“We did this documentary in the hope that settlers could look at themselves from outside, to realize the contrast between the spirituality and the daily life”. With this words the director Gianluca Iazzolino introduces his work “Guns’n'Moses”.
The movie is a documentary about the Israeli ultra nationalist-religious settlers and their ideology in their own words and in the ones of the Israeli and international pacifists and the Palestinians from Hebron.
Guns’n'Moses is also an inquiry on the the mystery of the choice made by four people which decided to leave behind their background to adopt an identity to defend, if necessary, with guns.
“In Palestinian territories, we decided to focus on a barber’s shop, a place where people talk about everything peacefully” said Mr.Iazzolino explaining how he decided to portrait the Palestinians.

Click here to download the audiofile

In recent episodes of our show we highlighted how Italian foreign policy had become Pro-Israel, but it’s important to remember that Italian policies hadn’t be always like this. Once upon a time the Italian civil society had always been near to Palestinian fight for freedom and auto-determination. During ’70s and ’80s Italy was the most pro-Palestinian country in western world. In that time Italian President was Sandro Pertini. In this days, on 22th February, in Italy we are celebrating 20 years since his death, so this is why we want to let you listen a part of  his new yer speech of 1983. “Once ago it was Jews that had known the diaspora, they were driven out middle east and scattered around the world. Now it’s the turn of Palestinians.  And so I went to say again that Palestinians have the right to a homeland as Jews, Israelites had have” said Partini during the new year speech.

Click here to download the audiofile

Violence against women in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is widespread and chronic, yet it remains under the radar. Women find it difficult to report abuses because there is little or no legal framework in place to protect them - and because the “honor” of their families is considered more important than the crimes committed against them. Having a place to be mlistened to - and in some cases also to be fostered - is the first step to break this silence and antiviolence spots are getting more and more in the Territories thanks to international cooperation projects. Guest of this show is Irene Agnello, Italian psychotherapist and member of the association Differenza Donna, which has been working on  violence against women for the past 20 years in Italy and in foreign countries such as Russia and the Occupied Territories.

Click here to download the audiofile

We visited Eric Salerno, reaching his house in Rome. Long term journalist and author of many books about the Middle East and North Africa, Mr Salerno recently published his last effort titled “Mossad, base Italia”. More than 250 pages explaining how the Israeli intelligence had total freedom of action in Italy from the very beginning of the State of Israel (and even before 1948). “After the war, in Italy the Jewish from Palestine sent agents from an organization called Mossad. This is the real beginning of the Mossad that you have today all over the word” explained the author.

Click here to download the audiofile

Mr. Juliano Merr-Khamis is the General Director of the Freedom Theatre. The aim of this project is to empower and give voice to the children of Jenin Refugee Camp through a unique programme of workshops and activities in theatre, supporting arts and multi-media, ranging in their emphasis from the largely therapeutic and healing, to the presentation of high-quality artistic products. “We live in closed prigions, our culture is destroyed, our economy is ground zero, we are fragmented, so we try to reconstruct what was Palestine before it was crashed” told us Mr. Merr- Khamis,”we are not a philantropic social working project to make people feel good. We are trying to generate a cultural resistance”.

Click here to download the audiofile

Seven years ago, after the invasion of the Israeli army into the refugee camp in Jenin, West Bank, Mohammad Bakri shot his film, Jenin Jenin, a documentary about the  Palestinians of Jenin. As we all know the camp is isolated and getting to know what happens inside of it is hard: thanks to this visual testimony international attention has been drawn to this story,  otherwise difficultly heard by the international media.Bakri was censored by the Israeli censorship board for two years and, in the last seven years,he  has spent a great deal of time and money defending himself and the movie.  After winning the legal suits, soldiers decided to take the case to the Supreme Court. Recently, the State of Israel has decided to join the soldiers in their civil suit against Bakri.”They said that the film is a palestinian propaganda, just one failed point of view, but I told them that I described just the Jenin residents’story” said us the director.

Click here to download the audiofile

FILM MIDDLE EAST NOW is an international film and documentary event on the culture and society of Middle Eastern countries. This first edition of the event will take place in Florence from 3 to 7 February 2010.
5 days of screenings for a local and international audience, showing the most recent works of young but well-known international award-winning directors from Iran, Israel, Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan and Central Asia.
In this show, Lara Chiari talks about the organization of the festival followed by Palestinian director Ahmad Habash presentation of his latest work named Fatenah. Fatenah is the first Palestinian Animation film and will be shown fot the first time at this film festival in Florence.

Click here to download the audiofile

While Israel has not launched an independent committee to investigate war crimes perpetreted in Gaza yet the Israeli parliament currently happened to decide  to launch a committee to investigate foreign funding of Israeli civil society organizations. Among these organizations are the Coalition of Women for Peace.
” The Coalition is proud to be mentioned among the Israeli organizations that struggle against the war crimes that Israel is committing in Gaza. While these constant assaults on Palestinian and Israeli human rights defenders are troubling, we feel that they also represent the growing fear among Israeli officials, who recognize the threat posed by international pressure and by the Palestinian nonviolent struggle” said our guest Yoana Gonen, CWP International Relations Coordinator. “It is clear that international pressure is currently one of the greatest threats to the continuation of the Israeli occupation. Therefore, we call on our international allies to increase this pressure – despite the growing political persecution – so that together we will bring an end to the occupation and justice to all inhabitants of this region”.

Click here to download the audiofile

On this show we have the pleasure to have with us Mr. Alberto Arce, director togeher with Mohammad Rujailah of the much acclaimed  documentary “To shoot an elephant” (click here to download it).
This film was shoot in Gaza during the Operation Cast Lead of December 2008 . As consequence of the siege all internationals were banned from the strip, Mr. Alberto Arce and few other international persons were the only foreigners who were able to stay in  Gaza and witness what Palestinian civilians underwent.

Click here to download the audiofile

Click here to download the audiofile