Israeli and U.S. diplomats and Jewish groups are lobbying organisers of next month's Academy Awards not to present a nominated film (Paradise Now) about Palestinian bombers as coming from Palestine, an Israeli newspaper reports.
While the tag remains on the academy's Web site, the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he expected the film to be described as coming from the "Palestinian Authority" during the awards ceremony.
"Both the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles and several concerned Jewish groups pointed out that no one, not even the Palestinians themselves, have declared the formal creation of 'Palestine' yet, and thus the label would be inaccurate," the diplomat said.
Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel's biggest daily, said on Sunday that the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles and local Jewish groups were urging the academy to reconsider the national label.
Funny! Do Palestinians need to formally declare Palestine? Again? Ok, here is the formal declaration (dated November 15, 1988):
In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
Palestine, the land of the three monotheistic faiths, is where the Palestinian Arab people was born, on which it grew, developed and excelled. Thus the Palestinian Arab people ensured for itself an everlasting union between itself, its land, and its history.
Resolute throughout that history, the Palestinian Arab people forged its national identity, rising even to unimagined levels in its defense, as invasion, the design of others, and the appeal special to Palestine's ancient and luminous place on the eminence where powers and civilizations are joined. All this intervened thereby to deprive the people of its political independence. Yet the undying connection between Palestine and its people secured for the land its character, and for the people its national genius.Nourished by an unfolding series of civilizations and cultures, inspired by a heritage rich in variety and kind, the Palestinian Arab people added to its stature by consolidating a union between itself and its patrimonial Land. The call went out from Temple, Church, and Mosque that to praise the Creator, to celebrate compassion and peace was indeed the message of Palestine. And in generation after generation, the Palestinian Arab people gave of itself unsparingly in the valiant battle for liberation and homeland. For what has been the unbroken chain of our people's rebellions but the heroic embodiment of our will for national independence. And so the people was sustained in the struggle to stay and to prevail.
When in the course of modern times a new order of values was declared with norms and values fair for all, it was the Palestinian Arab people that had been excluded from the destiny of all other peoples by a hostile array of local and foreign powers. Yet again had unaided justice been revealed as insufficient to drive the world's history along its preferred course.
And it was the Palestinian people, already wounded in its body, that was submitted to yet another type of occupation over which floated that falsehood that "Palestine was a land without people." This notion was foisted upon some in the world, whereas in Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations (1919) and in the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), the community of nations had recognized that all the Arab territories, including Palestine, of the formerly Ottoman provinces, were to have granted to them their freedom as provisionally independent nations.
Despite the historical injustice inflicted on the Palestinian Arab people resulting in their dispersion and depriving them of their right to self-determination, following upon U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181 (1947), which partitioned Palestine into two states, one Arab, one Jewish, yet it is this Resolution that still provides those conditions of international legitimacy that ensure the right of the Palestinian Arab people to sovereignty.
By stages, the occupation of Palestine and parts of other Arab territories by Israeli forces, the willed dispossession and expulsion from their ancestral homes of the majority of Palestine's civilian inhabitants, was achieved by organized terror; those Palestinians who remained, as a vestige subjugated in its homeland, were persecuted and forced to endure the destruction of their national life.
Thus were principles of international legitimacy violated. Thus were the Charter of the United Nations and its Resolutions disfigured, for they had recognized the Palestinian Arab people's national rights, including the right of Return, the right to independence, the right to sovereignty over territory and homeland.
In Palestine and on its perimeters, in exile distant and near, the Palestinian Arab people never faltered and never abandoned its conviction in its rights of Return and independence. Occupation, massacres and dispersion achieved no gain in the unabated Palestinian consciousness of self and political identity, as Palestinians went forward with their destiny, undeterred and unbowed. And from out of the long years of trial in ever-mounting struggle, the Palestinian political identity emerged further consolidated and confirmed. And the collective Palestinian national will forged for itself a political embodiment, the Palestine Liberation Organization, its sole, legitimate representative recognized by the world community as a whole, as well as by related regional and international institutions. Standing on the very rock of conviction in the Palestinian people's inalienable rights, and on the ground of Arab national consensus and of international legitimacy, the PLO led the campaigns of its great people, molded into unity and powerful resolve, one and indivisible in its triumphs, even as it suffered massacres and confinement within and without its home. And so Palestinian resistance was clarified and raised into the forefront of Arab and world awareness, as the struggle of the Palestinian Arab people achieved unique prominence among the world's liberation movements in the modern era.
