Over the last 20 years, Olly has created a body of work that often combines journalistic rigour with powerful documentary storytelling, making films that reveal the complexities of international events through the eyes of ordinary people at the frontline of events.  He’s made films in Syria, Afghanistan, Gaza and Iraq, often featuring characters from two warring sides.

His latest film, a co-production for the BBC and PBS features interviews with leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as senior commanders in the IDF, and draws on an archive of over 120 hours of footage that was filmed on a single day in Gaza last year.  How does he go about getting both sides of the story in such difficult and complex situations? And what what’s it like taking on such controversial and highly sensitive subject matter?

One Day in Gaza (58”) is a highly immersive film which reveals, moment by moment, what happened on May 14th 2018 – a day planned as a peaceful protest against the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem, but which resulted in one of Gaza’s deadliest days of violence for a generation.  Following the screening, Olly will talk to Gabriel Gatehouse about the making of the film and reveals the challenges, jeopardies and difficulties he encountered before, during and after production.

Critical praise for ‘One Day in Gaza’:

• “This astonishing documentary had a clarity that coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict has lacked for years”       The Guardian
• “Superlative”  The Telegraph
• “An extraordinary work”   The Times

Main image: Copyright: MAHMUD HAMS/AFP/Getty Images

Anglo-American media coverage of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is dominated by news of conflict. There is no doubt that the region has seen many conflicts throughout the 20th and into the 21st century, from anti-colonial uprisings, to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the rise of militant religious groups like Al-Qaeda and the self-declared Islamic State (or ISIS), and recent Arab “revolts”.

Nevertheless, coverage of the MENA region in mainstream Anglo-American media has been impacted by “Orientalist” perspectives that perpetrate negative stereotypes and connotations about Arabs and Muslims. These in turn reinforce Islamophopic sentiments in mainstream news discourse and various sectors of the Anglo-American society, and engender hate and fear against Arabs in general and Muslims specifically.

The evening will be formatted in a country-by-country approach to analyse the region, discussing coverage of Egypt, Syria, Gaza and Lebanon.

Chair

Rima Maktabi is a Lebanese TV presenter and award-winning journalist and is currently the London Bureau Chief for Al Arabiya. Before this Maktabi hosted CNN’s monthly program Inside the Middle East for two years. She has done extensive field coverage from Syria focusing on the political, military as well as the humanitarian aspect of the war torn
country; numerous news reports were produced by Maktabi from Aleppo, Idlib and Daraa provinces. She also produced thorough coverage from the frontline of Mosul in Iraq focusing on stories about the battle with ISIS.

Speakers

James Rodgers is Leader of International Studies in the Department of Journalism at City, University of London. James is the author of three books on journalism and war: Headlines from the Holy Land: Reporting the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (2015); No Road Home: Fighting for Land and Faith in Gaza (2013); Reporting Conflict (2012). James formerly worked as a journalist for Reuters TV, GMTV, and the BBC. While at the BBC, he worked as a producer, correspondent, editor, and occasional presenter. He completed foreign correspondent postings in Moscow, Brussels, and Gaza. James continues to contribute to broadcast, print, and online journalism. Most recently, he has had work published in The New European and on the Prospect website.

Dr Omar Al-Ghazzi is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Media and Communications, the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Omar is interested in the role of media and communication in political conflict, activism, and collective memory, with a focus on the Middle East and North Africa. Before joining LSE, he was a lecturer (assistant professor) at the University of Sheffield’s Department of Journalism Studies.  Omar’s research has appeared in journals such as Communication Theory and Media, Culture & Society and has been recognized by the International Communication Association. A former Fulbright scholar, Dr Al-Ghazzi comes from a journalism professional background. He has previously worked as a reporter for Al-Hayat Arabic daily and as a media analyst at BBC Monitoring. He completed his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication.

Dr Zahera Harb  was a TV journalist in her native Lebanon for over 11 years, reporting for local and international organisations and anchoring news and current affairs programmes. She has completed assignments for BBC Arabic service, CNN world report and Dutch TV. She still commentates on Media and Politics in the Middle East. A Senior Lecturer in International Journalism at City, University of London, Zahera is widely published on journalism, media and politics in the Arab world. She is the author of Channels of Resistance: Liberation Propaganda, Hezbollah and the Media, co-editor (with Dina Matar) of Narrating Conflict in the Middle East: Discourse, Image and Communications Practices in Lebanon and Palestine and  editor of Reporting the Middle East, the Practice of News in the 21stCentury, published by I.B.Tauris. Board roles include the Ethical Journalism Network. She is Associate editor of Journalism Practice and member of editorial boards of several academic journals including Journalism and Journal of Media practice.

Chair: Charles Glass

Glass is an author, journalist and broadcaster specialising in the Middle East and the Second World War. He began his journalistic career in 1973 at the ABC News Beirut bureau with Peter Jennings. He covered the October Arab-Israeli War on the Egyptian and Syrian fronts. He also covered civil war in Lebanon, where artillery fire wounded him in 1976. He was ABC News Chief Middle East correspondent from 1983 to 1993. Since 1993, he has been a freelance writer in Paris, Tuscany, Venice and London, regularly covering the Middle East, the Balkans, southeast Asia and the Mediterranean region. In 1986, Glass interviewed the hostage crew of TWA flight 847 on the tarmac of Beirut Airport. He broke the news that the hijackers had removed the hostages from the plane and hidden them in the suburbs of Beirut, causing the Reagan Administration to abort a rescue attempt. In 1987, Glass himself was abducted and held hostage for two months before escaping from his Shiite Muslim captors. In 1988, he exposed Saddam Hussein’s then-secret biological weapons program. The U.S. government rejected Glass’s claims, until Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. In addition, Glass was the only U.S. television correspondent in northern Iraq covering the entire Kurdish rebellion in 1991. He has covered wars in the Middle East, Eritrea, Rhodesia, Somalia, Iraq and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Speakers

Ian Black

Black is the former Middle East editor at the Guardian, where he has worked since 1980 as a reporter. In recent years he has reported extensively on the Arab uprisings and their aftermath in Syria, Libya and Egypt. 2017 marks the publication of Black’s new book, Enemies and Neighbours: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017, which traces the history of conflict in the region including important milestones such as the Balfour Agreement. Black joined the LSE Middle East Centre as a Visiting Senior Fellow in August 2016.  In 2010, he was awarded a Peace Through Media Award by the International Council for Press and Broadcasting at the International Media Awards in London.

Ghada Karmi

Karmi is a Palestinian doctor of medicine, author and academic. Ghada was born in Jerusalem and was forced to leave her home with her family as a result of Israel’s creation in 1948. They moved to England where Karmi eventually practised as a doctor for many years, working as a specialist in the health of migrants and refugees. Karmi is the author of several books, including her memoir In Search of Fatima, Jerusalem Today, What Future for the Peace Process? and The Palestinian Exodus 1948-1998. She has held a number of research appointments at SOAS and the universities of Durham and Leeds. From 1999 to 2001 she was an Associate Fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, where she led a major project on Israel-Palestinian reconciliation. In 2009, she became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Currently Ghada Karmi is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter.

Lord Leslie Turnberg

Lord Turnberg is a medical professional, author and Labour peer. Leslie Turnberg graduated in medicine from Manchester University in 1957. He was appointed President of the Royal College of Physicians in 1992 and received a knighthood in 1994 Birthday Honours for services to medicine. He continues to be active in medical affairs in the House of Lords and is a member of the Committee on Sustainability of the NHS. He was a Jewish Medical Association (UK) founder patron.  In 2008 Lord and Lady Turnberg, in partnership with the Academy of Medical Sciences, established the Daniel Turnberg Memorial Fellowships. These fellowships are in memory of their late son, a doctor and researcher with a keen interest in fostering links between the UK and the Middle East. In recent years Lord Turnberg has turned his attention increasingly to the thorny problems of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He has used his experience in research and in large organisations to analyse the reasons behind the inability of the Zionists and the Arabs to reach a compromise. As a Labour Peer he focuses on the problems that abound in the Middle East in his interventions in debates in the House of Lords. In April this year, Lord Turnberg published his book Beyond the Balfour Agreement marking the anniversary of the landmark letter and the misconceptions surrounding the declaration ever since.

