Manar Makhoul On The Web

AL-NAKBA - Documentary Video (AlJazeera; English)

2011-01-08T21:50:00.002+02:00

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"The Erasure of Palestine"

2010-05-20T01:24:00.001+03:00

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"Hamas: The Islamic Resistance Movement"

2010-04-15T19:09:00.008+03:00

Book Launch:

Beverley Milton-Edwards
Stephen Farrell

"Hamas: The Islamic Resistance Movement"

Date and Time: 04 May 2010 - 16:00 - 18:00

Venue: Room 8+9, Department of Middle Eastern Studies, Sidgwick Avenue (CB3 9DA), Cambridge.

Declared a terrorist menace yet elected to government in a free election, Hamas: the Islamic Resistance Movement now stands as the most important Sunni Islamist group in the Middle East.

How did Hamas grow to be so powerful? Who supports it? What is its future? This essential insight into Hamas answers these questions.

Milton-Edwards and Farrell have between them spent decades researching and reporting from the heartlands of the Hamas movement and gained unrivalled access to the world of Islamic resistance and radical Islam in its potent Palestinian form.

Drawing on their frontline experiences of recent events, their access to secret documents from the western intelligence community and interviews with leaders, militants, and commanders of Hamas' armed battalions, they reveal the full story of Hamas and the future of political Islam in the Middle East.

Milton-Edwards and Farrell show Hamas to be a broad and thus more powerful regional phenomenon than previously thought, and by doing so contend that it is now time to rethink the war and the nature of Islam and its role in the Middle East.

Beverley Milton-Edwards is Professor in the School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy at Queens University Belfast. She is the author of books such as Contemporary Politics in the Middle East and The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: a People's War.

Prize-winning journalist Stephen Farrell is a Foreign Correspondent for The New York Times and was previously Middle East correspondent for The Times. He also runs the NYT’s At War blog covering Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com

Both authors will give an open talk at the department of Middle Eastern Studies, Cambridge.

The event is open to the general public.

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Cambridge Gaza Solidarity - Statement on Leaving the Law Faculty

2009-02-01T16:43:00.001+02:00

Statement on Leaving the Law Faculty

This is a statement from Cambridge Gaza Solidarity. We left the Law Faculty today at 11 a.m. with more than we came in with, but with considerably less than this cause deserves.

The threat of legal procedings and heavy-handed intimidation by the University authorities undermined what was a peaceful demonstration for an important humanitarian crisis.

When we occupied the Law Faculty we demanded that the University provide academic and humanitarian aid to help rebuild educational institutions in Gaza. We also demanded scholarships for Palestinian students. These reasonable demands have been rejected by Cambridge University despite their being granted by other UK universities. We note the willingness of these universities to engage in meaningful dialogue with their students, and we unreservedly condemn Cambridge University’s lack of moral courage!

Throughout the week we have been eager to enter into meaningful negotiations but have been continually frustrated by the intransigence of the university. Their offers (to be published soon) were inadequate considering the scale of the crisis we have attempted to aid. They have dragged the name of Cambridge University through the mud in their attempt to discredit a peaceful protest for a humanitarian cause.

We came here in solidarity with the people of Gaza who are still under occupation. Gaza is still the issue. This occupation was never an end in itself but the beginning of an active movement. Nationally these occupations have galvanized significant numbers of students and non-students who feel that their institutions have failed them – and failed the people of Gaza.

Thank you so much to all who have supported us. We invite everyone to a public meeting on Saturday to discuss how to take this campaign forward in Cambridge (time and place to be confirmed).

We did not fail. We were failed.

-Cambridge Gaza Solidarity

Meeting with the Proctor

2009-02-01T16:41:00.001+02:00

Cambridge Gaza Solidarity Occupation makes it clear to a proctor that they did not intend to disturb academic life in the Law Faculty.

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

2008-08-07T15:16:00.000+03:00

On Al-Jazeera English

2008-05-19T12:23:00.001+03:00

Actually, I am tired because

2007-07-02T21:58:00.003+03:00

It's 21:20 and I just woke up.

I came back home few hours ago, and I was very tired, so I had to lay in bed, so I fell asleep...

