The Angel (2018 American film)
The Angel is an Israeli-American spy thriller film directed by Ariel Vromen and starring Marwan Kenzari and Toby Kebbell among others. It is an adaptation of the non-fiction book titled The Angel: The Egyptian Spy Who Saved Israel and written by Uri Bar-Joseph and translated by David Hazony; the movie opens with black and white news clipping narratives about the Six Days War between Israel and Egypt, giving an outline of the war and its immediate aftermath. On September 3, 1973, Ashraf Marwan lands in Rome and meets Arab insurgents on the outskirts of the Rome International Airport, with a missile launcher that he was able to smuggle in his suitcase due to his diplomatic passport which prevented his suitcase from being checked, he tells the insurgents that he must leave as he is an Egyptian diplomat and cannot be seen. The insurgents aim the launcher at a commercial airliner, heading to Israel, it appears. The scene flashes back to three years earlier in 1970. Ashraf Marwan is in London studying.
His wife is the daughter of Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein, because he is the president's son-in-law he is privy to sensitive government information and meetings. During one such meeting, President Nasser is discussing with his cabinet the resentment the Egyptians feel about the lost of land to Israel during the Six Days War; however and his men are against it because they don't want to lose the backing of the USSR, whom seems to be the only other superpower country, comparable to the USA, since the Americans are backing the Israelis. Ashraf insists that they cut their ties with the Soviets, since he thinks that the Soviet Union will not be able to substantiate itself for much longer. Nasser rebukes Ashraf, afterwards takes Mona aside to criticize Ashraf to her. Ashraf is embarrassed, it is implied that Ashraf has a gambling problem and that he is being financially supported by President Nasser. His lingering resentment leads him to call the Israeli's Ambassador to London, Michael Comay, stating that he has important information to share.
Soon after, President Nasser dies of a heart attack, Ashraf and his family are recalled back to Cairo. Anwar Sadat becomes the next president of Egypt, his ideologies are more in line with that of Ashraf. Ashraf is able to win over Sadat with a display of loyalty, because of that he's able to climb the political ladder of Sadat's government. Sadat wants Egypt to save its face from the humiliating defeat of the Six Days War, regain its loss territory. Back in London, Mossad agents reach out to Ashraf after playing him a recording of his call asking to speak with Ambassador Comay. Ashraf meets a man who goes by the name of Alex, but whose real name is Danny. Ashraf begins to sell his country's secrets to the Israeli government for monetary gain; the information that Ashraf provides Alex/Danny is reliable, Ashraf has been profiting well on his treason to Egypt. Danny tells Zvi Zamir, the director of Mossad, that Ashraf's motive is just purely greed and egotism because he wants the money. Danny and Ashraf grow a mutual rapport with each other.
In the case of immediate war, Ashraf will phone Alex/Danny with a message using the word "potassium". Ashraf gives the Israelis two warnings about the threat of a military invasion, but both warnings turns out to be false. Egypt finds itself having to ally with other Arab countries because the Soviets have cut their support with them, the USA will not side with Egypt against Israel. Ashraf goes to Gaddafi on behalf of President Sadat for support and for access to the Libyan oil reserves. However, when Israel shoots down a Libyan commercial plane filled with civilians, claiming it was by accident, Gaddafi wants vengeance, but Sadat is not willing to knowingly attack civilians. Knowing that this will anger Gaddafi as well as the other Arab nations if Egypt does not support Gaddafi, Ashraf comes up with a ploy to stabilize the situation, he tells Sadat that he will go to Gaddafi to pledge Egypt's support by aiding Gaddafi's "an eye for an eye" plan, so to appease the Arab nations, but that the attack will not be successful, therefore avoiding a provocation with Israel.
The scene returns back to the opening, September 3, 1973. When the Israeli commercial airliner takes off, the launcher does not fire despite the trigger being pulled multiple times. Italian authorities are notified of the insurgents and they are apprehended. Ashraf has been able to regain the trust of Mossad because of the failed attack in Rome. Zvi Zamir, however, is still cautious of Ashraf's informations because of the two
Jerusalem Film Festival
The Jerusalem Film Festival is an international film festival held annually in Jerusalem. The festival was the brainchild of Lia van Leer, who inaugurated it on May 17, 1984. Feature films and documentaries from all over the world are screened, awards are presented in many categories. After serving as a judge at the Cannes film festival, Lia van Leer decided to organize a similar event in Israel. Jeanne Moreau, Lillian Gish, Warren Beatty and John Schlesinger arrived in Israel to attend the debut. In 1989, van Leer persuaded American philanthropist Jack Wolgin to set up a competition bearing his name for the best Israeli films; the Wolgin Prize has become the country's most prestigious feature film award. In 2008, van Leer, 84, stepped down as director of the festival and turned the job over to a new CEO, Ilan de Vries. Competitions at the festival include the Wolgin Award for Israeli Cinema, the Anat Pirchi Drama Award, the Spirit of Freedom Awards, the Forum for the Preservation of Audio-Visual Memory in Israel Award for the Creative use of Archival Footage and the FIPRESCII competition for first time filmmakers.
