Frontiers of Dreams and Fears
Written by Haitham Sabbah on 27. August 2006, 1842hrs // Part of Haitham Sabbah's adventure in Human Rights, Palestine, Video, War Crimes, Zionism // Other posts by Haitham Sabbah
This is the story of two Palestinian refugee girls whose grandparents were forced to flee from their homes in Palestine in 1948:
Hat tip: Robin
Award-winning Palestinian filmmaker Mai Masri’s
most recent worktraces the delicate friendship that evolves between two Palestinian girls: … Mona, a resident of the economically marginalized Beirut refugee camp and Manar, an occupant of Bethlehem’s Al-Dheisha camp under Israeli control. The two girls begin and continue their relationship through letters until they are finally given the opportunity to meet at the border during the Israeli withdrawal from South Lebanon. When the intifada suddenly erupts around them, both girls face heart-breaking changes in their lives.
This is the story of millions of Palestinians, including me. This is why I will never give-up my “Right of Return.”
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August 27th, 2006 at 6:16 pm
This is the story of two Palestinian refugee girls whose grandparents were forced to flee from their homes in Palestine in 1948: Hat tip: Robin Award-winning Palestinian filmmaker Mai Masris most recent work traces the delicate friendship that Read the rest
August 27th, 2006 at 10:16 pm
Never Say Die Charles Hypocrite Johnson Maher Y. Bousaba Saad Hariri: Byistehil - ب?ستا?? Frontiers of Dreams and Fears 202 Palestinians killed since beginning of operation ??Summer Rain? Wearing t-shirt with Arabic script in America means you are a suspected terrorist The Yellow Wind Racial and religious hatred
August 28th, 2006 at 6:42 am
“Award-winning Palestinian filmmaker Mai Masris most recent work”
It’s a nice doc. Actually it’s not her most recent work. this is round 2002. her most recent has to do with the israeli slaughter in leanon.
August 28th, 2006 at 7:10 am
My family PictureSara First time Painting (one year ago )My morning will be in a waiting roomHazardous Material!!!ShortcutsHidden Messages (part 2)Saad Hariri: Byistehil - ب?ستا??Frontiers of Dreams and Fears202 Palestinians killed since beginning of operation ??Summer Rain?
August 28th, 2006 at 10:40 am
I visited Dheisheh and IBDAA center http://www.dheisheh-ibdaa.net/ last year and had the chance to see the documentary in the media room. What I appreciated about the script was the two stage structure. First it guided us in the ordinary life of the young girls (ordinary as refugee camp life could be), something that an alien like me can stand. Then the shocking second stage: the key feature, really stunning for people that ignore (of want to) the meaning of occupation. Something you can’t forget.
August 28th, 2006 at 5:39 pm
You can find here http://www.hrw.org/iff/2002/traveling/frontiers-interview.html
an interview by Human Rights Watch with Mai Masri.
With deepest, most profound loss and grief I give the readers this paragraph from this aritcle:
But much has changed since I finished making Frontiers. In March 2002, the Israeli army invaded the major Palestinian cities and refugee camps. Dheisha camp was occupied and 600 people were arrested including many children who appeared in the film. I was also shocked to hear that Israeli soldiers had killed Manars grandfather on a street near his home. I had filmed him taking Manar to visit the remains of their destroyed village in Palestine. I will always remember him as the keeper of the keys and memories of the destroyed village.
My god in heaven, this grandfather was killed by the IOF. What did he do? He took his grand-daughter, Manar, to see her family’s home that they could not return to, HIS home, his ancestral home with HIS and Manar’s family’s breath still within the broken walls. She wanted so much to stay there, it was calling to her, just like the land calls to all up-rooted Palestinians. The earth, the grains of sand, given to the children of Shatilla through a barb-wired fence, to be treasured as they allow them to sift through their fingers. The injustices of the negative portrayal of the Palestinian people’s desire for a homeland SHALL be overcome by more works like this one by Mai Masri and by the daily struggles of the Palestinian people everywhere. One day, soon, Inshallah, Palestine WILL be free. In solidarity.
August 28th, 2006 at 9:51 pm
A powerful and moving video about two Palestinian refugee girls, filmed by Palestinian-American Mai Masri. http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2006/08/27/frontiers-of-dreams-and-fears/ And an interview with Mai Masri about the IOF’s inhumane brutality unleashed in Dheishe; they killed the grandfather. http://www.hrw.org/iff/2002/traveling/frontiers-interview.html And a history of Israel’s terrorcracy, an updated story by
August 28th, 2006 at 9:52 pm
http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2006/08/27/frontiers-of-dreams-and-fears/ This is the story of millions of Palestinians, including me. This is why I will never give-up my Right of Return. ( and a note from Nancy…. The grandfather in the film was killed later by IOF.
August 29th, 2006 at 12:11 am
Thank you, Robin and Haithem for posting this powerful and moving film.