Actually, I am tired because I had a long day today: I woke up early in the morning, at around 5 o'clock, because of my brother's new dog, to whom I opened the door to go out to pee. After that my brother and I went to Haifa; this time in my car, and this time without an air-conditioner, and it was really hard to drive around all day like this. I had to do few things over there, and ended up very tired...

Actually, I am tired because I did not sleep at home last night. I slept at my brother's place, and we went to sleep a bit late last night...

Actually, I am tired because my brother (Amid) and I had a long day yesterday. We woke up early in the morning and went to a town in the south of Israel (near Gaza actually), and bought a dog, a little puppy, the one I told about earlier. His name is Booj. I will show you pictures when I have some...

Actually, I am tired because I was driving over there for (many?) hours and it was almost a constant traffic jam all the day, since we left Nahariya, where Amid lives, at such a time that later we got stuck at the busiest traffic jam in Israel...

Actually, I am tired because yesterday I was tired too, and this is because I did not sleep well the night before it...

So, actually, I am tired because the night before I was out with Reem and her friends who came to visit, and when we came back home we had a long chat until 4 in the morning about all sorts of issues that somehow ended up in Arab-girls and their holy vaginas !!!

that's why I'm tired, and that's why it's 21:30 and I just woke up.

[This item was part of an e-mail I wrote to my friend. I liked it and decided to publish it here].

Arab Sex

2007-06-03T20:08:00.001+03:00

This caught me in the shower few moments ago: A free society is a society constituted of free individuals, and if they were unwilling to free themselves, nobody will. In other words, If the individuals who constitute a society cannot liberate themselves from society itself, don't expect this society to be able to liberate itself anywhere. so I say: Unmarried Arab boys and girls: Have Sex!!!

The the most principal and basic freedom people have, and in Arab society SHOULD have, is the freedom on your own body. If you cannot claim this freedom and liberty from the intervention of the society over your use of your own body, don't stand up and shout for other liberties, since you did not free your own self in the first place.

New Post

2007-05-24T00:07:00.001+03:00

!!! Censored !!!

Welcome to Hell Now

2007-01-10T02:42:00.000+02:00

Enas Muthaffar (Assistant Director of Hany Abu-Assad) awarded me a copy of the 2005 Palestinian movie "Paradise Now", which won many international awards (and was the first Palestinian movie to be nominated for the Academy Awards). And Stephen Farrell of The Times filmed himself in Baghdad, and launched his first video-diary today (Jan. 9), which he entitled "Iraq Diary: Welcome to Hell."

One could easily dismiss a comparison between these two videos, since they are very much different in almost every aspect: genre, length, location, speaker and title. The first is a movie, the other is a video-diary clip; the one is 1.5 hours long, the other is no longer than a few minutes; one was filmed in Palestine/Israel, and the other was filmed in Iraq; the first made by the locals, and the other made by a foreigner.

But they are much more similar than we might think, because they tell us a similar story. It is interesting, for example, that the two movies shared similar themes for their titles. Here, Paradise and Hell are not as contradictory: The two Palestinian guys who live in Hell have to kill themselves in order to reach Paradise.

Reaching Paradise this way seems to be negative, even for them. One of them, who was enthusiast about it during the most parts of the movie, withdrew at the end. For the other, it was rather his personal disgrace (for being the son of a collaborator) that pushed him to carry out the operation, not really his national cause, which he tries to wrap his 'willingness' with. But all in all, this is a story of no hope, no alternative, no future- Hell. This is a movie that makes you think about the question of alternative in a place which gives you [almost] no alternative. Here lies the greatness of the movie- it addresses a very sensitive topic without determining its position about it, it leaves polemics to you, the viewer.

As for the second video: These are the bits of humour in Stephen Farrell's video-diary that actually expose us to the craziness and insanity of the place called Iraq.

This is where we live and this is our discourse - it is embodied in the titles of these two videos. Damn.

Contemporary Arab Students

2006-09-11T01:13:00.002+03:00

Why" students" not intellectuals?

First, not all students are intellectuals; Second, because Arab students are of three types: the "student-student" and the "student-intellectual" on the extreme ends; and the "typical Arab student" fill the space in the middle.

