Edward Said - Three Incredible Films and More
I saw these three amazing films over two consecutive days
(the first two at the Chicago International Film Festival! They were for me a rich, most disturbing
films that exposed the realities of the Genocide in Gaza in very different ways!
Between Worlds surprisingly brought by far the most
tears!
Edward Wadie Said[a] (1
November 1935 – 24 September 2003) was a Palestinian and American academic,
literary critic, and political activist.[1]
As a professor of literature at Columbia University, he was among the founders
of post-colonial studies.[2]
As a cultural critic, Said is best known for his book Orientalism (1978), a foundational text which
critiques the cultural representations that are the bases
of Orientalism—how
the Western
world perceives the Orient.[3][4][5][6]
…
Halleran: "Professor Said, do the Zionists have
any historical claim to the lands of Israel?"
Said: "Of course! But I would not say that the Jewish claim, or the
Zionist claim, is the only claim or the main claim; I say that it is a claim
among many others. Certainly, the Arabs have a much greater claim because they
have had a longer history of inhabitance—of actual residence in Palestine—than the Jews did.
If you look at the history of Palestine, there's been some quite
interesting work done by biblical archaeologists... you'll see that the
period of actual Israelite—as it was called in the Old
Testament—dominance in Palestine amounts to about 200 to 250 years. But
there were Moabites,
there were Jebusites,
there were Canaanites,
there were Philistines, there were many other people in Palestine at
the time and before and after. And to isolate one of them and say, 'That's the
real owner of the land,' I mean, that is—that is fundamentalism. Because the
only way you can back it up is say, 'Well, God
gave it to us.' [...] So, I think the people who have a history of
residence in Palestine for a certain amount of time—including Jews, yes, and,
of course, the Arabs—have a claim. But... this is very important: I don't think
any claim [...] nobody has a claim that overrides all the others and entitles
that person with that so-called claim to drive people out!"
— "Imperial
Continuity – Palestine, Iraq, and U.S.
Policy"[76] (8
May 2003)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Said
Documentary FeaturesWoman Filmmaker
Edward Said: Between Worlds
108 min · 2026 · United States, Qatar
Celebrated as an icon and smeared by the establishment,
Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said was a groundbreaking academic and one
of America’s fiercest advocates for Palestinian rights. Twenty-three years
after his death, Said takes viewers on a journey through the untold history of
Palestine through a kinetic assemblage of footage, recordings, and newly
digitized archives.
This film was created with great love and attention to detail
by several wonderful filmmakers. They
used the huge archival footage of a man who died in 2003 to poignantly show how
the GENOCIDE of 2023 continuing through the present (October, 2026 as I write)
was and is ignored, minimized and distorted by so many establishment forces and
individual figures.
My memories of the film bring me to continuing tears as I
write now! I had known of Edward Said
for many years, but had never taken the time to explore who he really was on so
many levels. His words were clear and consistently
reflecting the realities of the world and worlds around him. Repeatedly he was ignored! He was invited to speak, and then often not
allowed to speak his truths, without interruptions and distortions from both
those interviewing him and others disturbed by what he said.
The purported VIOLENCE of the Arabs/ The Palestinian People comes Not from a
single source. It comes from the “moderate
voices” of “reason”, who try to radicalize and metaphorically at least BULLY
the voices of reasoned humanity.
Our Government Leaders in the U.S. much of the time are the
force who keep the killing and maiming and destroying the future of millions of
people continuing from over 100 years ago through the present.
Rashid Khalidi, a “successor” to Edward Said at Columbia
University, 13 years younger than Said, is a logical voice, carrying on Said’s
values and insights –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EDypq6cKDM
(Peter Beinart interview of January 14, 2024)
Rashid Khalidi on why he left Columbia
In an interview with Spectator, Khalidi reflected on his
time at Columbia and explained why he canceled the History of the Modern Middle
East class he was set to teach this fall.
By Tianqi Wang
/ Deputy Photo Editor
By Spencer
Davis • September 17, 2025 at 7:29 PM
When Rashid Khalidi canceled
the History of the Modern Middle East course he was set to teach as a special
lecturer this fall, he cited
Columbia’s July 15 adoption
of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition
of antisemitism as the reason.
… Born in New York City in 1948, Khalidi grew up around
Columbia, where his father earned
his Ph.D. in 1955. …
He returned
to Columbia in 2003 as the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies, a
position in the history department named for the Palestinian-American academic
and Columbia professor whose book “Orientalism” transformed the field of
postcolonial studies.
“A lot of his writing was on Palestine, and that had an
enormous effect at Columbia because people engaged with his ideas, and many of
them came around to a different view than they had started from,” Khalidi said
of Said’s work.
When Said threw
a rock across the Lebanon-Israel border in 2000, then-Provost Jonathan Cole, CC
’64, GSAS ’69, and then-University President George Rupp came to his defense in
a Spectator op-ed
on the grounds of academic freedom. …
Despite the backlash, Khalidi continued
teaching at Columbia for two decades.
