Let me start with this outrageous quote from US House Representative Michael Pence (Republican from Indiana) that he recently made on CNN:

Let’s be clear, there is not a humanitarian crisis in Gaza … the hospitals are fully stocked, the food markets are fully stocked!

WHAAA???? At first I was so shocked that I thought I must have misheard it. So I watched it again and again; nope that is what he said! Apparently Gaza is in top shape and we didn’t know it! Rep. Pence, I salute you (albeit, it is a one-finger salute).

Pence must have smashed all sorts of spin records. Gaza not in a humanitarian crisis?! Michael Pence, what have you been smoking? In what world do you live? Did you leave planet Earth for Pandora? Actually you know what, if you are so confident that what you say is true, I am willing to personally fund you to travel to Gaza with a camera crew and show us how we got it all wrong. Please Pence, enlighten us.

Here is a video of his CNN interview. Prepare to be dazzled!

Much has been said about Israel’s violent interception of the humanitarian aid flotilla headed to Gaza. Both sides have put forth their claims and counter claims. But the basic facts remain: Israel attacked non-military ships in international waters, Israel used lethal force against unarmed civilians (the activists attacked the Israeli commandos with sticks, rods, and chairs … but what do you expect when you drop commandos on a ship in the middle of night? a dance festival?!), and Israel killed 9 unarmed protesting civilians. After all was said and done, no weapons were found on-board any of the ships.

… this will really brighten your day (at least it did for me).

The video picture quality is not good, but that is not important.

Figaro … Figaro … Figaro …

During the last crisis in Gaza, Israeli spokespeople and pro-Israeli pundits argued that the high amount of civilian death and casualties is not because of Israel’s use of excessive fire power and disregard of Palestinian civilian human life, but because the Hamas fighters were hiding between civilians. On the scene eye witness accounts, however, have often denied that Hamas fighters or rockets were located in the bombed areas.

Even if we chose to believe that Israel is only surgically targeting militants and not infrastructure, civil services facilities, or just bombing anything that moves; That still does not justify Israel’s actual actions on the ground.

For example, Israel already had complete knowledge of GPS locations of hospitals, UN schools and facilities, and even residential towers. Israel also has complete knowledge that civilians fled to these locations for shelter and treatment. So, if Israel was really trying to minimize civilian casualties in the densely populated Gaza Strip, and even if a sniper or a rocket was fired from a hospital or a school’s vicinity, is the surgically targeted response to bomb the entire area ? Does that really minimize civilian casualties ? What benefit would Israel get from bombing a hospital ??

In the following video, Kenneth Roth, an executive director at the Human Rights Watch describes how Israel used 155 millimeter caliber weapons in a densely populated civilian area. A single fire from this weapon can cause casualties within a 300 meeter radius of its impact location. So, would an army seeking to minimize civilian casualties use such a weapon in a dense urban setting ? The answer is of course not.

The following interview is only 3 minutes long and is really worth the viewing. Unfortunately, it only aired on CNN International which is rarely viewed inside America.

Now that Israel has finally started to allow international journalists to go into the Gaza Strip, some reports of the scale of death and destruction inflicted on that tiny strip are starting to come out.

During the 22 day war only Arabic news networks had reporters embedded in the strip. Aljazeera English was the only international news network with reporters. Hopefully now

The following are a couple of reports filed by CNN’s Ben Wedeman. Unfortunately it seems that these reports were only aired on CNN international which does not really watched in America.

Kudos to Wedeman and all other journalists in Gaza for following the truth and reporting what is happening on the ground.

CNN had an interview with Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, an independent Palestinian legislator, in the early days of the violence in Gaza. Dr. Barghouti was trying to explain to his interviewer Rick Sanchez of CNN’s newsroom that contrary to what Israel’s PR has been broadcasting on the American airwaves, it was them who broke the ceasefire first.

In a rare deviation from their pro-Israel stance, CNN (not CNN International, but the CNN that airs in the USA) did a little investigation of this (i.e. a Google search) and found out that indeed Israel broke the truce in early November by carrying out an attack inside Gaza.

In order to protect himself from a possible flood of Israeli and pro-Israeli complaints, Rick Sanchez had to have the camera man actually film the news articles while he read them on air just to prove that many credible news sources reported on this incident early on.

Here is a video of this event.

Kudos and Thank you Rick Sanchez for your courage and taking an honest journalistic stance. Also thank you to Dr. Barghouti for his continuous interviews trying to give a moderate Palestinian perspective on the Gaza issue to anyone willing to listen.

[also reported here.]

Israel claims it is not targeting civilians. The USA agrees. But the images tell a different story. The United Nations reports more than 250 children were killed by Israel in its current bombardment and onslaught. Which humanity is this ? Are we not human beings ?

