Posts Tagged ‘bbc’
BBC Three: Mixed up in the Middle East
November 14th, 2011 • 1 comment Awareness, Film & Documentary, News
Tags: bbc, BBC Three, Mixed Up in the Middle East, Reya El-Salahi, tv
Watch on iPlayer (UK) or Youtube (above)
Reya’s half Arab, half Jewish. Her parents fell in love across the Middle East divide, but she’s grown up in Britain. So what happens when she goes to Israel and the Palestinian territories for the first time?
-
Read Reya’s blog: Reya El-Salahi: Mixed Up in the Middle East
9pm Monday 14 November 2011 BBC Three Repeated 1.05am Tue / 4am Wed
BBC Press Office:
This is a journey of understanding for the BBC Three audience as Reya gets to meet people from both sides of the divide – whose shattered lives are the fallout from the conflict. Spending time with her own cousins, she’ll reveal how everyday life for them has been made shockingly different – often very dangerous – by the long-running hostilities they were born into. It’s a world away from the life she knows but one all too familiar for her ancestors. She’ll explore what the two sides have in common, as well as what divides them; and explore the prospects for peace as the Arab world undergoes its most radical change for generations.
Louis Theroux: My time among the Ultra-Zionists
February 4th, 2011 • Film & Documentary, News
Tags: bbc, documentary, israel, Louis Theroux, palestinian, Zionists
UPDATED: Informative ‘Behind the Scenes’ report with Executive Producer Nick Mirsky at Broadcast Now...
BBC 2 documentary with Louis Theroux [@Louis_Theroux], Ultra Zionists:
Louis Theroux spends time with a small and very committed subculture of ultra-nationalist Jewish settlers. He discovers a group of people who consider it their religious and political obligation to populate some of the most sensitive and disputed areas of the West Bank, especially those with a spiritual significance dating back to the Bible.
Throughout his journey, Louis gets close to the people most involved with driving the extreme end of the Jewish settler movement – finding them warm, friendly, humorous, and deeply troubling.
- BBC Breakfast: “I waited 10 years to make the film on Zionists”
- BBC Radio: Richard Bacon interviews Louis Theroux
- BBC Magazine – My time among the ‘ultra-Zionists’:
The anger and despair of the Palestinians at the settling of foreigners in their midst is palpable. Many say they would be happy to have Jewish neighbours but not while they don’t enjoy the same rights or have the same sovereignty. Towards the end of my stay, one of the settler security guards in East Jerusalem shot and killed a Palestinian man. Rioting was widespread and it seemed clear to me the country was close to a third intifada.
Not long after that I left Jerusalem, but not before I visited Yair again. Once again I found him friendly, likeable, and yet profoundly lacking in perspective of how his national aspirations were trampling on the rights of millions of Palestinians.
With the very vague possibility of peace on the horizon, I asked if he wasn’t worried about being told to leave.
“If they want they can take me by power and I’m going to come back illegally,” he said. “This is our land. You can come and kill us and do whatever you want. We’re going to die for this country.”
Read more…
- The Guardian interview: ‘I’m not that comfortable doing polemic’
- The Guardian TV Review:
The weirdest encounter was with a group of American Christians who had volunteered to pick grapes at a West Bank vineyard. “It’s a labour of love for the nation of Israel,” said one. Like Daniel, they seemed incapable of viewing the situation as in any way complex. In general, when Theroux goes on one of his adventures one is forced to admire his daft, naive courage. In this case I was left admiring his patience.
BBC Radio 4′s Afternoon Play: Escape from Gaza
January 14th, 2011 • Film & Documentary
Tags: afternoon play, Ahmed Masoud, bbc, Escape from Gaza, Justin Butcher, radio, radio 4
Broadcast yesterday as part of BBC Radio 4′s Afternoon Play series, “Escape from Gaza”, by Justin Butcher and Ahmed Masoud, tells the story of a small private odyssey. In summer 2009, Ahmed left his pregnant wife to visit his sick mother. An everyday occurrence for most, but Ahmed’s family live in Gaza.
