Olive branch

OneWorld UK

PRESS RELEASE
Following on our packed and highly informative meeting on 31st August addressed by Palestinian farmer and community activist from Jayyous, Sharif Omar

West London PSC (Palestine Solidarity Campaign) presents on Tuesday 12th September at 8pm :

'The Olive Branch' a video diary by Kareim al-Jamal who will also introduce the film.
followed by
'Breaking the Silence' a talk by Martine Miel

Venue: 367 Chiswick High Rd. (entrance to hall from Marlborough Rd.)
(Nearest Underground: District Line -Chiswick Park or Gunnersbury )
Admission Free - donations at the door (all proceeds to PSC)

Questions and discussion afterwards
Palestinian olive oil will be on sale.

Notes for editors:

'The Olive Branch'
Kareim al-Jamal, a 33 year old Palestinian film maker born in Chiswick, West London returned to Palestine in 2003 to visit relatives in Jerusalem. While there he took part in the annual November olive harvest, joining up with the Israeli activist group Rabbi's for Human Rights. The group gives support to Palestinian farmers struggling to harvest their crop who are subjected to repeated attacks from illegal settlers. The film explores the ongoing issues and tensions of Israeli
occupation from a grassroots humanitarian perspective.

This 20' film is in the form of a video diary recording daily experiences that are then placed in the wider context of the effects of the Wall on Palestinian daily life. The Wall is seen as a tool for the 'silent transfer' of the population. The film is also unique in that it explores the breaking down of cultural and social barriers even while physical barriers such as the Wall and illegal settlements are
constantly being erected. Interviews with Israelis, Americans and Palestinians.

(For further information see
http://www.poica.org/editor/case_studies/view.php?recordID=455 'Olive harvest in Palestine' and other articles)

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'Breaking the Silence'
Martine Miel visited Palestine with the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions earlier this year and is active with groups in the UK working for a just and sustainable peace between Israelis and Palestinians. She also does community advocacy and dialogue work on issues relating to African chattel enslavement, its legacies and impacts on Africa and European communities today.
Martine will talk about the movement 'Breaking the Silence' and the wider implications for Israeli society. 'Breaking the Silence' is group of former IDF (Israeli Defence Force) soldiers who question the role of the Israeli army in enforcing the occupation of Palestine and the damage it is doing to those who serve under it. The kind of wilful destruction of Palestinian land & livelihood seen in the film 'The Olive Branch' and the humiliations that the IDF inflict on the Palestinians are also having a morally corrosive effect on the very soldiers who perpetrate them and on Israeli society in general.

She says: 'The Occupation brutalises all those it touches. Not only is it unapologetically illegal, but it morally corrupts, decays, degrades and destroys. It has eroded very fundamental moral values of Jewish Israeli society and silences a people largely in denial. While the majority choose to say nothing, some Israeli Jews, and others in the Jewish Diaspora choose to break their silence in the name of peace and justice.'

'" It takes all your morality, puts it into a blender and then that's it. There's nothing left" Yehuda Shaul, Breaking the Silence, 2006

'Since our discharge from the army, we all feel that we have become different. We feel that service in the occupied territories and the incidents we faced have distorted and harmed the moral values on which we grew up. We all agree that as long as Israeli society keeps sending its best people to military combat service in the occupied territories, it is extremely important that all of us, Israeli citizens, know the price which the generation who is fighting in the territories is paying, the impossible situations it is facing, the insanity it is confronting everyday, and the heavy burden it bears after being discharged from the IDF a heavy burden that hasnt left us.

Thats why we decided to break the silence, because its time to tell.' (taken from 'Breaking the Silence' website)

(for further information see www.breakingthesilence.org.il)