This week …

News Highlights:

  • One Palestinian protester is critically wounded and many more suffer tear gas inhalation in 5 anti-wall protests across the occupied West Bank, as Israeli troops use rubber coated steel bullets and fire tear gas canisters directly at people’s heads.
  • Israeli human rights group Btselem calls on Israeli military police to reopen the investigation into the killing of a Palestinian mother and daughter during the Israeli invasion “Cast Lead”.
  • S. African deputy minister of Int’l. Relations says South Africa discourages its citizens from visiting Israel, after a delegation of mayors recently cancel a trip to Israel

Feature:

The feature was a cultural tribute to the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, who passed away 4 years ago this month. There was a discussion about the importance of Darwish’s work in both Palestinian society and the broader Arab context, as well as his influence on Arab musicians, many of whom have set his poems to music. We presented two of his poems, first in English translation and then a musical version in Arabic, “Identity Card” written in 1964 and then “Ahmad Zaatar”, done after the siege and destruction of the Tel al Zaatar refugee camp in Beirut in 1976 by Lebanese right-wing militias aided in part by Israeli and Syrian forces.

Focus on Zionism:

Highlights of an August 13th, 2012 report from the Israeli daily Haaretz about the appeal by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel of cases involving Israeli police actions in occupied East Jerusalem.

Here is an audio file of this show: