russeau
Lebanon is not a signatory to the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees.

According to a Human Rights Watch report released last December, “Rot Here or Die There: Bleak Choices for Iraqi Refugees in Lebanon,” Lebanon has the largest number of refugees and asylum seekers in detention in the region.

The Danish Refugee Council found estimates that nearly 77 pct. of the roughly 50,000 Iraqis in Lebanon entered the country illegally. Unlike Jordan and Syria, which host the majority of Iraqi refugees, Lebanon has a policy of detaining Iraqis who are in the country illegally.

Hope came on February 17th of this year when the Lebanese government announced plans to regularize the status of illegal Iraqi refugees in Lebanon. For a period of three-months Iraqis were given a grace period to legalize their status by locating an employer to sponsor their prolonged stay in the country.

Caritas Lebanon was successful in securing the release of 177 Iraqis who had been detained and the UNHCR was able to get them another employment extension to search for a Lebanese sponsor.

UNHCR and Caritas paid the $633 regulations fee to the government to pay for their release. According to Caritas many Iraqis found it difficult to get Lebanese interested because they don’t know anyone.

The grace period ended on June 16, 2008.

The July 26 beach bombing in Gaza City has effectively ended a fragile media pact between Fatah and Hamas. MENASSAT looks at this week’s crackdown by Hamas on Palestinian journalists affiliated with West Bank media.

By OLFAT HADDAD and JACKSON ALLERS
Posted July 31st, 2008

R.R.
GAZA, July 31, 2008 (MENASSAT) – “In the end, it is the journalists who are the victims of this latest clash between Fatah and Hamas,” Imad Eid, head of the Gaza office of the Ma’an News Agency, said yesterday.

Eid was arrested in the middle of the night on July 30 because of a complaint that accused him of falsely publishing a story about the closure of a charity in Gaza.

“My agency should have been summoned,  not me personally. This is not a civil case,” Eid said.

Eid was only one of many Palestinian journalists who were caught up in an unprecedented internal round-up of journalists by Hamas, following an explosion on a crowded Gaza City beach on July 25, which killed six people and wounded twenty others. Five of the dead belonged to Hamas’ military wing, the Al-Aqsa Brigades.

Tit-for-tat

“The current situation is very difficult for journalists who have no choice but to carry on with their job to uncover what is really happening”, Eid told MENASSAT.

Among the journalists arrested by Hamas this week was the Head of the Syndicate of Palestinian Journalists in Gaza, Abu Khussa.

Since his release, Abu Khussa says he has working working to stop the harassment of journalists in both the West Bank and Gaza by dealing directly with the security forces allied with both Hamas and Fatah.

“Three journalists were arrested by [Fatah] security forces in the West Bank, and we are still doing our best to release them. We still can’t effectively contact the de facto government in Gaza,” Khussa said.

Hamas, Khussa said, has “overreacted” and “has crossed the boundaries of press freedom” in the past week.

The internal conflict between Fatah and Hamas began in earnest after Hamas’ 2006 parliamentary election victory over Fatah. It exploded in full force during the summer of 2007 when Hamas, in what it said was a preemptive move against a coup by Fatah, took control of the entire Gaza Strip.

Ever since, Hamas has been the de facto government in Gaza, while Fatah and the western-backed government of President Mahmoud Abbas control only the West Bank, with both groups claiming to be the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people.

The stand-off quickly led to a media war in which journalists working for Gaza-based media were arrested in the West Bank with the reverse occurring in Gaza. According to Reporters without Borders, more than 50 journalists have been arrested in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank since Hamas‘ Gaza takeover.

Pax media no more

Since the last flare-up of tensions between Hamas and Fatah in March, there had been a more reconciliatory tone between the rival factions.

In a speech broadcast on June 4, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called for dialogue with Ismael Haniyeh, the ousted prime minister and leader of Hamas. The next day, Haniyeh called for an end to the media smear campaigns. The pro-Hamas media immediately stopped referring to the Palestinian Authority’s security forces as “Abbas’ gangs” while the pro-Fatah media stopped referring to the Executive Force in the Gaza Strip as the “Hamas militia.”

But after the July 25 car bomb, any talk of a media peace was quickly forgotten.