Those of the first type are few and rare, not so common in day-to-day life, but they are existent in the imagery. If you see one, you'll recognize him. He is the basic, the common, the typical wanna-be Arab student.

He has poor social life, and the some he has he shares with likewise student-student Arab students. He usually studies Education, Social Work, History or Middle Eastern Studies, and you will usually see him going in or out of the library, carrying books, in Arabic, with him. That's good, because the bulk of Arab students barely read, but let's leave that for another occasion. The downside of it is that you might think that he is a reader, i.e. an intellectual, but the fact is that he isn't. He is tied, locked in his image about himself, the image that has been drawn in his mind about how a student should look like, and he is so concentrated in being the image of what he wants to look like, that he has no chance to becoming a real student, an open minded one. He is a failure. He is actually because he has no chance. No chance to grow, to develop, to leave the cell that has been allocated for him.

The other species of Arab students, on the other hand, is the exact same. Where the typical student-student Arab student is locked exactly in the spot that he has to occupy in his society, the intellectual-student Arab student is totally and utterly locked as an external to his society. a total stranger. He surely might, as he is an intellectual, be aware of that, but he works hard to preserve that image about himself, in his own eyes and the eyes of the society. They are surely brilliant. But they are hopeless. Totally wasted.

Both types do not promote their society in an inch. (The rest of the 90% of Arab student don't count anyways)

No general generalization here… just a specific one…

2006-06-03T21:57:00.002+03:00

take her for a deep chat about universe... it will make her brain sweat.... she will not find it fun to chat with you anymore...

Feminist with veil

2006-05-11T03:58:00.000+03:00

I just finished reading the book "Riyadh Girls" by Rajaa' Al-Sanei'
It is by far the one of the best books I have ever read ...

The writer's humor and wit come with a sharp intelligent mind. Sharpness wrapped with an elegant and smooth language... she was brave enough to deal with topics which are considered to be taboos in her society, and in general in the region: sex and love affairs, from the point of view of young women trying to be themselves [her 4 friends she is writing about]... trying to express themselves to their beloved boyfriends... and the outcomes of all these...

Her achievement lies in the fact that she managed to generate a region-wide debate about her book and its content, putting her own life, safety and reputation on stake...

The novel is innovative also in terms of writing style and format... she brought digital era into writing... every chapter is written as if it was an e-mail... this leads to her second innovation, which is interaction with her readers... at the beginning of every chapter (e-mail) she "responds" to her imaginary readers who in their part replied to her previous e-mails... just brilliant... she actually started the debate inside the book…

At the beginning of every chapter, she used to quote lines from books, movies, songs, poems from various sources worldwide.... what was most striking is that she, as a feminist, quoted the Quran and the Hadith several times... she lies her feminism on Quranic quotes, which is a beautiful thing in my view... she does not negate religion, she negates the abuse of religion by the society... she is a feminist with a veil... and by the way, she is not the only one...

"MUST" book of the year!

Hebrew speakers:
You can visit the following link [where I also left comments]
http://news.nana.co.il/Article/?ArticleID=373313&sid=126

Girls 8746874328

2006-04-23T14:38:00.002+03:00

Actually I am not sure what annoys me more, that fact that I had a "false call", or the fact that I am single again!!!!!

Arab Girls

2006-01-27T22:19:00.002+02:00

"Arab girls are too busy making themselves experience the experience so that they miss experiencing it...." - Manar Makhoul

Brief History of Makhoul Village

2005-10-04T16:43:00.003+03:00

Hello everybody...

My boss asked me to write a summary of my village's history for an article he was working on, and I thought why not publish it here? (actually before he published his)... So this "item" might be a bit longer than usual.... I apologize for that... I also found that a friend from Germany has founded a website for our village, it is not finished yet, but i added it to the links in anycase...

Makhoul village is a village which was established in 1952 by Naiem Makhoul, a young man originally from the village of Al-Buqaia’a few k"ms away from the border with Lebanon.
For many years, the Makhoul family, alongside several other Christian families, lived peacefully among their Druze and Moslem neighbors. Each religious group maintained its social and religious rituals and beliefs separately and without interference of the other religions.

