PALESTINE

Decolonize Palestine: Your first stop to understanding the Palestinian history and struggle.

The 1936-1939 Revolt in Palestine by Ghassan Kanafani: A study on Palestinian resistance against the British Mandate.

The Palestinian Resistance and Sheikh Jarrah: Palestinian activist and writer Mohammed el-Kurd talks to us about the current resistance against the zionist occupation’s ethnic cleansing taking place in Sheikh Jarrah, and Palestinian resistance more broadly.

PLO: History of a Revolution: A six-part documentary series about history of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (2009).

Jenin, Jenin: Directed and co-produced by Palestinian actor Mohammad Bakri, Jenin Jenin includes testimony from Jenin residents after the Israeli army's Defensive Wall operation. The city and camp were the scenes of fierce fighting which ended with Jenin flattened and scores of Palestinians dead. Palestinians as well as numerous human rights groups accused Israel of committing war crimes in the attack. The United Nations appointed a commission of inquiry, but Israel refused to let its members visit the scene.

SLINGSHOT HIP HOP: Slingshot Hip Hop is a feature length documentary that premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. The film documents the birth of the Palestinian Hip Hop scene and braids together the stories of young Palestinians living in Gaza, the West Bank and 48 (inside Israel) as they challenge divisions imposed by occupation and poverty.

“They Do Not Exist”: Salvaged from the ruins of Beirut after 1982, Abu Ali's early film has only recently been made available. Shooting under extraordinary conditions, the director, who worked with Godard on his Ici et Ailleurs (Here and Elsewhere), and founded the PLO's film division, covers conditions in Lebanon's refugee camps, the effects of Israeli bombardments, and the lives of guerrillas in training camps.

“Stories Make Us”: A TED Talk with Dr. Refaat Alareer: As Palestinians under occupation, storytelling transcends the didactic value to an urgent need to owning our narrative, something that gives back power to the people rather than the elite. Stories that people can tell about a land are proofs of their right to that land. Refaat Alareer’s major concern was that older people’s stories aka the oral history is dying out because due to modern technology we stopped caring about stories. “I am the man I am because of the stories told to me by my mother and grandmother,” he states.

Gaza, Explained: Vox-produced video gives a brief history of Gaza and how we got to our present moment.