Hamas immediately turned to the pro-Hamas TV station, Al-Aqsa, implying that Fatah planted the bomb. Fatah responded in kind on July 26 through the official Palestine TV, suggesting that the bomb was probably the result of inter-factional fighting within Hamas.

On the night of July 25, Hamas shut down the Gaza office of the Fatah-backed official Palestinian news agency, WAFA.

That same day masked security agents arrested Sawah Abu Seif, a cameraman with the German broadcaster ARD TV, who was released today.

Over the last week, Hamas security forces also arrested Amro Farra, a correspondent with WAFA, and Fouad Jarrada from the pro-Fatah government TV station. Hamas also raided the Gaza media center which is the headquarters for several international media outlets like Abu Dhabi TV, Fox news and Sky news.

The three main Palestinian newspapers, Al-Hayyat Al-Jadida, Al-Ayyam and Al-Quds, all of which are aligned to some degree with the Palestinian Authority, are not being distributed in the Gaza Strip.

Two journalists, Mu’stafa ‘Sabri and’Alaa A-Titi, have been arrested in the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah has banned the distribution of two Hamas newspapers, Al-Risala and Filistin, since 2007.

Hamas: ‘We encourage press freedom’

“What is happening in the West Bank and Gaza is huge”, the head of the Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights in Gaza, Issam Younes, told MENASSAT.

“We have action and reaction. Both sides are acting without any legal basis, and the abuses are affecting everyone, including journalists.”

A Hamas official in Gaza, Khalil Abu Layla, told MENASSAT, “We encourage ultimate freedom of press. If there was abuse it happened with individual cases perpetrated by police officers and it is not a policy of the government in Gaza.”

Abu Layla suggested that perhaps the journalists were arrested as part of the investigation for the July 25 Gaza City beach bombing.

“Perhaps they published false information,” Abu Layla said.

Fatah leader in Gaza, Hazem Abu Shanab said, “It is crucial for both sides to release all media workers and not make them part of any political clashes. We must make use of their voices in this situation.”

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces went on high alert yesterday. The alert was issued after the PA told the Jerusalem Post that Hamas distributed leaflets threatening top Palestinian leaders for “collaborating with Israel.”

According the PA, the leaflets specifically referred to President Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister Salaam Fayad, PLO executive committee member Yasser Abed Rabbo, top Fatah officials Azzam al-Ahmed and Ahmed Abdel Rahman, and senior Abbas advisor Tayeb Abdel Rahim.

The battle over diversity in the American media reached a head recently through a debate in the town of Burlington, Vermont, over whether to continue airing the award-winning news channel Al Jazeera English. Jalal Ghazi of New America Media was there.

By JALAL GHAZI
Posted on July 14, 2008

R.R.

BURLINGTON, VT, July 11, 2008 (NEWAMERICAMEDIA.ORG) – If you live in Israel, you can watch Al Jazeera English because its two largest cable systems, Yes TV and HOT Television, have bounced both CNN International and BBC World News in favor of Al Jazeera English.

If you live in Britain, you can also watch Al Jazeera English but you can’t watch FOX News because in the eyes of the British regulatory watchdog, Fox has failed to meet the minimum requirement of regulatory licensing laws of objective and neutral news. However, if you live in the United States, you can’t watch Al Jazeera because major American cable systems, including Time Warner Cable, Comcast and Fox Reality, have refused to carry Al Jazeera English

Townhall meeting

If Americans want to watch Al Jazeera, they must buy a satellite dish from GlobeCast, a division of France Telecom. Toledo, Ohio, is one of the only two American cities that offers its residents the opportunity to watch Al Jazeera on their cable system, the other being Vermont’s largest city, Burlington.

Recently, Al Jazeera English has been the center of a public debate in Burlington on whether it should stay in their city-owned cable system or be taken off the air. The residents that attended the public meeting were in a way the American jury deciding the fate of Al Jazeera for their town but symbolically for the United States. Al Jazeera understands the significance of this event, which explains why it was the main featured story of its media watch program, The Listening Post.

Al Jazeera English also sent two representatives to defend the television station: Al Jazeera English Managing Director Tony Burman and Josh Rushing, a former Marine spokesperson who served as a Marine Corps media liaison for 14 years before turning to Al Jazeera English. Rushing, who helped sell the war in Iraq to the American public as a Marine spokesperson, is now one of most effective spokesmen for Al Jazeera.