In 2021, Khalidi published “The Hundred Years’ War on
Palestine,” a book which frames the Israel-Palestine conflict as a colonial war
waged against Palestinians by Israel, Britain, and the United States. After
Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and the start of the war in Gaza, the
book spent more than 30 weeks on the New York Times’ nonfiction bestseller
list.
… ( My review of this
incredible book:
https://www.georgemarx.org/2024/02/the-hundred-years-war-rashid-khalidi.html
)
Khalidi officially retired
in spring
2024, though he returned in the fall of that year as a special lecturer to
teach a History of the Modern Middle East class. Still, Khalidi said the
University had never interfered with his teaching material. …
As a result of the new definition, Khalidi decided to
cancel the History of the Modern Middle East course that he was set to teach in
the fall. He announced the decision in an Aug. 1 open
letter to acting University President Claire Shipman, CC ’86, SIPA ’94,
published in The Guardian.
In the letter, Khalidi wrote that the definition—which he
said conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism—made it “impossible for me
to teach modern Middle East history, the field of my scholarship and teaching
for more than 50 years, 23 of them at Columbia.”
Khalidi wrote he could not teach “with any honesty” about
the creation of the state of Israel, the mass displacement of Palestinians
since 1948, Israel’s
2018 nation-state law, or the “apartheid nature of its control over
millions of Palestinians who have been under military occupation for 58 years”
without violating the terms of the definition.
https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2025/09/17/rashid-khalidi-on-why-he-left-columbia/
My words can not possibly capture Said’s brilliance,
humanity and worth! Similarly, this
documentary film is simply AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
--
C I T I Z E N O
S A M A
The documentary follows Osama Al-Ashi, a former
artistic photographer turned war journalist, living in northern Gaza
during the ongoing conflict. The film captures his struggle to protect his
wife and newborn child while documenting the devastation around him,
including bombings, destruction of homes, and severe shortages of food and
medical supplies 
The
Movie Database (TMDB)+1. It portrays the daily realities of life under
siege, showing both the suffering and resilience of Gazans, as well as the
emotional and professional challenges faced by journalists on the ground .
This film takes the viewer into a sliver of the worlds of
Osama Al-Ashi, his father, and very notably his newborn son, reporting on the
Genocide in Gaza. It is beautiful, and
most horrifying, exposing the day, by day realities that the Palestinians of
Gaza face and have faced directly for over three years as I write.
It, as all other worthwhile films on Palestine-Israel-Gaza
exposes the widespread myths of both the demons “Hamas” as well as the Palestinian People in general. They are flipped upside down from being the
illogically insane evil perpetrators in much of the Western World, to being
accurately portrayed as loving, caring people, facing an ongoing genocide directly
pushed by Israel’s leadership, with STRONG financial and verbal support of the
leadership of the United States for generations back through the present.
This film is excellent!
--
NAZA is a 2026 British documentary directed and
written by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, produced by The
Guardian and JW Films, that examines the use of AI and automated
surveillance systems in Israeli military targeting during the Gaza war 
Wikipedia+1.
NAZA exposes directly how The Israeli government uses the
cell phones of Palestinian Gazans and A1 technology in general to deliberately
target and choose WHO to kill in Gaza, including journalists, children, and
medical professionals.
This film is using Israeli, Jewish individuals as the “witnesses”,
not Palestinian, Arab or Muslim sources!
It is horrifying in its exposure of the realities of the
Genocide!
--
Those interested in seeing “THE REALITY” – should definitely
also try to see:
AMERICAN DOCTOR –
https://www.georgemarx.org/2026/09/american-doctor-amazinghorrifying-film.html
ALL THAT’S LEFT OF YOU – An incredible film (fiction)
might be the best film for the “novice” wanting to better understand.
All That's Left of You (Arabic:
اللي باقي منك, romanized: Illī Bāqī Minnak) is a 2025 drama film
produced, written and directed by Cherien
Dabis, who also stars in it alongside Saleh
Bakri, Mohammad Bakri, Adam Bakri,
Maria
Zreik, Muhammad Abed Elrahman, Sanad Alkabareti and Salah El Din. It
follows a Palestinian family across three generations during the
time spanning from the 1948 days of Nakba to the 2020s
under Israeli occupation.[4]
The film had its world premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival on 25
January 2025.[5]
It was selected as the Jordanian
entry for the Best International
Feature Film at the 98th Academy Awards,[6]
making the December shortlist.[7]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_That%27s_Left_of_You
There are of course many other wonderful, often horrifying
films one should see such as:
Hind Rajab — The 2024 Gaza Killing and Its Aftermath
Hind Rami Iyad Rajab was a five‑year‑old Palestinian girl
from Tel al‑Hawa, Gaza City, who was killed on 29 January 2024
during the Gaza war Wikipedia. She
was the sole survivor of a family of seven — including her mother, four
cousins, and her uncle — who were all killed in a single Israeli military
attack 
www.hindrajabfoundation.org.
--
We choose, when we choose, not to see THIS GENOCIDE! It is visibly OUT THERE!
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