The massive national uprising, the intifada, now intensifying in cumulative scope and power on occupied Palestinian territories, as well as the unflinching resistance of the refugee camps outside the homeland, have elevated awareness of the Palestinian truth and right into still higher realms of comprehension and actuality. Now at last the curtain has been dropped around a whole epoch of prevarication and negation. The intifada has set siege to the mind of official Israel, which has for too long relied exclusively upon myth and terror to deny Palestinian existence altogether. Because of the intifada and its revolutionary irreversible impulse, the history of Palestine has therefore arrived at a decisive juncture.
Whereas the Palestinian people reaffirms most definitively its inalienable rights in the land of its patrimony:
Now by virtue of natural, historical and legal rights, and the sacrifices of successive generations who gave of themselves in defense of the freedom and independence of their homeland;
In pursuance of Resolutions adopted by Arab Summit Conferences and relying on the authority bestowed by international legitimacy as embodied in the Resolutions of the United Nations Organization since 1947;
And in exercise by the Palestinian Arab people of its rights to self-determination, political independence and sovereignty over its territory,
The Palestine National Council, in the name of God, and in the name of the Palestinian Arab people, hereby proclaims the establishment of the State of Palestine on our Palestinian territory with its capital Jerusalem (Al-Quds Ash-Sharif).
The State of Palestine is the state of Palestinians wherever they may be. The state is for them to enjoy in it their collective national and cultural identity, theirs to pursue in it a complete equality of rights. In it will be safeguarded their political and religious convictions and their human dignity by means of a parliamentary democratic system of governance, itself based on freedom of expression and the freedom to form parties. The rights of minorities will duly be respected by the majority, as minorities must abide by decisions of the majority. Governance will be based on principles of social justice, equality and non-discrimination in public rights of men or women, on grounds of race, religion, color or sex, and the aegis of a constitution which ensures the rule of law and an independent judiciary. Thus shall these principles allow no departure from Palestine's age-old spiritual and civilizational heritage of tolerance and religious coexistence.
The State of Palestine is an Arab state, an integral and indivisible part of the Arab nation, at one with that nation in heritage and civilization, with it also in its aspiration for liberation, progress, democracy and unity. The State of Palestine affirms its obligation to abide by the Charter of the League of Arab States, whereby the coordination of the Arab states with each other shall be strengthened. It calls upon Arab compatriots to consolidate and enhance the reality of state, to mobilize potential, and to intensify efforts whose goal is to end Israeli occupation.
The State of Palestine proclaims its commitment to the principles and purposes of the United Nations, and to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It proclaims its commitment as well to the principles and policies of the Non-Aligned Movement.
It further announces itself to be a peace-loving State, in adherence to the principles of peaceful co-existence. It will join with all states and peoples in order to assure a permanent peace based upon justice and the respect of rights so that humanity's potential for well-being may be assured, an earnest competition for excellence may be maintained, and in which confidence in the future will eliminate fear for those who are just and for whom justice is the only recourse.
In the context of its struggle for peace in the land of Love and Peace, the State of Palestine calls upon the United Nations to bear special responsibility for the Palestinian Arab people and its homeland. It calls upon all peace-and freedom-loving peoples and states to assist it in the attainment of its objectives, to provide it with security, to alleviate the tragedy of its people, and to help it terminate Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories.
The State of Palestine herewith declares that it believes in the settlement of regional and international disputes by peaceful means, in accordance with the U.N. Charter and resolutions. With prejudice to its natural right to defend its territorial integrity and independence, it therefore rejects the threat or use of force, violence and terrorism against its territorial integrity or political independence, as it also rejects their use against territorial integrity of other states.