WATCH ‘THE TRIAL OF AL JAZEERA’ FROM AL JAZEERA’S LISTENING POST

The controversy over Al Jazeera English started in May when Burlington Telecom’s General Manager Chris Burns decided to drop the channel from the municipally-owned telecommunications company due to the large number of complaints. However, Mayor Bob Kiss demanded that the channel not be pulled out until city residents had a chance to express their views.Two separate forums were organized in late May and mid-June where citizens were given a platform to express their views about Al Jazeera English before Burlington Telecom’s two oversight committees: the Telecommunications Advisory Committee and the Cable Advisory Council.

Heated debate

On June 26, Burlington Free Press.com reported that the two oversight committees jointly and unanimously recommended that the city-owned cable system maintain Al Jazeera English. In their recommendations, the committees said that much of the testimony against Al Jazeera English at the two heavily attended public forums seemed to have been “based on secondary sources,” and that there was no evidence that the station condones terrorism, anti-Semitism or calls for the destruction of Israel. Such accusations were made by the Israel Center for Vermont and the Defenders Council of Vermont.

The public debates were very heated but in the process they brought to the surface a very important point. The Vermonters who defended Al Jazeera were not necessarily doing so only because they want to hear the Arab perspective on major world events, but rather because they saw Al Jazeera’s award-winning news program as a viable alternative source of real news to mainstream television stations in the United States.

Rory O’Connor from Mediachannel.org told Al Jazeera English, “It is important to see the struggle that is going on now in Burlington as part of a larger struggle for media reform here in the United States, for voices, for more choices and for more diversity. It is not that people want to subscribe to Al Jazeera English so they will follow, let us say, the politics of Al Jazeera English. They want to get other viewpoints and unfortunately there are not enough diverse viewpoints available on the American television airwaves.”

Proud to be informed

Many citizens echoed this sentiment during the public debates.

One woman said, “I want to start by saying that I’m Jewish. In Israel, Al Jazeera English is one of the largest stations in the entire country. I sincerely hope that you think in terms of the freedom to listen to whatever is around.”

Another woman said, “I kind of take pride that Burlington is one of the only American cities that has Al Jazeera and that is because we stand for freedom. We stand for an informed public.”

Unlike most Americans, Vermonters who can watch Al Jazeera English in Burlington’s cable system have come to appreciate the value of getting diverse news.

Al Jazeera, which has 70 bureaus and now reaches the homes of more than 110 million people worldwide, has beaten entrances by BBC News, Sky News, Lisboa TV and the Phoenix Satellite Television Co., and won the award for “Best 24 Hour News Program” at the prestigious 48th Monte Carlo Television Festival on June 14, 2008.

Tony Birtley’s “Inside Myanmar - The Crackdown” won Best News Documentary and James Bays’ “Taliban Embedded” was awarded a second place in the category of Best TV Item.

The Best 24 Hour News Program award is a testimony that English Al Jazeera is setting a higher standard for global news, in the same way that Al Jazeera Arabic service has set a higher standard for news in the Middle East.

Everywoman

If Al Jazeera beat BBC and Sky News, then U.S. channels like Fox and CNN simply do not have a chance. If Al Jazeera English was shown in America, these channels would have to provide more in-depth coverage, and depend less on local or embedded journalists.

Al Jazeera also has proven to be a serious competitor to public broadcast service channels in the United States by providing in-depth reports about different parts of the United States. One episode of a program called “Inside U.S.A” talked about gentrification in Harlem, New York, bringing attention to the plight of African-Americas who are being uprooted from their homes and stores to make space for more well to do tenants from [Manhattan.]

Another episode of a program called Everywoman focused on the plight of U.S. ex-servicewomen fighting against health care bureaucracy, unemployment, and high housing costs.

Most importantly, Al Jazeera English offers a wide variety of global programs bridging the gap between people of different countries, religions and cultures. As an example, Everywoman programs often juxtapose the plight of women from different cultures, religions and nationalities. One episode juxtaposed the plight of American Muslim sorority sisters with the plight of beauty pageant contestants competing for the title of Ms. Senior America. Other episodes showed American cowgirls competing, riding rodeo bulls, and Muslim women competing in soccer and car racing games.

