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The Road to Tantura Journey
By Marivel Guzman
For the supporters of Israel who romanticize the creation of Israel as an event of resilience and courage, let me tell you that creating a village on the ruins and blood of the native residents is not romantic at all.
One of our own #Celebs4Palestine, #HalaGabriel, an American filmmaker, a Palestinian born in exile in Syria after all her family were expelled from their village in Palestine in 1948. Gabriel presents you with her “Road to Tantura Journey” in one documentary; “Tantura.”
Tantura is a village in the Mediterranean shores of Palestine now called Tantura, Israel.
Gabriel’s documentary takes you in a journey of remembrance and pain; What is to be a refugee; how her village was invaded by Israeli army and through the voices of historians and survivors the film “speaks” how the men were put in open concentration camps and some left to died by thirst and starvation.
“Tantura” walks you through the exodus of Palestinians that ended in Syria and Lebanon as refugees, some still living in tents–How the lives of refugees transform from living in beautiful-monument homes to live in tents. The story repeats for Palestinians that until recently lived in Syria, refugee camps, now, are again forced to another exodus of survival. Their story repeats after 70 years of exodus from their native Tantura to open concentration camps in Europe.
You can read in The Jerusalem Post an account of the events in its article The Tantura ‘Massacre’ Affair, published Feb. 09, 2004. The article was based on the writings by historian Benny Morris, “The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problems,” originally published on by Cambridge University Press (New York, NY) on 1988.
“Tantura” gives you a glimpse of the horrors residents of Tantura, Palestine suffered on the hands of the “heroic” Israeli soldiers who came to her family village. Some of those soldiers who just two years previous to the invasion of Tantura have suffered the same ordeal in Germany under the Nazi regime. A retired Israel soldier excused his participation in the invasion with “You have to ask yourself,” he said, “Who gave the order.” Regardless of who gave the order; the story of displacement and murder of the residents of the village was the same.
Gabriel started the project “The Road to Tantura,” more than 10 years ago, now to finish the documentary “Tantura,” she has opened a kickstarter fund where you can help her to finish the journey.
President Trump versus the media
In the long run, the relation of President Trump with the press can erode to the point to become a dictatorship right in front of our eyes.
President Trump disregards the press as dishonest. It seems obvious that President Donald Trump wants to delegitimize the media and has been doing it so diligently, making it appear as a harmless game, but in reality, Trump is pushing the media out of the White House. He easily refers to media as fake news, not even allowing the reporters that question his actions as our president to speak up. This undermines the role of media in our democracy. By doing this, reporters he chastises are silenced and essentially invisible.
Not only does President Trump undermine the role of media, but with his use of his personal Twitter account as a medium to release information related to his activities as a commander in chief, he bypasses the media and acts as his own spokesperson. He breaks a traditional flow of communication around the White House and this behavior has his advisers trying to find a loophole in the security apparatus of the presidency in their attempts to excuse Trump’s disregard for the rules in place for a sitting president.
For example; traditionally the White House Press Secretary’s primary role is to act as spokesperson for the president. The Press Secretary tells the public what the president is doing, and reporters get to ask questions about it. President Trump’s constant Tweeting does not allow for this regularity, making it difficult at best, if not impossible, for his own spokesperson to do his job.
Also, Trump is attacking TV networks calling them “dishonest” and “FAKE NEWS” at every opportunity he has. Trump has developed the mania to call TV networks dishonest if they do not broadcast news favorable to him.
His first tantrum against the media as Commander in Chief was the day of his inauguration as the 45th president; CNN and Vox published photos side by side of Obama 2008 inauguration with Trump 2017 inauguration, showing a much larger crowd for Obama’s inauguration. This photo got Trump so mad that he called National Park Service, upset over the inauguration crowd.
According to ABC, “President Donald Trump called the National Park Service’s acting director the morning after his inauguration to express displeasure over a retweet of inauguration crowd photos from the agency’s official account, according to the White House.” To put the “rumors” to rest, President Trump, had a photo by Abbas Shirmohammadi, who had been involved in creating images of presidential inaugural since former President Ronald Reagan, placed in the upper/lower press hall.
