Middle East World Scene

Middle East- list of articles in the section Middle East World Scene

  • 1988: 40 Years Israel
    1988 marked the 40th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. This programme takes a look at Israel from a Dutch perspective. It was first broadcast on May 4th, which is the Dutch annual …
  • “Pity the Nation”: Lebanon seen through the eyes of an exceptional journalist
    Pete Myers speaks with the award-winning journalist Robert Fisk about his book “Pity the Nation”, an exceptional account of the civil war in Lebanon and Fisk’s first-hand experience …
  • Happy Station: Pete Myers returns to Beirut with Ginger da Silva
    Among the many adventures that storyteller Pete Myers loved to recount was his time in the then entertainment capital of the Middle East: Beirut in the 1970’s. He arrived just before the …
  • Safe passage: The road to peace in Israel and Palestine
    Martha Hawley tries to find out how the people on both sides of the divide feel about the peace process that is now underway. Some people feel that the state of war has only been intensified. Among …
  • Towards 2000: Voices from Jerusalem
    Martha Hawley visits the Holy City, holy to both Jews and Moslems. Politically, the status of Jerusalem is the major bone of contention between Israel and the Palestinians and a major impediment to …
  • Israel at 50
    As the Jewish state reaches its half century, Ferry Biederman looks at what has been achieved over the past 50 years and looks ahead to what many continue to view as a difficult and turbulent future. …
  • A conversation with Amos Oz
    To celebrate Israel’s 50 years existence, Dheera Sujan speaks with one of its most celebrated sons: the writer Amos Oz (1939-2018). Novelist, political pundit, sex symbol, kibbutznik, warrior …
  • Separation barrier art
    Art and culture in Palestine
    In 1999, the Rotterdam Film Festival, together with a local gallery, presented a unique programme on Palestinian culture. Mindy Ran presents the personal and political voice of art and culture in …
  • Dry winds: Egypt’s war of words
    Martha Hawley looks at the growing intolerance in Egypt of people who deviate from the Islamic straight and narrow. The works of writers, film directors, scholars and social activists have been …
  • Yehudi Menuhin
    Dheera Sujan meets one of the great musicians and humanists of the 20th century, Lord Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999). She talks to him about his life, his music and the state of the world. Producer: …
  • Pharaonic fever: Bibliotheca Alexandria
    Martha Hawley visits Alexandria, site of the famous ancient library, founded in Egypt’s pre-Islamic days by Alexander the Great, as well as the location of a new version which opened in 2001, …
  • Lysistrata rising: A women’s worldwide protest against war
    Protests against the war in Iraq took many forms: demonstrations, marches, candlelight vigils. But one of the most unique and peaceful actions took place on March 3, 2003. In more than 1000 venues in …
  • Baghdad 2007
    Iraq: A hostage nation
    Three Iraqis talk about the disappointments and tragedies their countrymen and women have suffered during more than 15 years of war, crippling sanctions and the current occupation. “Iraqis are …
  • Dr. Danny Brom, director of the Israel Centre for the Treatment of Psychotrauma in Jerusalem
    Under Foreign Skies: Dr. Danny Brom
    This programme is part of the series Under Foreign Skies“Under Foreign Skies” is a series of portraits of Dutch people abroad doing remarkable things. Dr. Danny Brom is a Dutch trauma …
  • Jan Willems
    Theatre in the rubble
    A decade ago, a chance encounter took Dutch theater-maker Jan Willems to the occupied Palestinian territories. Following the signing of the Oslo peace accords in 1993, he decided to set up a theatre …
  • Rami
    In Limbo – Palestinian gays
    Homosexuality is illegal under Palestinian law. Gays and lesbians have been imprisoned because of their sexual orientation. Human rights groups report that the Palestinian Authority has also tortured …
  • Press freedom in Israel and the occupied territories
    In 2004, the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is intensifying in the wake of the second intifada or Palestinian uprising. Suicide bombings perpetrated by Palestinian extremists and the …
  • Gadi Algazi
    A conversation with Gadi Algazi
    By profession, Professor Algazi is a historian at Tel Aviv University. By calling, he is a humanist and a passionate human rights advocate. At the age of 12, when his friends would have been …
  • Troubled children in a troubled land
    Over half a century of conflict in the Holy Land has left deep scars both on Israelis and Palestinians. Never have the levels of violence been as high as since the outbreak of the second intifada or …
  • Juan and Josie
    Illegal in Israel – The story of Juan and Josie
    300,000 foreigners went to Israel in the 1990’s. They were replacing Palestinian labourers who had been barred from entering Israel after the outbreak of the intifada or Palestinian uprising. …
  • The Wall in Abu Dis
    The Barrier: Stories from behind the Wall
    In the summer of 2002, Israel began erecting a barrier to seal off the occupied Palestinian territories. The move followed a series of Palestinian suicide bombings in Israel. 150 kilometres of the …
  • The Wall
    The Barrier: On the edge of a volcano
    In the summer of 2002, Israel began erecting a barrier to seal off the occupied Palestinian territories. The move followed a series of Palestinian suicide bombings in Israel. 150 kilometres of the …
  • After Yasser Arafat
    When the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who had made such a deep impact on developments in the Middle East for a generation, died in November 2004, Palestinians and many others were left wondering …
  • Two Palestinian Red Crescent Society ambulances destroyed by the Israeli army
    Under threat: International humanitarian law in the occupied territories
    Since the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising in the autumn of 2000, Palestinians’ freedom of movement has been severely limited. Throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip, checkpoints and the …
  • Three photographs: Journalist Thorne Anderson in Iraq
    (© Unembedded.com) Thorne Anderson’s photographs have appeared in publications around the world and in 2005 he contributed to “Unembedded: Four Independent Photojournalists on the War in …
  • “The Cairo Trilogy” by Naguib Mahfouz
    Michele Ernsting talks to leading Arab intellectual Fouad Ajami, the director of Middle Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University, about “The Cairo Trilogy”, one of the world’s …
  • Barrier enclosing the Gaza Strip
    A prison within a prison
    When one thinks of prison islands many names spring to mind – Devil’s Island, Robben Island, Alcatraz Island, to name a few. Gaza may not be an island or a prison but it feels like both to many …