What is unique about these reports is the fact that they are made by reporters on the ground who are familiar with the areas they are reporting on.

Six to one in favor of Al Jazeera

In one episode of Everywoman, the Israeli reporter Shira Livi tells the story of a 28-year-old Bedouin woman Sara who lost custody of her seven children to her drug addict husband. Sara picked Livi, who is a Jewish Israeli reporter, to tell her story and she told it in Hebrew, not Arabic. Livi was able to capture the complexity of the challenges facing an Arab woman living inside a tribal society in the heart of Israel.

Regardless of any perceived notions one may have about Al Jazeera, if Americans are given an opportunity to watch Al Jazeera English like Vermonters in Burlington were, they will most likely respond positively.

Sandra Baird, a lawyer and university professor, told Al Jazeera English, “At those public hearings [in Burlington] one noticed that the people that came out were hugely in favor of Al Jazeera. I counted the speakers the other night. It was six to one in favor of Al Jazeera.”

According to Tony Burman, former editor in chief of the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) and now the managing director of Al Jazeera English, the station’s website gets around six million hits a week worldwide, and more than 60 percent of these hits come from the United States. Burman added that “a lot of Al Jazeera’s negotiations that are going on now are going quite well.” He attributed this to the fact that the television station is becoming better known among cable distributors.

The Burlington Telecom’s two oversight committees support Burman’s view.

In their recommendations, they noted that in the two heavily attended public forums they “witnessed a compelling preponderance of subscribers and potential subscribers requesting that BT not drop Al Jazeera English.”
(This article was republished with permission from New America Media, a subsidiary of Pacific News Service. Jalal Ghazi is the associate producer of the Peabody Award-winning show, “Mosaic: World News from the Middle East,” and writer of the column “Eye on Arab Media” for New America Media.)

The Palestinian Islamist movement, Islamic Jihad, says it has a new division of its armed Al-Quds Brigades - a cyberwar unit that claims it has hacked into the websites of several Israeli media outlets.By

By OLA AL-MADHOUN
Posted on June 20, 2008

Hassan Shakoura, former head of the Al-Quds Brigades’ cyberwar unit before his death in March 2007. © Ola Al-Madhoun

GAZA CITY, June 17, 2008 (MENASSAT) – The Palestinian Islamist movement, Islamic Jihad, has added a cyber-war division to its armed Al-Quds Brigades.

It was a response to years of attacks by Israeli hackers, and according to the Brigades spokesman, Abu Hamza, it equals the playing field in cyber-space.

“The Israeli’s have worked very hard the past few years on monitoring all the Palestinian websites, especially those of Islamic Jihad and Al-Quds Brigades,” Hamza told MENASSAT.

“They (Israeli hackers) hacked these websites and erased them from the electronic boards or even added indecent pictures to them,” he said.

Hamza told MENASSAT that the Brigades had to establish an e-media military unit “because we had to fight the enemy in the electronic media to resist being assaulted on two fronts – physically and virtually.”

‘E-martyr’

The e-media military unit told the London-based Arabic-language newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat in March that it had hacked several Israeli websites, uploading pictures on them of Al-Quds Brigades’ martyrs and songs associated with Islamic Jihad.

“We hacked the Yediot Ahronot and Maariv newspapers, and put pictures of our martyrs like Hassan Shakoura on their sites,” Hamza said.

Shakoura is said to have been the person in charge of the e-media military unit in Gaza up until he and two of his colleagues were killed on March 15 in northeast Gaza during a targeted Israeli missile strike.

The Brigades also claim to have hacked into some Israeli military sites and at least one site administered by the Jewish settler movement, as well as the Yisha news on Israel’s channel 7 website, although MENASSAT could not get confirmation of this.

The nuts and bolts activities of the group are less glamorous, monitoring what the Israeli government and its supporters are doing to counter the Palestinian resistance online.

Abu Hamza said that the e-media military unit doesn’t just work on breaking the security of the Israeli websites – both governmental and civilian –, but it is also “expanding its cyber-reach to include attempts at hacking and bugging the Israeli telecommunications network.”

“So far, these attempts have not succeeded,” he told MENASSAT.