New York’s mayor had the audacity to compare this to a madman knocking on your door. Other senators asked wouldn’t the USA have to interfere if rockets fell on Southern California from Mexico or Seattle from Vancouver. I wonder how would that mayor and those senators react to 250+ children dead in New York, Seattle, or Southern California. Are we not as much human as they are ? How would they react if they lost every single member of their families ? This is pretty horrific. Yet this is just a glimpse of what is taking place in Gaza with their approval and the implicit approval of the U.S. government. So how can they have humanity and sympathy towards some group people, and none towards another group ?

If you still need further evidence of the horrible, cold-blooded, and inhumane death that Israel has brought to the people of Gaza and the children of Gaza, I give you this 2 minute news report.

… because it is the cold winter and i am surrounded by snow.

I actually like the visualization in this video .. very fitting to the fast tempo of the piece.

This song by the Palestinian comedian Asa’ad Sabah (أسعد صباح) was a hit during the mid 90s. It was released on a cassette tape along with many other jokes and comical songs. Almost any Palestinian growing up in the 90s would instantly recognize this song and its Hebron accent . For those who are interested, this song is poking fun at family fights, tribal reconciliation, and marjaleh.

Why am i posting this you ask ? Nothing, some random memory recollection that came up during a chat with some anonymous tipster

As i am surfing YouTube for some videos, i come across the following entry discussing the behavior of US media when former US president Carter said that Israel has nuclear weapons (Fox News’ reaction made me laugh ). The commentator in this video is a very calm Indian journalist; While discussing the history of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, he mentions that there have been many proposals that were pushed to the UN Security Council to make the Middle East a zone free of nuclear weapons (in ’74 by Iran, ’85 by Egypt, ’89 by Syria, and ’03 by Syria).

This is weird. If the United States and other nations are worried about the volatility of the region, why don’t they approve such proposals ? After all, the US and other nations can come to the rescue if any country breaks that agreement. Well, i am not that naive, i know the reason. But, how can people in the US or UK live with such contradiction ? If their countries are truly committed to stabilizing that region, why don’t they push for such resolutions ?

Anyway, here is an article about an even more recent push for such treaty.

It is perplexing to me that the US and other countries can continuously claim rightousness and moral superiority publicly then do a ton of dirty work under the hood without the majority of the public turning against them.

The following short segment from “Nova Science Now”, which is an amazing program btw, highlights a company that is exploring the idea of extending a thin sheet-like line from earth to outer space to use it as a basis for an elevator to cheaply transport people into space!! I honestly don’t see this happening, but it is entertaining to see great bright minds playing around with the idea.

This definitely is a wacky idea in my opinion. I mean come on, can you imagine planet earth orbiting in space with a big pipe extending out of it ? Even if such a thing could be built, how on earth will you maintain it and protect it from meteors and other space hazards ? How will you even make it stable ?! … i personally don’t think it will even be economically feasible to build and maintain such a link.

In totally unrelated news, and in contrast to that wacky idea, i think the following events can actually take place .. (but i hope they don’t ):

• Qwaider making a blog post *during* his wedding party: … yeah, who amongst us doesn’t believe this is possible…. i’d actually be surprised if he didn’t … heck, i’ll be surprised if he didn’t blog during his honeymoon .
• Two days after their marriage, Qwaider seriously tries to convince Maioush that she should migrate her blog to be hosted on Memories Documented (his blog) instead of WordPress: … he explains how his own private hosting can provide her with secure backups and strict anti-spam mechanisms (not to mention his perceived superiority of his blogging engine to everything that is readily available out there) … i say resist the temptations Maioush.
• KJ‘s imaginary friend, Moogle, gets jealous of Qwaider’s marriage and decides to have his own imaginary friend: … (yes .. with KJ it is very well possible that an imaginary friend could get an imaginary friend). Unfortunately, Moogle’s imaginary friend runs off to get married as well … this will leave KJ perplexed for a few weeks… oh boy … god help us if that happens.

Qwaider .. sorry buddy, somebody had to pick on you because you’re getting married … and congratulations to you and Maioush again.

These videos are not new, but they are quite amazing !!! Here they are arranged in order of awesomeness.

This airplane was caught in “cross winds” so that is why it is drifting sideways:

This one has a severe case of cross winds and a bunch of other stuff:

This is just one risky / stupid takeoff

This one catches you by surprise:

Finally, this one is just plain stupid. He is asking for it

هههها فيديو عن جد نهفة

I read somewhere that one of the key success factors for online startups is engaging the users. This was the case for Flickr. When Flickr started, every new joining member would receive a personal welcome from the Flickr staff. This (along with other factors) created a stronger sense of community and belonging to that site, and was one of the elements of its success.

I think this is still true today. Anyone can whip up a web application in a matter of days, creating a differentiating experience is a bit more tricky and definitely needed. I think this is even more important for many of the Arabian online startups that are providing services that are essentially the same (or highly similar) to American and global ones. In this scenario, you definitely need an incentive to attract people to your application. You simply can not offer the same exact services, and nothing more, and yet expect people to flock to your app.