By replacing inauguration day photos to glamourize his own popularity, he is manipulating public perception, which is something dictators have been known to do.
” The easiest way to control a person’s thoughts is when s/he is afraid. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was well-aware of this fact when he cautioned Americans, “The only thing to fear is fear itself”. We have seen the awful repercussions of the Red Scare here in America. However, the most severe evidence of thought control through fear tactics comes from Nazi Germany.” Excerpt from Sierra Martinez’s essay, June 3, 2003, Stanford University
Trump seems obsessed with tweeting his news directly to his followers. It is unorthodox that a sitting president tweets information rather than allows his press secretary to speak directly with the press in case there are questions that need to be answered.
In his final press conference, Obama defended the role of the press and he joked a little bit with them. Obama maintained a cordial relationship with the press because he understood that the press is the only one that can demand accountability from the White House.
He said, “You’re not supposed to be sycophants, you’re supposed to be skeptics, you’re supposed to ask me tough questions,”
Remember the press is the watchdog that keeps an eye on the government
Are Whistleblowers heroes or traitors?
By Marivel Guzman | Akashma News
Published June 06, 2017
Edward Snowden, exiled NSA whistleblower, whose disclosures revealed mass surveillance programs targeting citizens and allies worldwide.Photo by Laura Poitras / Praxis Films, via Wikimedia Commons CC BY 3.0
Patriots and heroes fall in the same category; a patriot is a person who vigorously supports their country and is prepared to defend it against enemies or detractors. And a hero is a person noted for courageous acts or nobility of character.
Secrets that should not be hidden from the people. In this era of government’s secrecy, whistleblowers are patriots no less important than heroes that take the risk on their lives to expose the darkest secrets of governments.
Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old former NSA technician is my favorite whistleblower and hero, because his revelations have the most benefit for the people not just in the US but for the whole world.
Snowden’s Twitter’s status says in few words his motivations to expose
the NSA’s spying program.
He told the Guardian he worked for a major U.S. government contractor in Hawaii, earning a six-figure salary and enjoying the scenic state with his girlfriend. And he chose to leave everything behind to alert the public of the massive government surveillance program.
Snowden said that governments should be a transparent agency that work for the people and should be accountable and hiding secrets is not the best way to serve the people.
He is a hero in all the extension of the word and he should to be protected, defended, and supported for what his revelations and endeavor; in doing so, we will be defending ourselves, our privacy, security and most importantly defending our constitutional rights, that ultimately are the only protection we have.
Some of Snowden’s leaks suggested the NSA had misled Congress about the scope of its domestic spying activities.
In a Senate hearing, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper lied when asked if NSA collects information on Millions of Americans. We only know that NSA spying on all of us thanks to Snowden’s revelations.
Now we know better not to say things in the phone that can be heard by prying ears.
Julian Assange, editor of WikiLeaks, although not a whistleblower in my opinion, he is an extraordinary journalist who has tasked himself with serving as a vehicle for whistleblowers to leak governments’ secrets and publish them WikiLeaks.
Recently President Donald Trump said the government will prosecute those who leak government secrets, in my opinion, Trump is trying to instill fear in journalists, not only on whistleblowers.
Remember it was the New York Times who revealed the Pentagon Papers and The Guardian that published Snowden’s revelations.
At one point, the Director of National Intelligence Mike Pompeo called for Snowden execution, “He should be brought back from Russia and given due process, and I think that the proper outcome would be that he would be given a death sentence for having put friends of mine, friends of yours, in the military today, at enormous risk because of the information he stole and then released to foreign powers.”
I believe whistleblowers feel, that people deserve to know the truth, even as the government hides and denies the facts. Whistleblowers put their lives at risk for the sake of other people making more informed decisions, which is a heroic act.
Akashma Online News 