Although MENASSAT was unable to get an Israeli reaction to these claims, what is clear is that the e-media military unit has an expanding network of programmers and IT volunteers willing to continue the work of men like Shakoura.

When asked if the assassination of Shakoura had affected their work, Abu Hamza told MENASSAT, “Shakoura had a major role to play in the electronic media war. But we never count on one person in al-Quds Brigades.”

“We still have many great leaders in the technology field. Despite our utter sorrow for the assassination of Shakoura, this couldn’t stop our work and determination in persecuting the enemy by hacking its positions online.”

Google Earth

Among Israel’s main security concerns with militants operating in the Gaza Strip are the rocket attacks that target settler towns in southern Israel, like Sderot and Ashkelon.

Abu Hamza said the experts in the unit had participated in these attacks, helping to locate the targets on e-maps.

“When the militants fire missiles on Israeli targets, they do so in collaboration with the experts of the unit who specify the military and political positions in the settlements. They also use Google Earth, which helps a lot,” he told MENASSAT.

Yediot Ahronot denies that the Al-Quds Brigades’ e-media military unit blocked its website or posted pictures of their martyrs on its pages. But Rony Shked, an Israeli journalist working with Yediot Ahronot, told MENASSAT that the newspaper was subject to constant cyber-attacks, and that despite the extreme security measures in place, Yediot’s website, ynetnews.net has been blocked in the past.

“We can’t know whether Israeli hackers attacked Hamas’ website or those associated with Islamic Jihad, but I can say that many Israeli websites have been attacked by Palestinian hackers,” he said.

Yediot reporter Roee Nahmias wrote in a March article about Al-Quds Brigades’ claims to have a hacker division, “Any group pointing to a unit dedicated to defacing websites does not necessarily indicate any operational sophistication, since any teenager with basic programming skills can do the same.”

However, a Palestinian living in Israel did lead a cell of Arab hackers from Lebanon and Saudi Arabia in targeting Israeli political websites, the Likud party website among them, as well as sports sites. And before his arrest in January, Israeli police said he successfully targeted several financial institutions.

Palestinians in Lebanon have been relegated to a sub-story in the larger Lebanese narrative. An innovative photography project, Lahza, seeks to change that by putting disposable cameras in the hands of children living in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

By JACKSON ALLERS

Six-year old Diana hassan Al-Arid, who took this picture in the Rashidiyeh camp,lied about her age to be in the project. © Zakira

BEIRUT, June 11, 2008 (MENASSAT) – Lahza is the Arabic word for glimpse. It is an appropriate title for a photographic project that documents moments of life in the 12 official Palestinian refugee camps scattered throughout Lebanon.

In this case, the glimpses are seen through the eyes of 500 Palestinian children ages 7 to 12 who were asked to take disposable point-and-shoot cameras out into the field.

The project was the brainchild of veteran Agence France Press war photographer Ramzi Haidar.

“I had this idea when I was in Baghdad, after the American invasion,” he told MENASSAT.

“Many children were left homeless as the U.S. occupation wore on. Those who didn’t go to school had nothing to do, and they used to gather around the spots where we journalists were hanging out. I thought: Why don’t we teach these kids something they could use to earn their living?”

A book and an exhibition

After several stints in Iraq, Haidar returned to his native Lebanon and launched the non-governmental organization Zakira in 2007.

“We couldn’t implement our ideas in Iraq for security reasons, and so I figured that the [Palestinian refugee] camps [in Lebanon] would be a good place to start,” he said, given that the Palestinian camps were Lebanon’s most marginalized communities.

Last Saturday, eighteen months after training the first group of Palestinian children in the basics of photography, Zakira was able to showcase the results with an exhibition and a book launch at the Medina theater in Hamra.

Razan Hussein Bagdani (9)

Razan Hussein Bagdani stands in front of her photo at the Lahza exhibition. © Zakira

9-year old Razan Hussein Bagdani snapped one of 141 photographs chosen from the nearly 14,000 that Zakira received during the course of the project.

“I photographed my brother, and a kid playing with a (remote controlled) car, someone pointing and a girl eating,” she told MENASSAT at the exhibition opening.

