Brit Beats- The ceasefire in Gaza and the UK role & A complete unknown
While the ceasefire may finally be here, the UK needs to take responsibilities (especially Starmer and Lammy). In movie news, James Mangold's biopic on Bob Dylan, with Timothée Chalamet is out.
The ceasefire in Gaza and the UK role
The long-awaited ceasefire in Gaza and hostages release deal, agreed on by the Israeli government and Hamas’ leadership should officially start on Sunday, January 20. The emphasis is on should for a variety of reasons. Three of the most prominent reasons have come up since the announcement of the ceasefire agreement accepted by the two sides. What has happened then? Israeli forces have killed over 100 people in Gaza, Hamas has requested to choose which prisoners will be released from Israeli prisons , and Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel's Minister of National Security has declared that he and his far-right, anti-Arab and Kahanist party, Otzma Yehudit will leave the government coalition if the deal is accepted by the cabinet.
Where does the UK stand in all this? The official statements released by PM Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy on the ceasefire have been criticised for their tone and choice of words. For instance, Starmer’s statement refers to the Israeli victims of October the 7th as “massacred”, but when it comes to Palestinians, the choice of words is “the many who lost their lives”. Similarly, Lammy’s statement reads “For the people of Gaza, so many of whom have lost their lives, homes or loved ones, this has been a nightmare”.
While the Foreign Secretary’s statement has a more empathetic tone compared to the PM’s and it mentions the British relatives of the hostages, the same level of empathy does not seem to apply in the statement to the suffering of Palestinians.
In his speech at the Commons, Lammy mentioned the name of Hind Rajab, the 5-year-old Palestinian killed (alongside five members of her family and two paramedics) by Israeli forces on January 29, 2024. Hind’s name was amplified by US rapper Macklemore’s single “Hind’s Hall” after the hall of Columbia University was renamed in tribute to Hind Rajab by the students protesting.
This mention would be laudable, but it is not, given the weapons sales from London to Tel Aviv that never stopped in the last 15 months (except the ban of certain UK arms exports) and the related contribution to what has now been labeled widely as a genocide, not just by those who have been protesting for months and months. The list of organisations and experts that have labelled Israel’s military actions in Gaza as genocidial include Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Israeli historian and Holocaust specialist Amos Goldberg, Israeli-US historian and Samuel Pisar Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University Omer Bartov, the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories occupied since 1967 Francesca Albanese; this list keeps on growing.
Then, we also have the specific role of the RAF base of Akrotiri, which has been used as a base for recognition flights in Gaza and sharing information with Tel Aviv as documented by Declassified. The base was also visited by the PM last month (a choice that also stirred a diplomatic storm).
Then, of course, there are the comments by Starmer and Lammy. Starmer responded to Nick Ferrari on LBC that Israel did have a right to launch a siege, cutting off power and water, fundamentally approving the decision followed by former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant (who faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity). Starmer has also said in the Commons “I am well aware of the definition of genocide( responding to MP Ayoub Khan of the Independent Alliance on the genocide in Gaza) and that is why I have never described as or referred to it as genocide”. When it comes to Lammy, Dalia Gebrial presented on Novara Media an awful record of the Foreign Secretary’s statements on Gaza and Palestine.
Two months ago, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese labelled Lammy as a “genocide denier” while being interviewed on the podcast The Thinking Muslim, hosted by Muhammad Jalal (the excerpt on Lammy starts at minute 13:32, but I would recommend watching or listening to the full episode, and the podcast).
While Starmer and Lammy have still a long way to compete for staying in office (unless Musk has his way) the questions asked by Sam Husseini and Max Blumenthal at the press conference of US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken should also be addressed to Starmer and Lammy, sooner rather than later.
In the meantime, MPs like Jeremy Corbyn of the Independent Alliance, MP Apsana Begum, and Labour MP John McDonnell have called on Foreign Secretary Lammy and the government to play an active role in the process, including looking at the future, for instance looking into steps for the recognition of the state of Palestine.
Similarly, 18 NGOs, including Medical Aid for Palestinians, Amnesty International UK, Oxfam GB, Action Aid UK, CAABU (Council for Arab-British Understanding), Global Justice Now, Christian Aid, and Islamic Relief UK have called on the UK government to ensure that Gaza’s cessation of hostilities leads to justice and accountability.
At this stage, let’s hope that Sunday begins to bring relief for Palestinians after months of murders, massacres, and famine (while remembering that Gaza’s population has decreased by 6% in the last 15 months, something for the genocide deniers to think about) and that hostages will reunite with their families.
Review: A Complete Unknown
There are two certain things in life, death, taxes, to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin. I believe that there is another one, and I mean biopics. Maria, by Pablo Larrain, with Angelina Jolie portraying Maria Callas has been out in UK theatres for a few days, while today, James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown with Timothée Chalamet in the role of Bob Dylan is being released in British theatres. I had the pleasure to attend a preview screening at Picturehouse Central in London this Tuesday and I must say, I was pleasantly surprised.
The problem with biopics often is that, for the sake of entertainment the personalities of the protagonists are changed to figures with little in common with their real counterparts, or sometimes they are surrounded by almost cartoonish characters, not to mention the often tired mentor vs apprentice inevitable showdown. A Complete Unknown is not fully historically accurate and does not have to be (otherwise it would not be a feature film, but a documentary) it is accurate enough, making it more than okay.
Timothée Chalamet certainly has the physique du role to play the legendary singer-songwriter and does that well, from his posture and attitude to the famously almost incomprehensible way of speaking, his anti-star attitude , and his way of disappearing progressively behind his glasses. His journey from a penniless hitchhiker looking for a gig to an established songwriter is also well portrayed in the movie costumes by costume designer Arianne Phillips (Walk the Line, Once upon a Time in Hollywood, Joker: Folie à Deux).
The cast also shines with Elle Fanning as Sylvie Russo, a character inspired by Dylan’s girlfriend Suze Rotolo, Boyd Holbrook (back at work with Mangold after Logan and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny) as Johny Cash ( who was portrayed in Mangold’s biopic Walk the Line by Joaquin Phoenix), Edward Norton as Pete Seeger and Monica Barbaro (Top Gun:Maverick) as Joan Baez.
The musical performances are great, while sometimes the viewer may feel as wanting more history in the mix (but we see Dylan at the March on Washington in 1963), but the love affair with Russo, the relationship and music synchrony with Baez and the friendship with Seeger are well portrayed. I would certainly recommend watching this biopic, for an enjoyable folk cavalcade in the 1960s. The screening was also followed by a Q & A with Norton, Barbaro and Phillips.
What else is out?
So much, but in terms of what I have seen I can only strongly recommend A Real Pain by Jesse Eisenberg, and if you want to know more about the movie, watch the episode of Kermode and Mayo’s Take with Simon Mayo’s interviews with Culkin and Eisenberg.
Is that all? No, not without a farewell to one of the greatest directors of all time, David Lynch, in this great tribute by IMDb. That’s all, the newsletter will be back on January 27.