AUC's Palestinian Club Commemorates Land Day

Palestinian Student, Yacoub Al-Atrash, playing on the oud.

Students presenting an olive tree to the university.

Students performing dabke.

Saeb Erekat delivers his speech at AUC.

Photos courtesy of Eric McCune

The Palestinian club at the American University in Cairo, Al-Quds Club, organized an event in memory of those who fell on Land Day. The event featured some key-note speakers such as Saeb Erekat, one of the PLO's chief negotiators, and the Palestinian Ambassador in Egypt, Barakat Al-Farra.

Erekat went into a long speech addressing the Oslo accords, his rejection of the two-state solution, and the return of all the land within the pre-1967 Palestinian borders, including east Jerusalem, to Palestinians. In addition, Erekat reiterated his rejection of the two-state solution. The issues raised in his speech are not news to those who are following the top headlines these days, the Israeli government is not being so discreet about building Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem, which is a kind of a de facto annexation.

The Land Day event was not all politics but also celebrated Palestinian culture. Musical performances, and students performing the Palestinian traditional dance, dabke, were the highlights of the event. The event was followed by a reception, where Middle Eastern/Palestinian food was served.

The members of Al-Quds Club presented an olive tree to the university. Olive trees are a symbol of the Palestinian resistance and culture that is still alive amid all of the occupation, violence and destruction.

Charles De Gaulle House in Beirut

This is snapshot I took in Beirut this March. This is the place where Charles De Gaulle, the founder of the French fifth republic and it's first president from 1959-1969, resided when he was in Lebanon.

De Gaulle was in Lebanon during the Mandate period, the 1920's, when he was a high ranking officer in the French army. Those were the days when there was a quasi-Syrian independence movement, and he was there to keep order and control of the French Mandate of Lebanon and Syria.

Listening Journal - BBC's "Muslims Fighting for Israel"

IDF SOLDIERS Posted By: Thomas E. Ricks

ricks.foreignpolicy.com

This audio documentary, titled Muslims Fighting for Israel discusses Muslims who do army service in Israel and according to the IDF hundreds of Muslims sign up every year.
Rachid Sekkai from the BBC's Arabic Service talks to Muslims currently serving in the IDF and also to former soldiers and hears about the conflicts they face at home and on duty, and the pride that military service sometimes brings them.

Muslims Fighting for Israel, is produced by the BBC and runs for 23 minutes. It is part of the World Stories series. These are five individual documentaries made by BBC language service producers about the region they come from.

Nat sound has been used in the beginning of this audio documentary, you could hear the sound of gun shots, which underlines the topic of this documentary. I liked the use of music effects, as a very melancholy song for the dead was used in the introduction and this also contributes to the whole atmosphere. I didn’t like the voice of the narrator, as it is very monotonous and flat. When he first started talking, the sound quality was very bad, it was a bit fuzzy as if the microphone was moving or there was the interference of wind. In addition, I felt that his narration was clashing with the sound bite of the imam, which was taken from a religious ceremony. In this instant, it was very hard to concentrate and listen to what the reporter was saying.

He used phrases like “here we have been asked to stand up,” and “this memorial site was set up in 1999 by a Bedouin Muslim and a Jew,” which I feel like is language for TV, not radio, as we can’t really see the location and hence them standing up or the memorial site. Some accompanying pictures would have complimented the documentary and kept the listener interested.

He had a lot of sound bites, but at the same time, many of the sound bites were not necessary, especially those that were of people speaking in Hebrew or Arabic, languages that the general listener doesn’t really speak or understand.

I feel like that this documentary has had very minimal editing, for example, the reporter includes sound bites of him getting out of the car and meeting the interviewee, saying hi to her. I felt like this was very unprofessional, as listener I really don’t have to listen to all these extra sounds, I just want to listen to stuff that will add to my knowledge. In addition, there is a lot of background noise, which really deterred my attention.

The use of middle-eastern music in the middle of the documentary is not suitable for such a topic of military, war and the role Muslims play in the military of a Jewish state.