Dr Jacob Norris

Jacob Norris is a social and cultural historian of the modern Middle East. He completed his PhD in 2010 at the University of Cambridge where he spent a further 3 years as Research Fellow, before coming to Sussex in 2013. Jacob’s research is mostly focused on Palestine in the 19th and early 20th centuries, albeit within global and transnational frameworks. His monograph, Land of Progress: Palestine in the Age of Colonial Development, 1905-1948 was published in 2013 by Oxford University Press.

Featured image: From left to right: Lord Allenby (commander of British forces in Palestine 1917), Lord Balfour, and Sir Herbert Samuel, first British High Commissioner of the Mandate attending the 1925 opening of Hebrew University.

Taking four years to complete (including the harrowing war in Gaza in 2014), Gaza Surf Club shows an incredibly engaging and enlightening story of a group of people whose similarities with our ‘human condition’ bring out the wrangling contrasts of our differences.

Director Philip Gnadt and Producer and Co-Director Mickey Yamine will be present post-screening for a Q&A with the audience.

Run Time: 87 mins

Watch the trailer here: https://vimeo.com/185917266

Whether covering the dashed hopes of the Egyptian revolution, the upheavals in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from Ramallah or Gaza, the reality of refugee camps in Turkey, or the faultiness of Iraq’s bloody divisions, the man is on a mission to share the issues on the ground with his readers. But to cope with the new communications jungle, choose the subjects he wants and make the front page, he must set himself apart from traditional mass media.

Watch the trailer here: https://vimeo.com/185352249

Jesse will be joined on the stage for the Q&A by Rossalyn Warren

Rossalyn is an award-winning foreign affairs journalist. Her reporting has been published in The New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, BuzzFeed News, VICE, CNN, BBC, ELLE, Newsweek, and Teen Vogue, among other places. She’s reported from 15 countries across Latin America, Europe, and Africa, and her reporting has been nominated for an Orwell Prize and a British Journalism Award. Rossalyn was named news reporter of the year at the 2016 Words By Women Awards, and she was shortlisted for new journalist of the year at the 2015 British Journalism Awards. Forbes named Rossalyn ’30 Under 30′ in media in Europe.

On Monday 16 November, the Frontline Club hosted a screening of the documentary Yallah! Underground, a vibrant look at a diverse groups of Arab artists and musicians using culture to challenge the status quo. The film is set in the years prior to and during the Arab spring, and focuses on artists from Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon. The film was followed by a Q&A with director Farid Eslam, via Skype.

The film puts its soundtrack at the forefront, and uses music to weave its way through different Arab cities, swiftly moving its focus between the individual artists’ discussions over the struggle between individuality and tradition. Freedom of expression and thought are common themes that are mentioned regularly, particularly in relation to the events of Tahrir Square in Egypt.

Eslam had spent a lot of time in the Middle East, mostly filming on commercial projects, and explained that his motivation for this project came from the desire to provide a different presentation of Arabs. He commented that Western perspective often sees Arabs being “closely connected to violence, frustration, aggression, which is only a fraction of the reality.”

“Most people want the same thing all over the world: to live in peace, freedom and to raise their families. It’s important to remind people and ourselves from time to time that we’re talking about just normal people, and it’s sad that we live in a time where we actually have to be reminded of this simple fact and simple truth.”

One audience member was curious about the absence of Syria from the film, considering its presence of underground artists. Eslam explained that he was keen to include Syria, and had tried to feature artists in Damascus and Jeddah. However, due to the escalation of the situation, “it became impossible.” Eslam did manage to film some Syrian artists in the Golan Heights, but this was not included in the film.

Eslam explained that he was able to film such a diverse group of people partly due to limited and sporadic funding, but also due to a large network of artists to draw from. Most of the artists filmed did not make it into the film; the total footage for the project was extensive, and probably enough to “make five more films.”

Will be discovering Egyptian hip hop today after watching Farid Eslam's 'Yallah! Underground' @frontlineclub last night. What a great film!

