Table Of ContentGLOBAL
CINEMA
Visualizing
the Palestinian
Struggle
Towards a Critical Analytic
of Palestine Solidarity Film
Terri Ginsberg
Global Cinema
Series Editors
Katarzyna Marciniak
Ohio University
USA
Anikó Imre
University of Southern California
USA
Áine O’Healy
Loyola Marymount University
USA
Series Editors: Katarzyna Marciniak, Anikó Imre, Áine O’Healy The
Global Cinema series publishes innovative scholarship on the transnational
themes, industries, economies, and aesthetic elements that increasingly
connect cinemas around the world. It promotes theoretically transfor-
mative and politically challenging projects that rethink fi lm studies from
cross-cultural, comparative perspectives, bringing into focus forms of cin-
ematic production that resist nationalist or hegemonic frameworks. Rather
than aiming at comprehensive geographical coverage, it foregrounds
transnational interconnections in the production, distribution, exhibition,
study, and teaching of fi lm. Dedicated to global aspects of cinema, this
pioneering series combines original perspectives and new methodological
paths with accessibility and coverage. Both ‘global’ and ‘cinema’ remain
open to a range of approaches and interpretations, new and traditional.
Books published in the series sustain a specifi c concern with the medium
of cinema but do not defensively protect the boundaries of fi lm studies,
recognizing that fi lm exists in a converging media environment. The series
emphasizes a historically expanded rather than an exclusively presentist
notion of globalization; it is mindful of repositioning ‘the global’ away
from a US-centric/Eurocentric grid, and remains critical of celebratory
notions of ‘globalizing fi lm studies.’
More information about this series at
http://www.springer.com/series/15005
Terri Ginsberg
Visualizing the
Palestinian Struggle
Towards a Critical Analytic of Palestine
Solidarity Film
Terri Ginsberg
The American University in Cairo
Cairo, Egypt
Global Cinema
ISBN 978-3-319-39776-4 ISBN 978-3-319-39777-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-39777-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016950760
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2 016
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electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are
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Cover illustration: “Occupied Palestine” (David R. Koff, U.S., 1981)
Printed on acid-free paper
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The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland
In memory of
Fouzi El-Asmar
and
David Koff
A
CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book was begun during the Al-Aqsa Intifada and was completed dur-
ing the 2014 Israeli genocide of Gaza which augured the beginning of
the Third Intifada. I could not have carried out the project vis-à-vis the
extenuating circumstances without the encouragement, support, inspira-
tion, and intellectual intervention—the solidarity—of colleagues, associ-
ates, and friends in the struggle. Prominent among these are Palestinians,
Arabs, Iranians, and Turks, in relation to whom I have only begun the
painful process of (un)learning, and whose admirable steadfastness and
graciousness I can only begin to emulate. My sincere thanks go to Tareq
Ismael, Rima Kapitan, Norton Mezvinsky, Chris Lippard, Andrea Mensch,
Hossein Khosrowjah, Dennis Broe, Hamid Dabashi, Elle Flanders, Cynthia
Madansky, David Koff (in memoriam), Simon Louvish, Fouzi El-Asmar
(in memoriam), Tania Kamal-Eldin, Haytham Nawar, Samirah Alkassim,
Helga Tawil-Souri, Colleen Jankovic, Ghada Karmi, Kay Dickinson,
Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, Najat Rahman, Carl Schieren, Michael Pelias at
Situations , Brian Drolet at Deep Dish TV, Ali Abunimah, Nora Barrows-
Friedman and Asa Winstanley at T he Electronic Intifada , Philip Weiss at
Mondoweiss , Cynthia Lucia and Richard Porton at C ineaste , Farhad Arshad
at Olive Films, May Hossam at Misr International Films, Kathleen Dickson
at the British Film Institute, Kristen Fitzpatrick at Women Make Movies,
Meredith Miller at Icarus Films, Elena Rossi-Snook and Johnny Gore at
the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Larry Rattner at
Choices Video, Michael Zryd, Mark Westmoreland, Malek Khouri, Arab
Loutfi , Greg Burris, Orayb Najjar, Joel Kovel, Fuad Sha’ban, Abdeen
Jabara, Michael Smith, Mazin Qumsiyeh, Marguerite Rosenthal, William
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Haddad, Linda Mokdad, Robert Lang, Yasmin Nair, Haim Bresheeth,
Matthew Abraham, Ann Kibbey, Farshad Aminian, Sachiko Tankei,
Isabelle Freda, Sibel Taylor, Nirit Ben-Ari, Riva Sura, and Pudden Pÿe.
I am also very grateful to the Palgrave Macmillan Global Cinema series
editors Katarzyna Marciniak, Áine O’Healy, and Anikó Imre, and to the
Palgrave Macmillan Film, Cultural, and Media Studies Editor, Sean Vigil,
for supporting this project; and to Project Manager Ulaganathan Abirami
and her entire production crew for their astute editorial work. Needless
to say, these persons bear no responsibility whatsoever for the content of
this book.
An earlier version of Chapter 1 was published as “Radical Rationalism
as Cinema Aesthetics: The Palestinian–Israel Confl ict in North American
Documentary and Experimental Film,” in S ituations: Project of the Radical
Imagination 4.1 (fall/winter 2011): 91–115 ©2011 The Center for
the Study of Culture, Technology and Work, CUNY Graduate Center,
New York, NY. Portions of Interlude A are excerpts from my article,
“Bordering on Disaster: Toward an Epistemology of Divided Cinematic
Space,” S pectator 29.1 (spring 2009): 30–36 ©2009 SPECTATOR, USC
School of Cinematic Arts, Los Angeles, CA. Portions of Chapter 2 are
excerpts from my essay, “P laying for Time , Vanessa Redgrave, and the
Labor of Performance,” which appears along with the re-mastered Blu-
ray special edition of P laying for Time ©2013 Olive Films, USA— h ttp://
olivefi lms.com . Portions of Chapter 3 are excerpts from my review, “New
fi lm on Nazi links to Zionism sidesteps the toughest questions,” The
Electronic Intifada 7 November 2012, http://electronicintifada.net/con-
tent/new-fi lm-nazi-links-zionism-sidesteps-toughest-questions/11811 .
Portions of the Conclusion are excerpts from my review of T he Gatekeepers ,
Cineaste 38.3 (summer 2013): 48–50 ©2013 Cineaste Publishers, Inc.,
New York, NY.
C
ONTENTS
Introduction: Modalities of Solidarity 1
1 After Al-Aqsa 5
Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land 9
Zero Degrees of Separation 1 6
Still Life 24
Notes 31
Interlude A – The Global Indigenous 3 3
2 Revisiting Prior Commitments 3 7
Occupied Palestine 41
To Live in Freedom 53
The Palestinian 66
Notes 77
Interlude B – Causes and Effects 7 9
3 Distant Neighbors 85
Canary 88
Gate of the Sun 99
The Promise 1 08
Notes 119
ix
x CONTENTS
Conclusion: A Time for Change 1 21
Notes 125
Filmography 1 27
Bibliography 1 31
Index 1 49