September 9th, 2006 at 11:40 pm
Sabbah,
Do you have any flexibility on the issue of the right of return? I believe that a massive injustice was done to the Palestinians in 1948, that, indeed, Israel carried out an ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinian population, and that, ultimately, this issue must be addressed in order for a reconciliation between Israel and the Palestinians to take place. I also think it’s ridiculous to expect Israel to commit national suicide and allow 4 million Palestinians to return to their homes, turning Jews into a minority. It would also contradict the principle of 2 states for 2 peoples.
Could you accept the formula proposed by Gush Shalom?:
Both parties can reach a just and agreed upon solution for the tragedy of Palestinian refugees, based on these guidelines:
Israel will acknowledge its share of responsibility for this tragedy, and will accept, in principle, the right of return.
The refugees will be offered several possible venues of rehabilitation and compensation.
One of these venues will allow a limited number of refugees the right to return to the state of Israel, based on a formula that will maintain the Jewish majority in the state of Israel.
These positions do not offer absolute justice, but rather a formula that can be accepted by the majority of the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.
September 10th, 2006 at 12:14 am
Peter H,
I believe this might be acceptable by some, but not necessary by me. Why should I be the one who is given a compensation to leave, not them? Why should I care about maintaining the majority of Israelis?
Tell me, when someone comes and occupies your home which consist of ten rooms. He brings his friends and family to live with him, and 60 years later, he tells you: because I’m here for the last 60 years, I have the right to set conditions and to be nice with you and obtain peace, I’ll leave you are room to live in with your family, but I’ll keep the other nine rooms. And if you don’t like this solution, how about selling your house to me? And if you don’t accept, I’ll build a room for you somewhere far away from your forefathers home. Do you think you will accept?
Someone might say he will accept, because he is desperate and has no better option, but believe me, this will not be the end of it. If not him, his sons will one day go back and ask for their rights and so on.
There is no solution for unjust but just. And just says; give me back what belongs to me then I’m free to give you some of it or nothing at all. But don’t tell me “facts on ground”, because another fact on ground is the refugees who will never give up their rights or sell their land after all what they went through for decades all around the world.
September 11th, 2006 at 11:05 pm
Bottom line:
My father’s father’s father’s father’s father is buried on the land next to my house, and I am expectied to give this land over to the grandchild of someone who moved to Palestine in 1910, or to someone who moved here in 1990, from America, or Europe or Russia or Ethiopia, just because the Israelis want to keep a large demographic and therefore a large military pool and therefore continue my illegal occupation?
The Israelis don’t want to be a minority on someone else’s land?
Too bad.
I agree with Haitham. Give the land back to the Palestinians and let US decide if you can stay. It’s not the “Option to return.” It’s the RIGHT to return.
Just as they aren’t “human options.” They are human rights.
September 17th, 2006 at 7:24 am
[...] g me. This is why I will never give-up my “Right of Return.”
?? : http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2006/08/27/frontiers-of-dreams-and-fears
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September 28th, 2006 at 1:08 am
Haitham,
(Note: I realize you wrote this response a long time ago. I forget about my thread and am just returning to it. Sorry about the delay).
I agree that it is not fair for Palestinians to give up an unfettered right of return. On the other hand, demanding absolute justice is not always consistent with peace. As Noam Chomsky says, “Every treaty and other agreement I can think of has been a “compromise” and is unjust. Some are worth accepting, some not.”
The reality is there are virtually no Israelis who will accept the return of 4 million Palestinians. Even staunch critics of Israel’s militarism and occupation like Uri Avnery and Shulamit Aloni (who I consider myself very close to politically) would oppose this. I understand why you wouldn’t care about the continued existence of Israel, but, at the same time, you have to consider the wisdom of insisting on a demand that is fiercely resisted by the vast majority of Israelis, and, just as importantly, does not have international support. Outside Israel and the United States, there is an international consensus for a 2-state solution based on the 1967 boundaries; there is no such consensus for a mass right of return.
There is also the issue of the consequences of a mass return of 4 million Palestinians. How would a state with a Palestinian majority and a substantial Jewish minority (far more numerous than the Afrikaners in South Africa) function? Would the demographic composition of the state lead to perpetual conflict between Palestinians and Jew? Wouldn’t a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders be more likely to result in peace? I mean, it’s one thing to talk about rectifying injustice; it’s another to rectify injustice on such a massive scale and not really think about what it would mean for Palestinians and Israelis.
It should be pointed out that many people in Israel use the Palestinian insistence on a right of return to justify Israel’s barbaric policies in West Bank and Gaza. Supposedly, the Palestinians insistence on the right of return is proof of their desire to destroy Israel, and therefore proves Isreal has no “partner for peace”.
I don’t mean to say that the right of return is the only stumbling block to peace, that it somehow justifies Israel’s occupation and strangulation of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, or that Israel would suddenly start treating Palestinians with compassion if they adopted a more pragamatic attitude towards the right of return. Far from it. But I do think you have to wonder whether an absolutist approach to the right of return plays into Israels hands.
August 15th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
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