“The kids weren’t playing because they can’t play football in the camp,” she said, referring to conditions in the Chatila refugee camp, site of one of the most infamous massacres of the bloody 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war.

The pictures extend into all areas of camp life, from family portraits over shots of friends playing to pictures of gun-totting young fighters.

Manal Mostafa Diab (7)

Manal Mostafa Diab’s picture of the beach at the Rachidiyeh camp. © Zakira

There were also stark reminders of camp life like the image taken by 7-year old Manal Mostafa Diab depicting waves crashing on the beach against the backdrop of a graveyard, the whole thing seen through a window frame from inside an abandoned house.

Diab’s picture was taken in the southernmost Palestinian refugee camp Rashidiyeh, 8 km. south of Tyre. The camp is near the beach and is the closest Palestinian camp to what was historic Palestine.

‘What the children did really changed me’

As one photojournalist covering the exhibition opening told MENASSAT, “Look how technically perfect the photograph is… the way she purposefully chose the way it was framed. And with only a disposable camera.”

Indeed, technically speaking, the photographs challenge even the most trained eyes.

“I have often told some of the photographers who volunteered to help train the children: ‘You should go and learn from these kids. Get away from cliché photojournalism. Stick with your innocence instead of going for what will sell.’ And some of these trainers work with some of the big local newspapers,” Haidar told MENASSAT.

Beyond the technical considerations of the photography are the clear social implications of the work, particularly in Lebanon where countless versions of Lebanese history blame Palestinians for starting the civil war.

“As someone who is from Lebanon and who is used to seeing all the associations of bloodshed and death associated with the civil war and with the on-going conflict in Palestine, what the children did really changed me,” said Hanan Dirani, a third-year drama student at the Lebanese University who volunteered to help with the exhibition opening.

“What the children did was reject the narratives of this sadness – not just here but reject the sadness of Iraq and Palestine – mainly through a childlike perspective,” she told MENASSAT.

Still, she added, “I don’t think this will change how other Lebanese see the Palestinians. Maybe a few, but that’s it.”

10-year old Ahmad Bilal el-Haj Hassan’s picture of Mar Elias Street in West Beirut. © Zakira

Zakira founder Haidar says that such projects simply allow for another form of communication between the Lebanese and the Palestinian societies, which he says is going through a “cold phase” at the moment.

For the Lebanese, there is the stigma attached to the 3-month battle between the Lebanese army and the Sunni Islamist group Fatah Al-Islam, which was holed up in the northern Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr Al-Bared in the summer of 2007.

Segments of the Lebanese society blame Palestinians for allowing Fatah al-Islam into their camp. More than 400 people died in the 105-day siege of the camp, including 168 army soldiers.

Asked whether the project was giving the children false hope that they might be able to do something professionally when Lebanese law restricts Palestinians from holding over 70 jobs in Lebanon, Haidar told MENASSAT, “We will continue with what we can do, but not me nor anyone can solve the problems of an entire community.”

“At least we have been able to give them a moment, whether it is five minutes or a day or a month, and we will follow up with these children as more projects come our way. We gave them dreams and this is the best thing the deprived can get,” Haidar said.

Diana Hassan Al-Arid (6)

Diana Hassan Al-Arid’s picture of a horse in the Rashidiyeh camp. © Zakira

According to Haidar, the inspiration went both ways for all of the volunteers in the project. He told the story of a 6-year old girl, Diana Hassan Al-Arid, who lied about her age in order to participate in the project.

“The picture Diana took of the horse in Rashidiyeh… I said, if for no other reason I will continue with this project so I can exhibit this photograph.”

According to Zakira organizers, all the proceeds from the Lahza exhibition will be used as seed money for future media literacy projects.

? Click here for the full interview with Ramzi Haidar: ‘These pictures were inside the kids before they took them’

(The Lahza exhibition can be seen at the Medina theater in Hamra Street, Beirut, until June 14.)

AFP photographer Ramzi talks to MENASSAT about Lahza, a photography project which lets Palestinian children in Lebanon tell the story of their daily lives in the camps through pictures.

BY JACKSON ALLERS

Ramzi Haidar, founder of Zakira, at the opening of the exhibit Lahza. © Lina Sahab

MENASSAT: Did you get the idea from someone else – Wendy Ewald did a similar project with the children of migrant laborers in the United States?