Therefore, on this day unlike all others, November 15, 1988, as we stand at the threshold of a new dawn, in all honor and modesty we humbly bow to the sacred spirits of our fallen ones, Palestinian and Arab, by the purity of whose sacrifice for the homeland our sky has been illuminated and our Land given life. Our hearts are lifted up and irradiated by the light emanating from the much blessed intifada, from those who have endured and have fought the fight of the camps, of dispersion, of exile, from those who have borne the standard for freedom, our children, our aged, our youth, our prisoners, detainees and wounded, all those ties to our sacred soil are confirmed in camp, village, and town. We render special tribute to that brave Palestinian Woman, guardian of sustenance and Life, keeper of our people's perennial flame. To the souls of our sainted martyrs, the whole of our Palestinian Arab people that our struggle shall be continued until the occupation ends, and the foundation of our sovereignty and independence shall be fortified accordingly.
Therefore, we call upon our great people to rally to the banner of Palestine, to cherish and defend it, so that it may forever be the symbol of our freedom and dignity in that homeland, which is a homeland for the free, now and always.
In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful:
"Say: 'O God, Master of the Kingdom,
Thou givest the Kingdom to whom Thou wilt,
and seizes the Kingdom from whom Thou wilt,
Thou exalted whom Thou wilt, and Thou
abasest whom Thou wilt; in Thy hand
is the good; Thou are powerful over everything."
Personally, I'm happy about all this. Ask me why?
Well, regardless if the movie wins or not, this noise has created a lot of publicity for the film, the story, for Palestine and Palestinians, and shows how stupid some propagandas can be.
If I were in Hany's place, I would be happy regardless what happens next. Although I'm sure that Academy Awards will change the label soon, just watch it. A good suggestion would be 'Occupied Palestine' as Nas suggests.
After all, the film is against terror and killing innocents. This propaganda is indirectly helping the message reach, to all of us, Israelis and Palestinians, Muslims, Christians and Jews. What is more important than tagging, is peoples lives.
{ 16 } Comments
Hany Abu-Assad is Palestinian. Born in Palestine. Now what nationality he is holding, I don't care.
Bero Beyer – Screenwriter, Producer
Matthias Lempert – Sound/Sound Designer
Sander Vos – Editor
Uve Haussig – Sound/Sound Designer
Amir Harel – Co-producer
Antoine Heberle – Cinematographer
Hengameh Panahi – Co-producer
Sabine Franke – First Assistant Director
Hamoudi Buqai – Associate Producer
Lara Zoabi – Casting
Hany Abu-Assad – Screenwriter, Director
Gerhard Meixner – Co-producer
Roman Paul – Co-producer
Bashir Abu-Rabia – Art Director
Walid Maw'ed – Costume Designer
Olivier Meidinger – Production Designer
I'm not going to dig the nationality of everyone, but since you are concerned about Amir, he seems to be a co-producer!!!
Well, you wanna call it Israeli, go ahead, that does not change the facts. As I said before, tags is not an issue for me as far as the message reached.
If a Native American had a film before the Academy, nobody would be sneering if the Academy chose to call it Native American, Cherokee, whatever. So why the gripes over the native Palestinians have such a label.
As you state, Haitham, the label doesn't change the facts. But the facts are what the lobbies are trying to erase. To call it a film of the PA attributes the film to a governing body. No Israeli film would ever have its Nationality listed as the Knesset.
More belittling from the world's most practiced belittlers.
Palestine should stay. And its not as if the Academy just came up with the label and slapped it on. They probably deliberated for months over it. So, if they have any pride and courage, they will stick to it.
Films made in Bavaria are considered to have been produced in Germany.
Films made in Quebec are considered to have been produced in Canada.
Films made in California are still considered to have been produced in the United States.
and Films made in the "Palestine" region are produced in Israel.
This really isn't all that difficult to understand.
I think the more important lobbying that is going on around this film is the lobby to have it's nomination pulled. From what I understand (and I have yet to see the film, please correct me if I'm wrong), the film gives at best understanding and compassion to muderers and at worst it gives them international glory.
If we could remove the Israel-factor (which is so loaded) and try and imagine how, even as art, a film about the pre-meditation and preperation of murderers for their acts of violence can recive an award of any sort… I find it deeply troubling.
Ali -
And tea grown in occupied India used to be considered British.
And diamonds mined in South Africa used to be considered British, too.
And before that, the Dutch occupied.
