• Xenophobia in Tel Aviv

    Guernica, March 8, 2011 This morning, I woke to the news that a woman had been stabbed to death in South Tel Aviv. Two men—dubbed migrant workers by the Hebrew press, but referred to as “African descent” in the English-language media, suggesting they were probably asylum seekers—were briefly held under suspicion for the crime. They …

  • “We don’t have another country”

    Al Jazeera English, March 7, 2011 Last week, as Israeli president Shimon Peres was calling a South Tel Aviv school to congratulate it for its role in Oscar-winning documentary, the state was preparing to expel 120 of the school’s students, including a twelve-year-old girl who starred in the film. “Strangers No More” was produced and …

  • Israel preparing to deport star of Oscar winning documentary “Strangers No More”

    Mondoweiss, February 28, 2011 The Huffington Post, February 28, 2011 It’s big news here in Israel that “Strangers No More“– a documentary film that focuses on a South Tel Aviv school attended by zarim, Hebrew for foreigners or strangers–has won an Oscar. “Thank you most of all to the exceptional immigrant and refugee children from …

  • Golan residents recall their Tahrir

    Al Jazeera English, February 25, 2011 Siham Monder was 14 when Syrian residents of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights took to the streets for a strike and protests that spanned six solid months of 1982. “Now I’m 43,” Monder says. “And I remember that every day in that period there was a conflict with the [Israeli …