— Josephine Casserly (@JoCasserly) November 17, 2015

He found it very easy to meet artists: “Basically, you meet one artist and he points you to ten new ones.”

While a lot of his research was carried out on social media, he was also able to spend a lot of time talking directly to artists and people connected with the alternative scene.

Information about Yallah! Underground can be found on the film’s website and Facebook page. Yallah! Underground will have its first screening in an Arab country next month in Dubai.

From 29-31 October, the Frontline Club is hosting screenings as part of the Green Caravan Film Festival, a travelling festival of environmental and socially-conscious films. The full lineup can be found here.

The Wanted 18 recreates an astonishing true story: the Israeli army’s pursuit of 18 cows, whose independent milk production on a Palestinian collective farm was declared “a threat to the national security of the state of Israel.”

In response to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, a group of people from the town of Beit Sahour decide to buy 18 cows and produce their own milk as a co-operative. Their venture is so successful that the collective farm becomes a landmark, and the cows local celebrities – until the Israeli army takes note and declares that the farm is an illegal security threat. Consequently, the dairy is forced to go underground, and the cows continue to produce their “Intifada milk” with the Israeli army in relentless pursuit.

Directed by: Amer Shomali and Paul Cowan
Runtime: 75′
Country: Canada
Year: 2014

Based on new archive research and original interviews with leading correspondents and diplomats, the book explores why this fiercely contested region exerts such a pull over reporters: those who bring the story to the world. Despite decades of diplomacy, a just and lasting end to the conflict remains as difficult as ever to achieve.

Lyse Doucet, Chief International Correspondent at BBC News, said: “At a time when reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is under unprecedented scrutiny, James Rodgers provides an essential and insightful historical perspective on the long “war of words” behind a major conflict of our time. Rodgers’ book is essential reading for those seeking a greater understanding of the difficult dynamics behind reporting – and resolving conflicts.”

James Rodgers is an author and journalist. His previous books are Reporting Conflict (2012) and No Road Home: Fighting for Land and Faith in Gaza (2013). A former BBC correspondent in Moscow, Brussels, and Gaza, James lectures in Journalism at City University.

Guests are encouraged to read the book before the event, although you are also welcome to join if you’ve just started your exploration. Previous experience has shown that members often gain insight and inspiration from discussions with the author, which enable them to continue reading the book in a new light.

This will be an in-depth discussion rather than a standard format Q&A. The evening will start with drinks at 7:00 PM, following by a sit-down dinner at 7:30 PM. We will get to know one another over starters before the introduction of the evening’s guest author.

The event will be hosted by Frontline Club director, Pranvera Smith, and founding member and senior correspondent at The Guardian and The Observer, Ed Vulliamy.

SPECIAL DISCOUNT FOR THE FRONTLINE CLUB: Save 30% when ordering on palgrave.com. Please e-mail Sophie Kayes for the code. Valid until 31 October 2015. Terms and conditions apply.

Menu £25 per person excluding drinks. 

The idea behind members’ BookNights is to have a thoroughly good time, encourage reading and discussion, and to end the night both happier and wiser than when it began. For more information about membership and the other benefits on offer, please contact membership coordinator Sophie Kayes.

The scenes from Gaza and the media portrayal of events again ignited a global debate about this enduring conflict. A year has passed, the media spotlight has moved on and the people have been left to rebuild their lives, with over 100,000 still displaced.

We will be joined by a panel of journalists who were there to cover the conflict, as well as those who have been involved in the efforts to rebuild, to reflect on what happened a year ago and what life has been like since.

Chaired by Elizabeth Palmer, CBS News correspondent. She has reported on the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq and on politics and foreign policy in Iran, Syria and the Middle East.

The panel:

Euan Crawshaw is the regional emergency manager for the Middle East at Christian Aid. After 6 years spent working on a variety of Emergency projects in East and Central Africa and the Middle East, he has been managing Christian Aids response in Gaza since December last year.

Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and best-selling author whose articles and video documentaries have appeared in The New York Times, Daily Beast, The Guardian, Huffington Post, Salon, Al Jazeera English and many other publications. He is the author of Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel, Republican Gomorrah: Inside The Movement That Shattered the Party and most recently The 51 Day War: Resistance and Ruin in Gaza.

Christopher Gunness is the director of advocacy and communications at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which runs emergency and human development programmes across the Middle East. He worked at the BBC World Service covering the upheavals that ended the Cold War, including the Burmese uprising in 1988. He served as BBC UN correspondent, a BBC News reporter and a presenter on BBC World. In 2006 he was appointed head of communications in the UN’s political office in Jerusalem and a year later transferred to his current post.

Dr Toby Greene is a political analyst and writer. He is the director of research for BICOM, the deputy editor of BICOM’s Fathom journal, and a visiting scholar at Tel Aviv University where he also teaches on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He is author of Blair, Labour and Palestine: Conflicting Views on Middle East Peace After 9/11.

PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT WILL BE FILMED AND STREAMED LIVE ON OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL

On Friday 15 May, the Frontline Club hosted the UK premiere of This Is My Land, followed by an insightful discussion with director Tamara Erde. Screened on the 67th anniversary of Israeli Independence and Nakba Day, the film poses an important and highly relevant question: how does teaching of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict affect younger generations in the contested region?

This Is My Land follows several history teachers and students in six schools over an academic year. It provides a nuanced perspective of how educational institutions across Israel and the West Bank grapple with national identity, curriculum censorship and a relentless fear of the ‘other’. Observational in style, the film reveals gaping discrepancies between concepts of freedom and historical truth, and a sense of how trauma and conflict are transmitted onto the next generation through the pages of a textbook.

At the beginning of the film, Erde explains how, as an Israeli student, she was never taught to consider Palestinian history. It was not until she joined the army that she gained greater awareness of the other side of the conflict. During her discussion at the Frontline Club, she commented on her motivations for making the film.

“For me, something that is really important and lacking in education, is the other side’s vision, narrative and history. The first step is just to realise that there is another side and story, that is today being completely ignored. It’s [about] opening up to tolerance and understanding that you are not alone in the world… to see people on the other side with their pain from the past, all this complexity.”

Thought provoking evening @frontlineclub: This is my land | Tamara Erde http://t.co/VHnxaohRFM

— Stephanie Biden (@StephanieBiden) May 15, 2015

Asked by an audience member how she had approached each school, Erde said:
“You have to get approval from the Ministry of Education for each teacher. From the Israeli side, all the teachers who were centre-left were not authorised.”

She added that while there were numerous schools from which she was denied access, the teachers she filmed were intriguing, both in their characters and the way they approached teaching.

“What I was looking for was teachers who on the one hand represent the national curriculum, but on the other hand do try to challenge themselves or ask questions within what they can do.”

Despite the complex personalities of the teachers, several audience members noted how bleak the film seemed in terms of optimism, and asked whether Erde felt any sense of hope that the two sides could find a solution.

She responded: “While editing, there were times when I thought I’d like it to have a happy ending. But at the same time, I wanted to stay loyal to what I felt and what I saw during this process… From what we’ve seen over the long years, the solution doesn’t come from politics. We need to try and bring it from other places, and I think education could have been one of the major places. But today, it’s just following politics completely.”

One audience member asked whether the film had been screened in Israel or Palestine and, given the contentious topic, the reactions it received.

Erde said: “We did some private screenings in the cinemas on the Israeli side and Ramallah… There were many good responses from teachers who saw the film and said it raised many important questions for them. On the Israeli side we did some screenings in April. There were first reactions saying, it’s okay for us to see it inside Israel but don’t show it outside so you don’t reveal anything about the problems here.”

She added that her ultimate aim would be to screen the film in schools.

“What I would have loved to do is to bring it to schools, to teachers and to kids from both sides to see. I think it will be a long process. We managed to do it in the schools that we filmed, and in some private teachers organisations. We tried through the Ministry [of Education], but I’m not surprised it didn’t work. On the Palestinian side, we are trying now and I hope it will work in some way.”

Visit the This Is My Land website for more information on the film and upcoming screenings.