Click here to listen online…
(45mins – available to UK listeners until 20/1/11)
Please email feedback to the play’s producer and director, Jessica Dromgoole, at jessica.dromgoole [at] bbc.co.uk
Justin and Ahmed worked together on the stage play “Go To Gaza, Drink The Sea“, a Palestinian/British theatre piece about the dignity, courage and suffering of the people of Gaza.
Egypt starts building steel wall on Gaza Strip border
December 10th, 2009 • News
Tags: bbc, egypt, gaza, tunnel, wall
Egypt has begun constructing a huge metal wall along its border with the Gaza Strip as it attempts to cut smuggling tunnels, the BBC has learned.
When it is finished the wall will be 10-11km (6-7 miles) long and will extend 18 metres below the surface.
The Egyptians are being helped by American army engineers, who the BBC understands have designed the wall.
The plan has been shrouded in secrecy, with no comment or confirmation from the Egyptian government.
The wall will take 18 months to complete.
For weeks local farmers have noticed more activity at the border where trees were being cut down, but very few of them were aware that a barrier was being built.
Read more at BBC News…
–
UPDATE – ex-US diplomat comments on the new ‘wall’: “Making an American ‘Impenetrable Underground Wall’ the Laughing Stock of the World—Leave It to the People of Gaza“
UPDATE #2 – AJE on the wall
Palestinians in Statehood Warning
November 5th, 2009 • News
Tags: abbas, bbc, clinton, erekat, palestine, peace, ramallah, settlements
Abbas (L), Erekat (R)
Saeb Erekat says it is a “moment of truth ” for President Abbas
Palestinians might have to abandon the goal of an independent state if Israel continues to expand Jewish settlements, the chief Palestinian negotiator said. At a news conference in the West Bank, Saeb Erekat said it was a “moment of truth” for President Mahmoud Abbas.
He said it might be time for Mr Abbas to “tell the truth” that a two-state solution “is no longer an option”. But Israel rejects a one-state solution as a demographic time-bomb that would make Jews a minority in the country. It may be time for President Abbas to “tell his people the truth, that with the continuation of settlement activities, the two-state solution is no longer an option”, Mr Erekat said in Ramallah.
Clinton row
His comments came as the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, sought to defuse Arab anger after she praised Israel at the weekend for making “unprecedented” concessions on settlement-building in the occupied West Bank.
Clinton tries to keep peace alive
Speaking in Cairo after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Mrs Clinton reiterated Washington’s call for an end to Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank. She had earlier praised the Israeli offer to temporarily limit construction in West Bank settlements to 3,000 additional housing units.
But Mr Erekat dismissed the offer, saying it only opened the door to more settlements in the next two years. “Israel has the choice, settlements or peace,” he said. Mr Erekat said Palestinians had made a mistake in the last round of talks by agreeing to negotiate without insisting that Israel settlement building be stopped, but he said this time would be different.
The alternative left for Palestinians was to “refocus their attention on the one-state solution where Muslims, Christians and Jews can live as equals”, he said.
He suggested that President Abbas might not stand for re-election if the two-state solution were no longer an option, the BBC’s Bethany Bell reports from Ramallah. In its push to restart peace talks, US President Barack Obama’s administration initially demanded a complete freeze on Israeli settlement building. But Israel has refused a total halt, particularly in East Jerusalem, where the Palestinians want to locate the capital of a future state.
In September Washington changed tack, pushing for a resumption of negotiations and saying it demanded no preconditions for the talks – a move which disappointed the Palestinians. After meeting Mrs Clinton, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit appeared to have softened his stance on the settlements issue.
Despite backing the Palestinians’ demand for a total freeze last week, he called for a resumption of talks.
“We have to concentrate on the end game and we must not waste time adhering to this issue or that as a start for the negotiations,” he said.