Culture of Israel Cinema of Israel Official site
Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr
Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr was President of Iraq, from 17 July 1968 until 16 July 1979. A leading member of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, the Baghdad-based Ba'ath Party and its regional organisation Ba'ath Party – Iraq Region, which espoused Ba'athism, a mix of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism. Al-Bakr first rose to prominence following the 14 July Revolution. In the newly established government, al-Bakr was involved in improving Iraqi–Soviet relations. In 1959 al-Bakr was forced to resign from the Iraqi military. Following his forced retirement, he became the chairman of the Ba'ath Party's Iraqi branch's Military Bureau. Through this office he was able to recruit members to the ba'athist cause through patronage and cronyism. Prime Minister Abd al-Karim Qasim was overthrown in the Ramadan Revolution; the government lasted for less than a year, was ousted in November 1963. Following the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party's ouster from government in 1963, al-Bakr and the party pursued underground activities and became vocal critics of the government.
It was during this period that al-Bakr was elected the Ba'ath Party's Iraqi branch's Secretary General, appointed his cousin, Saddam Hussein, to be the party cell's deputy leader. Al-Bakr and the Ba'ath Party regained power in the coup of 1968 referred to as the 17 July Revolution. In the coup's aftermath, al-Bakr was elected Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council and President. Saddam, the Ba'ath Party's deputy, became Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council and Vice President, was responsible for Iraq's security services. During his rule, Iraq was blossoming. Land reforms were introduced, wealth was distributed more equally. A sort of socialist economy was established under the direction of Saddam. Al-Bakr lost power to Saddam in the 1970s, when the latter strengthened his position within the party and the state through security services. In 1979, al-Bakr resigned from all public offices for "health reasons" and died in 1982 of unreported causes. Al-Bakr was born 1 July 1914 in Tikrit, Ottoman Iraq, was Saddam Hussein's elder cousin.
He entered the Iraqi Military Academy in 1938 after spending six years as a primary-school teacher. During his early military career, he took part in the Rashid Ali al-Gaylani's failed revolt against the British in 1941, was imprisoned and expelled from the army. After 15 years of trying to rehabilitate himself al-Bakr was reinstated in the Iraqi Army in 1956 – the same year that he became a member of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party's Iraqi branch; the following year, in 1957, al-Bakr was promoted to brigadier. It was at about this time that al-Bakr got into contact with the Free Officers and Civilians Movement. Al-Bakr helped bring down the Hashemite Monarchy and bring Abd al-Karim Qasim to power during the 14 July Revolution, he had a short stint in the public limelight during Qasim's rule, withdrew Iraq from the Baghdad Pact and was a key player in improving Iraq's bilateral relations with the Soviet Union. In 1959, a year following the coup, he was again forced to retire from the military under allegations that he led an anti-government rebellion in Mosul by officers who favoured closer ties with the United Arab Republic.
It was during this period. So, al-Bakr retained his prominence within the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party's Iraqi branch, it was in the late 1950s, when Saddam became a member of the Ba'ath Party, that the two established a bond. Their future close relationship became possible because of Khairallah Talfah. However, at the beginning, Saddam was only a Ba'ath Party member, not a party activist; because of Qasim's government's repressive policy towards the opposition, Ali Salih al-Sadi, Secretary of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party's Iraqi branch, reorganised the party's rank and file, on 24 December 1962 launched a nationwide protest against Qasim's government. The government's treatment of dissent did not soften and by 1963 several leading Iraqi Ba'athists had travelled to Beirut, Lebanon to plan a coup against Qasim's government; the plan was simple. A Military Bureau was established to set these plans in motion. Al-Bakr was elected its chairman; the bureau managed to recruit increasing numbers of officers, most through personal attachments to certain people.