And so because Israel occupies Palestine, everything that comes out of there (films, olives, dates, etc.) should be considered Israeli? Haven't they taken enough?
ys-
How about the 73rd Awards winner, "Gladiator"?
How about the 74th Awards nominee, "Black Hawk Down"?
How about the 75th Awards nominees "Gangs of New York" and "The Quiet American"? And the winner, "The Pianist"?
The 76th's Best Acress in a leading role, "Monster"
The 77th's "Motorcycle Diaries", winner for Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song) (a film about Che Guevara, a revolutionary, who, by today's standards would be considered a terrorist)
No pre-mediatated murders in any of these films. If there were… I'd find it deeply troubling.
The truth is, no matter what label is given this film or anything else Palestinian, the Palestinians will still be occupied by Israel.
I vote that we question everything that comes out of Israel. Every film, play, piece of music, oranges, mangos, wine, technology (military and civilian). Let's all hold it up to the same scrutiny as everything produced by the Palestinians. Let's all hold the Israeli government (past and present) up to the same standards as we do the rest of the world's leaders.
What's that? I can't hear you! The entire Israeli lobby is screaming in my ear so loud, it's drowning out the very thought of such of such a thing.
Ali – It is easy to understand your prejudices against Palestine. But impossible to accept.
…just as I understand why people used to believe the earth was flat.
I have a few questions I would like to have your views on. They are sort of hypothetical as they are not based on facts carved in stone:
As far as I know, whether a 'foreign' movie is eligible for the Oscars or not is based on some rules about New York movie theaters. I think there is something about that a 'foreign' film has to be premiered or featured in several New York movie theathers. A few years back there was a Hungarian movie that should have been showered with Oscars, in my opinion, but it was not eligible because the producers could not come up with enough cash to have the movie shown the right places. Do you know if there are such political/economical issues that could prevent the Palestinian/Israeli movie from being considered?
Isn't "Munich" eligible for Oscars? If so, could this be a smoke screen to prevent a discussion about why "Munich" 'forgets' to mention that Mossad killed an innocent Marokkan guy in front of the eyes of his pregnant Norwegian wife (I know for a fact that the Lillehammer murder is not mentioned)?
I have not seen "Munich" (and I am still to decide whether I will), so I don't know if it mentions that none or most of the assasined Palestinians had absolutely nothing to do with the Munich masacre or whether it questions whether it is legally defendible that the secret police of one country, Mossad, runs around and assasinate political opponents in other sovereign countries. That could bring up some 'nasty' publicity also regarding Mossad kidnapping Vanunu on Italian soil.
Maybe I am a bit too happy about the conspiracy theories, but as my economics teacher always said: "When a detective has to solve a murder he always asks who will inherit as the first question. It is the same thing with statistics, you should always ask who produced the figures and whether they have something to gain from it!". This has nothing to do with national economics, but it seems that there are some who would politically benefit from discussing the country label of a movie!
I am a bit dismayed, because even though "Munich" does admit to being 'fiction based on a true story' I think it could easily be argued as history forgery considering the 'power' of the commercial movie media.
Raymond,
Perhaps you'd care to explain this:
"Ali – It is easy to understand your prejudices against Palestine. But impossible to accept"
(though I can think of no rational explanation for such an unsubstantiated claim.)
Incidently, tea grown in India was always considered as such. It might have been British property, but the fact that it was Indian was a great selling point. "Exotic" and all that.
Why call Indian tea "British" in Great Britian? Wouldn't make much marketing sense would it.
And again, a film made in the Basq area would still be considered Spanish regardless of what the filmake might prefer.
You might consider an unblemished look at the facts of a case to be "prejudice", but the fact that you do only reveals your own prejudices.
As of this writing, Palestine is merely a geopolitical region of Israel.
All the wishing and name calling in the world cannot change that fact.
Nothing but a viable two state solution (that Hammas has derided) will change it.
It is easy to understand your prejudices against the facts of the case, Raymond. But not impossible to accept. You are free to them.
They can say it's from Hawaii for all I care. Where it came from will always be called Palestine, at least in my mind and the minds of the 1.2 billion muslims besides me and the many millions more who know Israel for what it truely is, a bastardized child of British/Zionist colonial marriage that continues to occupy Palestinian land and deny millions of Palestinians their right to return to their homes while expanding its settlements and emposing its apartheid on the remaining Palestinians inside.
