Gaza Tel Aviv-Yafo 2011-2009 Lawrence Wright New Yorker

The Human Scale  
2011-04-04
The Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv hosts The New York Public Theatre with the one-man play:

The Human Scale 
Written and performed by Lawrence Wright
Director: Oskar Eustis
Lighting: Deb Sullivan; Video design: Aaron Harrow; Sound: Matt Hubbs; Scenic consultant: David Korins

In the spring of 2009 Pulitzer prizewinning journalist Lawrence Wright of The New Yorker approached the magazine's editor, David Remnick, and asked if he could write an article about the likelihood of peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Most editors would have jumped at the chance of publishing an article by such a well known and admired writer, and on this particular subject - but The New Yorker wasn't crazy about the idea. "I wanted to write about the prospects of a two-state solution," Wright said in an interview, "but David didn't seem too excited. He said, ‘Why don't you write about Gaza?'"
So began Wright's trip to the region in the summer of 2009. The result was a 12,000-word story published in The New Yorker in November, at the height of the controversy over the Goldstone report, which concluded that both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes in the course of Operation Cast Lead.

That article, entitled "Captives: What really happened during the Israeli attacks," has been transformed into a one-man play, written and performed by Wright, in a co-production with The Public Theater and 3-Legged Dog.
The Human Scale, directed by The Public Theatre's artistic director Oskar Eustis, gained critical acclaim in the United States. In it Wright presents his worldview on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in recent years, and explains how the parties reached the present impasse which he argues began with the abduction of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.
Like the article, the play sheds new light on both parties. "There's a dehumanization of the other side that makes it impossible to see things from another perspective," Wright said. "My goal was to try to enlarge the vision of both sides."
"In this efficient and engrossing 90-minute seminar on history both current and ancient, Mr. Wright trains his understandably wary attention [...] on the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians With a scholarly but sympathetic manner and a soothing voice that has just a hint of a Texas twang in it, Mr. Wright sheds a sharp light on this sorrowful subject, drawing on his own visit to Gaza."
The New York Times
The play will be performed with English with Hebrew sur-titles
Duration: 90 minutes with no intermission.
18-21 May - Cameri 4

Nazareth 13 May 2011 The double siege facing Palestinians in Israel

The double siege facing Palestinians in Israel

Abir Kopty, Friday 13 May 2011 AhramOnline

It is time for the Arab youth to break down all walls, including walls separating ’48 Arabs from the rest of the Arab world

I am from Nazareth. I’m Palestinian, one of the 1.3 million Palestinians known to many as “’48 Arabs”. I belong to the forgotten part of the Palestinian nation, who fought for decades to keep our “identity” (haweyyi) and our baqaa —call it our “right to remain”.

We did not immigrate or choose to live in Israel. It was Israel that emigrated to us. We remained on our lands and are still fighting against our transfer from our homeland.

And so we had Israeli citizenship imposed on us.

We hold the Israeli passport, which we did not choose as well. In fact, we had no other choice. It was either we give up and leave to join our brothers and sisters in refugee camps who were forced to leave during the Nakba, or we stay and stick to our lands and identity as the remaining part of the Arab Palestinian people.

We wrote back in the early 1980s in what we call the “document of the banned assembly” (referring to its ban by Israeli authorities): “We did not deny and we can’t deny, even if we are faced with death, our deep-rooted origin: we are alive, consciousand active part ofthe Palestinian Arab people.” This is who we are.

My generation, the third generation of the Nakba, maintained to hold this torch, we insist on our Palestinian identity, resist Israeli policies and refuse to be second-class citizens in Israel.

Yet since the establishment of the Israeli state we have been segregated by Israel in order to cut our relationship with our Arab world, and more importantly alienated by the Arab world, perceived as spies and traitors. For decades we did not have direct means to communicate with the Arab world. We were in a double-siege and our story did not come through for a long time. For decades we have not been allowed to visit Arab countries; today we have access to few of them. Even for those countries we are allowed to enter, we are automatic suspects due to the Israeli passport we hold. It is as if we are blamed for the Jewish militias who occupied Palestine, displaced our families and destroyed our villages, and built their country on our lands.

Today, we look with admiration at our Arab peers in Arab countries who are demanding freedom and dignity; we pay respect to thousands of freedom martyrs. We follow minute by minute the Arab revolutions, share videos and information and praise their courage. A group of young local singers dedicated a special song they wrote and filmed to the Tunisian revolution; it was circulated widely through social media. When Mubarak stepped down, we took to the streets to celebrate as if it was our own revolution. We demonstrate regularly in Nazareth and other places to support and show solidarity with Libyans, Syrians, Bahrainis and Yemenis. We communicate with friends from the Arab world through new media —we share the same values.

These revolutions have given us the hope we were about to lose. We have been also struggling for decades for our freedom, to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine, to end Israeli racism and discrimination. You probably do not know that we are the makers of the “Land Day” which Palestinians and many Arabs worldwide commemorate. You probably do not know that the song “Unadikom” that you all know by heart was written by our poet and political leader, the late Tawfik Zayyad, who is from Nazareth. You probably did not know that poets like Samih Kasem and Mahmoud Darwish are from “’48 Palestine”.

During the Egyptian revolution I happened to be in Cairo. I was privileged to witness Egyptian people writing history. I felt thrilled to be part of this. And I would also say, like many Egyptians underlined, this revolution has changed my life. At the same time, I understood how much my story was unknown to many Egyptians, and how much my passport was a burden. Since then, I applied for visa to visit Cairo again; it was rejected twice, without any explanation.

I believe it is about time to break the siege that Arab regimes and their media imposed on us. We call on our peers, the generation of Arab youth, to help us break down the walls that have been separating us. We are not traitors and not spies, “we are alive,consciousand active part ofthe Palestinian Arab people”. We are proud Arabs, exactly like you, and thanks to you!

The writer is a Palestinian political activist, media consultant and analyst.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/11995.aspx