Al-Bakr led the 1963 Iraqi coup d'état referred to as the Ramadan Revolution, overthrew Qasim's government. In the coup's aftermath, Abdul Salam Arif, an independent, was elected President, al-Bakr was elected Prime Minister and Vice President, al-Sadi was elected Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior and Tahir Yahya was elected Chief of Staff. Soon after taking power, two factions were established. Al-Bakr was a moderate and spent much of his time trying to seeks a compromise between the two factions, but to no avail. To sol
When Pigs Have Wings (film)
When Pigs Have Wings or Le Cochon de Gaza is a 2011 French-German-Belgian comedy film directed by Sylvain Estibal. One day Jaafar, a fortuneless Palestinian fisherman, catches a Vietnamese pig in his fishing nets. Torn between his Muslim faith and his desire to improve the lives of his wife and himself, pay debts and the reality of the conflict, Jaafar decides to undertake a most unusual trade with a young Russian-Israeli settler, Yelena, she raises pigs and - having no male pig of her own - she asks Jafaar to bring him the seed of his pig. Sasson Gabai as Jafaar Baya Belal as Fatima Myriam Tekaïa as Yelena Gassan Abbas as Barber Khalifa Natour as Hussein Uri Gabay as Netsah Bashir Wakil as Walid Michael Sciortino as Rabbi Manuel Cauchi as Abo-Zouhair Ulrich Tukur as The Officer U. N; the film was shot in Malta. When Pigs Have Wings on IMDb
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University is a public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, the University is the largest in the country. Located in northwest Tel Aviv, the University is the center of teaching and research of the city, comprising 9 faculties, 17 teaching hospitals, 18 performing arts centers, 27 schools, 106 departments, 340 research centers, 400 laboratories. Besides being the largest university in Israel, it is the biggest Jewish university in the world, it compromises nine faculties, 106 departments, 90 research institutes. It originated in 1956; the original 170-acre campus has been expanded and now makes up 220 acres in Tel Aviv’s Ramat Gan neighborhood. It ranks among the top academic institutions in the world by the Shanghai Ranking, Times Higher Education, the QS World University Rankings. TAU's origins date back to 1956, when three research institutes – the Tel Aviv School of Law and Economics, the Institute of Natural Sciences, the Institute of Jewish Studies – joined together to form Tel Aviv University.
Operated by the Tel Aviv municipality, the university was granted autonomy in 1963. The Ramat Aviv campus, covering an area of 170-acre, was established that same year; the university maintains academic supervision over the Center for Technological Design in Holon, the New Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo and the Afeka College of Engineering in Tel Aviv. The Wise Observatory is located in Mitzpe Ramon. Faculties Katz Faculty of the Arts Fleischman Faculty of Engineering Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences Entin Faculty of Humanities Buchmann Faculty of Law Wise Faculty of Life Sciences Sackler Faculty of Medicine Gordon Faculty of Social Sciences Coller School of ManagementIndependent schools Porter School of Environmental Studies Buchmann-Mehta School of Music David Azrieli School of Architecture Goldschleger School of Dental Medicine Miller School of Education Shapell School of Social Work TAU International Sagol School of NeuroscienceInstitutes and centers A full list of Tel Aviv University's over 130 research institutes and centers is available here.
TAU International affords thousands of students from across the globe the opportunity to study at Tel Aviv University. All TAU International programs are conducted in English. Programs include Semester or Year Abroad, Degree Programs, Specialized Programs, such as the International LL. M at the Faculty of Law. Students in the Undergraduate or Semester Abroad Programs are given the option of housing at the Einstein Dorms, just outside the university. Undergraduate programs: B. S. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering via the International Engineering School International B. A. degree in Liberal Arts and HumanitiesGraduate programs: In May 2007, New York University and Tel Aviv University approved a plan to establish an NYU Study Abroad Campus in Israel based at Tel Aviv University. The Center for World University Rankings ranked Tel Aviv University 81st in the world and third in Israel in its 2016 CWUR World University Rankings, they have ranked it as 56 in 2012. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2012 placed Tel Aviv University among the world's top 90 universities.
The ratings reflect an overall measure of esteem that combines data on the institutions' reputation for research and teaching. This achievement positioned TAU on the same level as Brown University in Rhode Island and Leiden University in the Netherlands. In 2013 QS World University Rankings ranked Tel Aviv University 196th in the world, making it the second-highest ranked university in Israel, its subject rankings were: 202nd in Arts and Humanities, 295th in Engineering and Technology, 193rd in Life Sciences and Medicine, 208th in Natural Science, 240th in Social Sciences and Management. In 2016 QS World University Rankings ranked Tel Aviv University 22nd in the world for citations per faculty, the indicator that measures a university's research impact; this makes Tel Aviv University the leading university in Israel in terms of research. In 2015 the Academic Ranking of World Universities gave Tel Aviv University the following subject rankings: 20th in Computer Science, 51-75 in Mathematics, 76-100 in Physics and 76-100 Economics/Business.
