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| What’s life like under Hamas? ‘Whispered in Gaza’ offers unique, courageous testimony |
| 2023-01-16 |
| [IsraelTimes] In an unprecedented series of animated videos, drawn from interviews carried out by the NY-based Center for Peace Communications, ordinary Gazooks tell heartwrenching stories. This article, the first in a series of three, presents eight short, animated interviews with residents of the Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppressionand disproportionate response... Strip. Produced by the Center for Peace Communications, a New York nonprofit, they are being published by The Times of Israel because they represent a rare opportunity for ordinary, courageous Gazooks to tell the world what life is like under the rule of Hamas, the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,. The Times of Israel’s French site is carrying a French edition of the clips. An Arabic-language edition is being presented on alarabiya.net, a Persian edition via the newspaper Kayhan, a Spanish edition on Infobae, and a Portuguese edition on RecordTV. The short clips — none of them longer than two and a half minutes — offer poignant insights into day-to-day life in the Strip, an area that most outsiders cannot reach and whose residents directly suffer from the consequent lack of understanding. We meet ordinary people telling authentic stories about common problems that are drastically exacerbated by Hamas’s control, ordinary people with expectations and aspirations and dreams — from running a pharmacy to working as a journalist to simply dancing — that they are forbidden from realizing. All names have been changed, and CPC employed animation and voice-altering technology to protect speakers’ identity. The participants consented to be interviewed for the sake of relaying their ideas and experiences to an international audience, noted CPC president Joseph Braude, adding, "They want these stories to be heard." You can watch the entire first week’s playlist of eight videos here: Click on the headline at the top of the post to go to the article, dear Reader, where all the videos are posted. Introducing ‘Whispered in Gaza’ — 25 short, animated interviews on life under Hamas [IsraelTimes] The US-based Center for Peace Communications reached out to residents of the Hamas, a regional Iranian catspaw,-run Strip who have personal stories they want the world to hear "I want Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppressionand disproportionate response... to be liberated from the government of Hamas," says "Maryam," a lifelong resident of the coastal strip that Hamas has ruled since 2007. "Then, Gaza will develop. We’ll have tourists and theater." Maryam is telling her story — a tale of growing up singing and dancing, until Hamas seized power — in a short, animated clip. It is part of "Whispered in Gaza," a series of 25 videos produced by the Center for Peace Communications, a New York nonprofit. The series is being presented in three parts, in English and French, by The Times of Israel in partnership with CPC, alongside an Arabic-language edition of the clips presented on alarabiya.net, a Persian edition via the newspaper Kayhan, a Spanish edition on Infobae, and a Portuguese edition on RecordTV. All interviews were conducted over the course of 2022. The Paleostinian speakers, all of whom currently reside in Gaza, describe arbitrary arrests, extortion, and violence by Hamas authorities. Some express longing for the time before Hamas seized power in a coup against the Paleostinian Authority in 2007, when they were freer to express themselves and pursue a life path they chose. (The PA held partial authority in Gaza from 1994 under the Oslo Accords. Israel maintained overall control of the Strip until 2005, when it dismantled its 21 settlements there, evicted their 9,000 Israeli Jewish residents, and withdrew unilaterally to pre-1967 lines.) According to CPC president Joseph Braude, the series "challenges those who justify Hamas violence to choose between supporting Hamas and supporting the Paleostinians it oppresses. At the same time, it challenges those opposing Hamas to recognize that countless Gazooks want a brighter and more peaceful future, and ask what can be done to empower them." "Do I believe in peace with Hamas?" asks "Basma," another Gazook woman, in a second clip in response to a question. "No. There can’t be peace with them." The CPC interviewer laughs and clarifies that she was asking about peace with Israel, a possibility to which the woman proves more open. "Much has been said about the impact of Israeli policies and actions on the civilian population in Gaza, and rightly so," observed Ghaith al-Omari, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "Yet the conduct of Hamas, the de facto rulers of the Strip — who have created an oppressive, stifling reality for the majority of Gazooks — has received much less attention. ’Whispered in Gaza’ is a commendable effort to provide ordinary people in Gaza a platform to communicate with an international audience." CPC promotes Arab-Israeli engagement to foster development in the Middle East, according to senior US diplomat Dennis Ross, who chairs its board. In 2021, over 300 Iraqis from across the country gathered at a CPC conference in the northern city of Erbil, where speakers called for Iraq to join the Abraham Accords. The CPC-backed Arab Council for Regional Integration has held public conferences in which Arab thinkers advocate relations with the Israeli people. Other CPC projects protect peace CPC found Gazooks eager to tell the world about their suffering under Hamas. Many already express themselves on social media, Braude noted, but face Hamas pressure to remove their posts. One interviewee says he filmed Hamas police beating women and a child with Down syndrome for protesting the cut-off of their electricity. Hours after he uploaded the video, thousands of frustrated Gazooks had reached out to him. He was on the run from Hamas for days until he was arrested and forced to take down the video. "I now understand that their jails are full of honorable people," he says. "Anyone who tries to think for himself winds up there." CPC employed animation and voice-altering technology to protect speakers’ identity. The participants consented to be interviewed for the sake of relaying their ideas and experiences to an international audience, Braude said, adding, "They want these stories to be heard." The Times of Israel viewed the original footage as used in the animated clips, confirming the speakers’ identity and that their testimony has been accurately translated. Said Braude: "An artistic depiction of the story a voice tells can provide a visceral experience of someone’s life that is hard to forget." Attempts to gauge Gazook public opinion through polling tend to yield inconsistent results. Regarding Israel, a 2022 survey by The Washington Institute found most Gazooks simultaneously favoring "a permanent two-state solution" based on pre-1967 borders and "reclaiming all of Paleostine, from the river to the sea." Part of the challenge relates to the 2021 finding by Paleostinian pollsters that 62 percent of Gazooks say they cannot criticize Hamas without fear. (A speaker in one clip observes, "If you say, ’I don’t want war,’ you’re branded a traitor.") In 2019, approximately 1,000 Gazooks waged anti-Hamas street demonstrations under the banner "We Want to Live," braving gunfire and prison. Clips in which interviewees describe their aspirations include calls for international support for Hamas’s opponents as well as dialogue with Israelis. Braude said the series aims not to advance a particular policy but, rather, to help Gazooks join the global conversation. Jawad Anani, a former Jordanian foreign minister and Jordan-Israel peace negotiator, viewed the material before its release. In an accompanying monograph published Monday, he dubs it a step toward "peace and prosperity" in Gaza: "Our shared hope for such a future is why it was right and proper for this effort to turn the spotlight on the tragic situation of parents and their children in Gaza. It can help catalyze a new dynamic, moving beyond the present dismal, dead-end reality by fostering constructive dialogue." |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #1 "You don't need freedom or fun, you've got Islam!" |
| Posted by: Frank G 2023-01-16 11:16 |