The folks at Ikbis seem to believe in this as well. So far they have launched a bunch of competitions (the Ramadan one, the airplane one, the singing one), and now, they have launched their own comedy/variety show (called Ground Zero). …. it’s not all sweet-&-dandy .. they have their issues but that’s another story

Anyway, Ground Zero is quick weekly show that has 3 segments: Doblage (Film Dubbing), Lost in Translation, and new movie releases. It is a quick weekly refresher from your hectic life, so go ahead, give it a try

Here are the 2 published episodes so far:

Many special programs are airing these days discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the roots of this whole issue. The following is a spectacular mini documentary highlighting some of the events that took place at the beginning of this conflict (around 1947-1948). It includes old footage, as well as interviews with people who have witnessed (some even participated in) these events, both Arabs and Jews/Israelis. This video is short, presented in clear English, and very informative. Please watch.

Part 1

Part 2

The scene at the end was very moving. This video is actually the second part of a three part series that is available here.

Al-Jazeera English, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for making, and continuing to make, these amazing programs. I wish that someday you will be allowed on American cable.

P.S: I realize i have been talking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict quite a bit lately, but you know, it is the time for remembrance. To my new readers, i would like to point out that i do also talk about other subjects and issues of (possibly) lesser value/importance.

]]> http://www.za3tar.net/2008/05/13/a-must-watch-short-documentary/feed/ 8 http://www.za3tar.net/2008/04/11/awesome-awesome-commercial/ http://www.za3tar.net/2008/04/11/awesome-awesome-commercial/#comments Fri, 11 Apr 2008 03:58:31 +0000 za3tar http://www.za3tar.net/?p=214 Gosh, this commercial is at least 5 years old. I’ve actually never seen it on TV, only online. Unfortunately the company didn’t maintain an active link to it, but thanks to YouTube, it has resurfaced. Never the less, this was …

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Hahahaha .. this is hilarious.

شوية نهفات خفيفة. طول الوحدة منها 15 – 30 ثانية موجودين هون وهون وهون. للأسف الفيديو بيشتغل أول ما تفتح الصفحة فما بقدر أحطهم هون … إزعاج

تنزيلات ؟! … آه قصدك ديسكاونت…. هاهاها رهيبة

This TV ad is really awesome, you have to see it

Haha .. my favorite line is:

This is the Golden Butterball; 28 inch string, silk, real smooth action.

Here is another one from this series:

More of them here.

All this buzz and articles about BAJO made me feel homesick too. Sitting in my office, i cracked up Ahmed Kaabour, Marcil Khalifeh. Somehow, i ended up on YouTube. Link after link, i found my self listening to Mawtini.

Mawtini-Mawtini could not be captured in words. Even though i have listened to it thousands of times already, even though i used to listen to it daily in our morning school queue, it still makes my body shiver once i listen to it. It manages to do that even without lyrics.

Here’s a nice video i found on YouTube, i like the different scenes. At first, i thought they are not all from Palestine, but then again i think that the ones i don’t recognize are from ’48.

… and here’s Ahmad Kaabour’s fil dafa

This looks like a good movie, I am looking forward to watching it soon. However, I wonder when will it be out on DVDs because i doubt it will be showing in regular theaters.

I read up on Bashar, the main character of this film (playing himself), and it says that he was part of Al-Kasaba Theatre group in Ramallah for some years. So, would be nice if they showed that film there as well.

I don’t know these people, and i did not attend that graduation celebration. However this is a video of some people celebrating graduating from Birzeit University (BZU) that i found randomly on YouTube.

I don’t know …. but there is something nice about their singing and celebration. It sounds so sincerely happy.

Arabic rap is increasing in popularity in the region. According to this wikipedia article, either the group DAM (from the Lod اللد) or MWR (from Acre عكا) where the first in this business. Personally, i am not a big fan of Arabic hiphop yet. However i am getting to like the group Ramllah Underground. Some of their songs have some nice expressive meanings, which is good.

Anyway here is a video clip of Ramallah Underground’s “Nateejeh bala shugol” (result with no work). The video was apparently shot in Jordan (possibly Amman) because you could see the “كلنا الأردن” slogan on top of the door he exits from in the beginning.

Caution: there are a couple (not alot) of blant Arabic swears in the middle. Not a big fan of swearing myself.

The daily events of this common “hard-worker”. Ya3teek el-3afyeeh Sob7ee

This clip was created by the creative folks at Zan Studio in Ramallah.

The team at Zan Studio

Just a couple of videos of Street Jumping and Parkour, as seen in the movie District 13 (which i haven’t seen yet ).

This infamous video is from District 13, and all the stunts were real! No wires, or CGI … all real !!

This second video gets really interesting after the second minute mark.

This is pretty funny