RAMZI HAIDAR: «Not at all. I had this idea when I was in Baghdad, after the American-led invasion – after it fell to the Americans. Many children were left homeless as the U.S. occupation wore on. Those who didn’t go to school had nothing to do, and they used to gather around the spots where we journalists were hanging out. I thought - why don’t we teach these kids something they would use to earn their living?

«Before the invasion, there was a limited cadre of photographers. I thought we could implement our ideas in Iraq, but we couldn’t implement our ideas in Iraq for security reasons, and so I figured that the (Palestinian refugee) camps (in Lebanon) would be a good place to start.

«I thought about this plan in 2003 and we decided to put it to work around 2006. Even though we have volunteer photographers helping out – this project is not based on photographers, on the contrary. It is founded by a group of people who liked the idea and wanted to provide their services in Lebanon and in the Palestinian camps.

«This project is not only a camera and a photo. It needs an administration, planning, etcetera.»

MENASSAT: How does this exhibit affect Lebanese society?

RAMZI HAIDAR: «First, we should say that the Lebanese and Palestinian societies are interlaced, even if they are currently facing some tough times. There is constant communication. However, this communication is going through a cold phase.

«I mean, I think that the Lebanese have embraced our project, or maybe it’s better to say that no one rejected it. And it is a testament that most of those working on the project are Lebanese, not Palestinian.

«But of course, there have been so many within the camps that were integral to the project’s success, like the General Association for Palestinian Women who provided us with the place to work and the centers where we have been meeting with the children.»

MENASSAT: How did this affect the kids? Is it realistic to expect, with the restrictions of the society, that some of them will be able to do some of the things they want to do now? Are you giving them hope or false hope?

RAMZI HAIDAR: «Let’s talk about ourselves, not the Lebanese society as a whole. At least these kids became our friends and we are theirs. They accept us and we accept them.

«It is true we are not giving them everything, their fathers can’t even do that, neither can the society. But at least we give them “Lahza” (a glimpse) in the hope that we would meet them again in the future, especially since we have other projects and we won’t stop our relation with the kids. We will continue with what we can do, but not me nor anyone can solve the problem of a whole community.

«At least we have been able to give them a moment, whether it is five minutes or a day or a month, and we will follow up with these children as more projects come our way. We gave them dreams and this is the best thing the deprived can get.

«Let them dream, let them be happy for a moment.»

(He pulls 9 year old Ali from the Chatila camp close to him.)

«Ali, did you ever come to this place before – or to Hamra (West Beirut)?»

Ali: «No, this is the first time.»

«There are many examples like Ali. Palestinian refugee camps like Chatila and Burj al-Barajneh are only few hundred meters away from one another, some kids in Chatila don’t know the other camp, and vice versa.

«This does not even speak to the fact that some kids never leave their camps which are often located in cities like Beirut.

«Some kids from al-Rashidiyeh camp came to the exposition yesterday. They asked me if Chatila camp was far from here. This is problem in my opinion; it is a problem of the society and the whole population, and also the NGOs.

«There are many NGOs taking care of children and funding projects in the Palestinian (refugee) camps in Lebanon. But I wish they didn’t give funding; it would be better if they didn’t. No one gave us any money, yet we went through with this project.

«It is better if the NGOs don’t give them money because they often don’t do anything with it. I have heard countless stories from the children and the Palestinian run-associations in the camps in which they say that no one does anything for them.

«Money is being spent on bogus projects. In one and a half years, we worked on this project: 500 kids, 500 cameras, 13,500 photos were taken and all this without the help of anyone, except for the General Association for Palestinian Women, logistically speaking.

«Money ruins everything.»

MENASSAT: How did this project change you?

RAMZI HAIDAR: «It changed me in many aspects. First, it taught me patience. I learned to love kids even more. I mean, I have 3 kids of my own. But I didn’t feel as close to them as I do now, maybe because we live under different circumstances.

«I never felt that kids keep things inside of them in the ways that they do. They are so bright. I think these photos were inside the kids before they took them. They were in their memories and they expressed them with the camera.»

(The Lahza exhibit will run until June 14 at the Medina theater on Hamra Street in Beirut. A book of the children’s pictures is available at the show.)