In 2016 it was ranked as 51-75 in Engineering. From the year 2007 until 2018, Tel Aviv university ranks as 30th in the world in Computer Science according to CSRankings, the same rank as Harvard and the highest ranked in Israel. Tel Aviv University offers special programs of Jewish studies to teachers and students from the United States, Brazil and Mexico; the programs are in English. The Tel Aviv University Faculty of Law has exchange agreements with 36 overseas universities, including: University of Virginia, Cornell University, Boston University, UCLA, Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, EBS, McGill, Osgoode Hall, Kuwait University, Umm al-Qura University Queens University, Bergen, STL, KoGuan, Jindal Global, University of Hong Kong, Singapore Management University, Stockholm University, Sydney, Sciences Po, Lucern, Buenos Aires and Madrid. In 2013, Tel Aviv University and Ruppin Academic Center jointly created a study center at the Mediterranean Sea, where students will undertake advanced studies of issues impacting the coast
Israel
Israel the State of Israel, is a country in Western Asia, located on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Red Sea. It has land borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the northeast, Jordan on the east, the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the east and west and Egypt to the southwest; the country contains geographically diverse features within its small area. Israel's economic and technological center is Tel Aviv, while its seat of government and proclaimed capital is Jerusalem, although the state's sovereignty over Jerusalem has only partial recognition. Israel has evidence of the earliest migration of hominids out of Africa. Canaanite tribes are archaeologically attested since the Middle Bronze Age, while the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah emerged during the Iron Age; the Neo-Assyrian Empire destroyed Israel around 720 BCE. Judah was conquered by the Babylonian and Hellenistic empires and had existed as Jewish autonomous provinces.
The successful Maccabean Revolt led to an independent Hasmonean kingdom by 110 BCE, which in 63 BCE however became a client state of the Roman Republic that subsequently installed the Herodian dynasty in 37 BCE, in 6 CE created the Roman province of Judea. Judea lasted as a Roman province until the failed Jewish revolts resulted in widespread destruction, expulsion of Jewish population and the renaming of the region from Iudaea to Syria Palaestina. Jewish presence in the region has persisted to a certain extent over the centuries. In the 7th century CE, the Levant was taken from the Byzantine Empire by the Arabs and remained in Muslim control until the First Crusade of 1099, followed by the Ayyubid conquest of 1187; the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt extended its control over the Levant in the 13th century until its defeat by the Ottoman Empire in 1517. During the 19th century, national awakening among Jews led to the establishment of the Zionist movement in the diaspora followed by waves of immigration to Ottoman Syria and British Mandate Palestine.
In 1947, the United Nations adopted a Partition Plan for Palestine recommending the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states and an internationalized Jerusalem. The plan was accepted by the Jewish Agency, rejected by Arab leaders; the following year, the Jewish Agency declared the independence of the State of Israel, the subsequent 1948 Arab–Israeli War saw Israel's establishment over most of the former Mandate territory, while the West Bank and Gaza were held by neighboring Arab states. Israel has since fought several wars with Arab countries, since the Six-Day War in 1967 held occupied territories including the West Bank, Golan Heights and the Gaza Strip, it extended its laws to the Golan East Jerusalem, but not the West Bank. Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories is the world's longest military occupation in modern times. Efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have not resulted in a final peace agreement. However, peace treaties between Israel and both Egypt and Jordan have been signed.
In its Basic Laws, Israel defines itself as a democratic state. The country has a liberal democracy, with a parliamentary system, proportional representation, universal suffrage; the prime minister is head of government and the Knesset is the legislature. Israel is a developed country and an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development member, with the 32nd-largest economy in the world by nominal gross domestic product as of 2017; the country benefits from a skilled workforce and is among the most educated countries in the world with one of the highest percentages of its citizens holding a tertiary education degree. Israel has the highest standard of living in the Middle East, has one of the highest life expectancies in the world. Furthermore, Israel ranked 11th in the UN's 2018 World Happiness Report. Upon independence in 1948, the country formally adopted the name "State of Israel" after other proposed historical and religious names including Eretz Israel and Judea, were considered but rejected.
In the early weeks of independence, the government chose the term "Israeli" to denote a citizen of Israel, with the formal announcement made by Minister of Foreign Affairs Moshe Sharett. The names Land of Israel and Children of Israel have been used to refer to the biblical Kingdom of Israel and the entire Jewish people respectively; the name "Israel" in these phrases refers to the patriarch Jacob who, according to the Hebrew Bible, was given the name after he wrestled with the angel of the Lord. Jacob's twelve sons became the ancestors of the Israelites known as the Twelve Tribes of Israel or Children of Israel. Jacob and his sons had lived in Canaan but were forced by famine to go into Egypt for four generations, lasting 430 years, until Moses, a great-great grandson of Jacob, led the Israelites back into Canaan during the "Exodus"; the earliest known archaeological artifact to mention the word "Israel" as a collective is the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt. The area is known as the Holy Land, being holy for all Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity and the Bahá'í Faith.
Under British Mandate, the whole region was known as Palestine (Hebre