Makhoul Village- Piqien Valley

During the late 40s of the last century, disputes and rivalry between the Christians and the Druze communities emerged as a result of growing strength of the Druze community, this resulting mainly of their alliance with the state of Israel. Being helpless and weak, the Christian minority of Makhoul family decided to move out of the village and establish their own village out side their original village. They gathered their fields and lands, by trading and selling, in a spot known as the Valley, just near their mother village.
Although the decision was made, many Makhouls were reluctant of making the first step of moving out of the village. The 22 years old Naim Makhoul decided that somebody should do something about it, and went to his field and started to build a house. This was already 1952, only 4 years after the establishment of the state of Israel, after demolishing more than 400 Arab villages across Palestine [418 villages if to be accurate], and forcing approximately three quarters of a million Palestinians to flee out of their homes and their homeland. Establishing an Arab village in a period where Arab villages were being demolished was unthinkable. But Naiem Makhoul had decided that as a Christian minority, with its distinct and special religious and social characteristics, can live no more within the Druze growing majority. This act did not come as an act of animosity; it rather came as an act of preventing future frictions between the two communities and keeping the peaceful, though fragile, texture of the inter-religious relations.
When in 1953 his house was finally accomplished, the magistrate judge of Acre (A'kka) issued a demolishing order for the house and a fine of 50 Israeli Pounds [Uncle Naiem thinks that there was an 'understanding' between the judge and the Galilee military governor upon this writ].
Naim Makhoul addressed the District Court of Haifa in order to prevent the undertaking of that order, but the court rejected his appeal. A military truck carrying explosives arrived at the one-house-village. But, by that time, Naim managed to appeal to the Supreme Court and to receive an injunction. The house was not demolished. Other Makhoul members arrived to the village and founded their houses there. The village remained unrecognized for years. But through political intervention of the president of the state at that time, the village was given the permission to exist. The newly born village was named The Makhoul Village by the people of the neighboring villages because it was inhabited solely by Makhouls, although the original name of the village, which was given by the founder Naim Makhoul, was Intisar- meaning “triumph.”
By 1964 the village of Al-Buqaia’a was managed though traditional management of one person [the Mukhtar] who was appointed by the people of the village and was approved by the authorities. In that year Al-Buqaia’a was given the right to establish a municipality, and at that time Makhoul village was attached to it in terms of municipality rule as a neighborhood of Al-Buqaia’a, although they are located 3 km apart. Through the years almost the entire Christian population of Al-Buqaia’a moved to the new village, which is 100% Christian until today.
The relation of Makhoul village to the phenomenon known today as the Unrecognized Arab Villages in Israel is not direct. The relation is primarily because this village was the first Arab village to be established after the founding of the Israeli state by Arabs, and was never officially recognized by the Israeli government; merging it back to the mother village was actually the final chapter of the villages history in this matter. This village was the first and defining case of long list of Arab villages which would be treated by the same way by the Israeli governments throughout the years. According to this pattern, new Arab villages were never permitted in the Israeli state, no matter what justification or need they had. Since the establishment of the state, tens and hundreds and Jewish settlements, villages, towns and cities were established on the rubbles of Arab villages [taking their names as well] and on confiscated lands of Arab people. Comparably, since 1948, not one single Arab village was founded, and even some 40 of those which were established prior to the establishment of the state were never recognized.

Wadi Al-Qirn

2005-08-17T14:59:00.000+03:00

Dear Friends,
Last weekend, and after a long time, I had the chance to go out and breath some fresh air, literally. My friend Wael, arranged a camping trip to a nice park 5 minutes away from my home. This place is called (in Arabic) Wadi Al-Qirn (or Al-Qarn), which means the "Horn Ravine", because it twists a lot between the mountains.
Many came, as Wael has many friends, and we enjoyed our time wonderfully, thanks to a bit of alcohol that happened to be with us.
For me, this trip was absolutely needed. Why?
because at the beginning I was so tired that I did not want to go!!!!!
I am happy that my friends pushed enough to make me come.
Thanks Wael for the idea,
and thanks to everybody else for the great time.

In the morning next to the pool

In the morning

5 minutes from home