What Israel hopes to do by silencing this movie is to help make sure the international community forgets that there is a place called Palestine and people called Palestinians who are being systematically exterminated. The problem is, there are 1.2 billion muslims out there who will never forget, unless Israel plans to help the world forget about them too and then wipe them off with the 50 or so nuclear heads that it has.
Does Israel want a claim over this movie, because, in your opinion, it was filmed in Israel? Far from it, because that's not really the issue, is it? The lobbies don't want to make this an Israeli film or a Palestinian film. They're upset that the film exists, and that it has met some acclaim, and so are trying to parse the origin of the film, to connect it with Hamas, the PA, or whatever they will.
Let's consider that Palestine is a geopolitical region of Israel. And Israel is a state, not a country. So then what? Nothing comes from Israel because it's a state? That wouldn't fly and you know it.
You're right about the British tea. There is a difference. Do the Israelis hawk their Jaffa oranges as exotic Palestinian produce? No, they market it – the wine, and olives, and apples and oranges as Israeli. The wine and apples are grown and produced in the Golan Heights, another bit of stolen land (from Syria). The orange groves of Jaffa were owned by Palestinians prior to 1948. The olives, well, we have seen thousands of dunums of olive groves expropriated from the Palestinians. All of it exported as "Product of Israel."
The Israelis have what they want, which is the land. Given time, they will push as many of the Palestinians out as they can and take more. As you said, wishing and name calling cannot change this fact.
So a film shot in Nablus by a Palestinian is labeled Palestinian. Where's the problem? Is there a huge problem? This film, in the grand scheme of things, will change nothing. So why the fuss?
And the "peace" you so fondly speak of was hardly derided by Hamas. If building a wall and thousands more settlements in the West Bank makes the Israelis peacemakers, then they are peacemakers to put Gandhi, Mother Theresa, and Martin Luther King, Jr. to shame.
Hamzeh -
Don't forget the many Christian Palestinians that share your plight, your struggle and your right to be called a Palestinian.
Raymond, I know, I'm sorry I should have made it more clear. I meant to imply that when I mentioned the "many millions more" besides muslims :)
p.s. I'm not from Palestine :) But hey, if Ethiopian, Russian or Polish people can become Israeli just because they're jewish, then sure, I wouldn't mind being called Palestinian since I'm muslim :p
Israel is a racist apartheidstate. That means that this state will do every immoral act possible: including minor ones as hijacking a film and claiming it is Israeli while in effect it is a proud Palestinian product to last for ages!
I'm in the middle of writing an expose about the Israel Project which sponsored the smear campaign against Paradise Now. In case anyone has access to the ad they ran in Hollywood Variety denouncing the film, pls. let me know. I'd really like to include an image of the ad in my post.
Hello All
I've seen the film in Canada and thought that it was a really good film; I did not find that it glorified the bombers; in fact I felt that it showed how the recruiters pray on the desperate youth who feel that they have no future. It also showed the confusion and despair that these two people had gone through.
As for Hamzehs comments regarding becoming a Palestinian just because you are a Muslim, As a non Muslim Palestinian I find these comments concerning, it seems that more and more people want to hide or even erase the fact that there is a huge Christian Arab population within Palestine and Israel and who have lost loved ones and land just the same as the Muslim brothers… Let’s not forget that the neighboring nations all except for Jordan never even issued passports to the Palestinian refugees, but suddenly they want to act and show how supportive they are? …give me break, the Saudis spends more money on European hookers than they do on the Palestinian people.
Please let’s stop trying so hard to make this a religious issue, this is not about Jew and Muslim is about two nations, if the Palestinians had been Buddhists the problem would still had been there.
Ali
I think that you need to get some facts strait, Palestine had been around long before 1948, and in fact both my parent's birth certificates have the government of Palestine seal. So there was and always will be a nation called Palestine. I just hope that both the Israelis and the Palestinians will except each others right to exists and start to live together.
Last but not least the film was made by a Palestinian in Palistine therefore it is a Palestinian film regardless of who holds the bigger gun.
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