Film
Netflix Revives the Genre of the “Blaxploitation” Film to Attract Black Subscribers
As a genre, Blaxploitation films were often morally ambiguous: though made for and by Black filmmakers and audiences, and sometimes depicting a kind of dead-end domestic colonialism, the films often normalized misogynistic treatment of Black women and uncritical ideals of Black capitalism....
Watch the MintPress News Documentary Film: Gaza Fights Back
Filmed during the attack and in the days following the ceasefire, the documentary tells the story of how Gaza’s armed resistance groups outwitted the vastly superior Israeli military and established their ability to intervene against Israeli ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods like Sheikh Jarrah and provocations at the al-Aqsa compound in occupied East Jerusalem.
“The Palestinian military capabilities are not highly sophisticated and destructive, but it becomes so effective when it’s used by Palestinian smart youths who believe in their rights and freedom,” a masked al-Qassam commander says.
The documentary features intimate interviews with survivors, many of whom lost family members in the Israeli bombardment.
Among them is Omar Abu al-Ouf, who lost 22 family members in the bombing of his family’s house in al-Remal, Gaza’s main thoroughfare.
“The first missile came down on us in the street with no prior warning or call,” he recounted.
Among those killed was Omar’s father, Dr. Ayman Abu al-Ouf, one of the most senior physicians in all of Gaza.
Others, like 11-year-old Amal Ramzi Muhammed Nasir, fled amid the bombardment to take shelter in United Nations-run schools.
“We were trying to sleep. At exactly 1 a.m., there were sounds of explosions and airstrikes nearby. The house was shaking due to the intensity of the explosions.”
Having escaped to a school, Nasir and her family returned after the ceasefire to find their homes in ruin.
“We arrived and saw that our neighborhood that housed us our entire lives, our shelter, completely leveled to the ground,” she recalled. “Every single house was damaged and bombed.”
Men carry a child killed when Israeli airstrikes targeted an apartment complex in Gaza on May 16, 2021. Photo | AP
Jawad Mahdi, owner of the al-Jalaa tower, described Israel destroying the place he and his family lived for 25 years:
The building collapsed, and it took 25 years’ worth of memories, a place we lived in for 25 years, with my children, grandchildren, neighbors, and friends. Imagine building a house brick by brick, piece by piece, living in your home with your knowledge and dreams. Suddenly, you find yourself out of this house. An indescribable tragedy – being kicked out of your own home in an instant, a matter of seconds, even a minute, under nonexistent, illogical, and unethical reasons.”
As for future confrontations with the Israeli military, the al-Qassam commander sees them as inevitable as long as the occupation remains: “The Israeli occupation experienced our military capabilities in the last aggression on the Gaza Strip and the whole world saw it. And we still have more important capabilities in the shadow.”
He believes that armed resistance presents a viable path to liberation:
The lessons learned from the last aggression on the Gaza Strip is that Israel is an occupation state that could be defeated. It’s not a firm state that has been depicted by the Israeli Zionist propaganda machine. Palestinians can get their liberation and retrieve their rights and freedom.”
Feature photo | A Palestinian child sits atop the rubble of homes destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in the town of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, May 21, 2021. Khalil Hamra | AP
Dan Cohen is the Washington DC correspondent for Behind The Headlines. He has produced widely distributed video reports and print dispatches from across Israel-Palestine. He tweets at @DanCohen3000.
The post Watch the MintPress News Documentary Film: Gaza Fights Back appeared first on MintPress News.
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Even among left news sites, Skwawkbox stands out in holding to account the Labour regime and the union leaders who are supposed to represent us and stands resolutely with the oppressed against the oppressor – leading to hatred and attacks from right-wing politicians and hacks. Below are just a few of Skwawkbox’s exclusives since its last funding appeal:
- BBC removes image of pro-Palestinian Jewish group from Gaza demo coverage
- Starmer’s office ‘tantrum’ as rebellion over Gaza ceasefire grew
- Labour asks Parliament to delete Eshalomi’s ceasefire call from Commons TV
- Unite region slams Graham’s silence over Israeli war crimes
- Unite boss Graham tried to force cancellation of union’s pro-Palestinian event
- Labour bans MPs from attending pro-Palestinian demos
- Labour blocks conference motion to bring NHS back into public ownership
- Graham and union served with defamation lawsuit papers for abuse of Irish trade unionist
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- Graham-backed executive candidate pays £7k for sexual harassment of wife’s carer
- Labour to abstain on Tory pro-apartheid bill
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Graham to be called to testify in Ireland in Ogle’s discrimination claim against Unite
Irish union legend’s case against union for abuse and discrimination after his cancer treatment expected to last eight days but adjourned until February
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham is expected to be called to testify in Dublin in Irish union legend Brendan Ogle’s discrimination claim against the union.
Ogle, who is also suing Graham, her ally Tony Woodhouse and the union for defamation, has alleged that he was abused by the union after his return from treatment for serious cancer – and after he made ‘protected disclosures’ to the union about its failures to adhere to covid protocols during the pandemic. Graham and her representatives have been accused of ‘disgusting’ behaviour toward Ogle – and anger in Ireland at the situation became so great that an entire sector branch threatened to disaffiliate entirely from Unite, the well-known ‘Right2Water’ campaign said it will no longer work with Unite, Unite’s Community section in Ireland condemned the ‘injustice inflicted’ on him and members picketed general secretary Sharon Graham’s long-delayed visit to Dublin.
Graham is using one of the world’s most profitable law firms to defend the defamation suit – and also, Tuesday’s hearing revealed, in the tribunal case. Her tenure as Unite boss has been marked by a string of other allegations – which neither she nor the union has denied – including alleged destruction of evidence against her husband in misogyny and bullying complaints. She is currently being sued, along with an ally and the union, by Irish union legend Brendan Ogle for defamation.
She has been exposed using proxies to order the cancellation of showings of the film ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn/The Big Lie’, which exposes the political abuse of antisemitism accusations against left-wingers in the Labour party, and discussion of Asa Winstanley’s forensic book Weaponising Antisemitism: How the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn. Proxies were similarly despatched to try, unsuccessfully, to cancel a Unite ‘fringe’ event at Labour’s conference earlier this month in support of Palestinians.
Ogle’s barrister told the Workplace Relations Commission adjudicator that she expected the union would be required to ‘produce’ Sharon Graham to testify, along with a string of current and former senior Unite officials and employees. The case was adjourned to allow both sides further time to prepare for what is expected to be an eight-day hearing and will recommence in February.
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The Café and the Colony
One of the basic truths of the Israel-Palestine conflict is that there are no acts within it that can accord with universal human rights: the conflict itself is the trespass. Let me be clearer: the colonization, itself, is the trespass. It is the original sin against human rights. It is the disease.
Who Was Barbie?
My mind was racing with questions like, Why is there a transfemme Barbie but no transmasc Ken? Did I just pay $17.50 to witness the spectacle of capital subsuming dissent? Have the filmmakers deliberately cast “Weird Barbie” with an actress who dated Bari Weiss and played “Hallelujah” on the piano while dressed as Hillary Clinton after the 2016 election in order to politically center “weirdness”? Why is there no mention of doll materials designer Jack Ryan and his past employment engineering missiles for Raytheon?
An Entire Society Exists Within Me
That Panahi was arrested shortly after completing the film—and that he is now serving out the six-year prison sentence originally handed down in 2010 in Tehran’s infamous Ervin Prison—is an irony that would have been out of place in all of his work until the stark horror of No Bears.
