In February, 2008, our ISM chapter in Northern California received a request to buy a new camera for Emad Burnat in Bil’in, on the Palestinian West Bank.  Our donors responded, and that became the second of Emad’s Five Broken Cameras, the film that was nominated for an Academy Award in 2011.

In the report by Daniel Roberts elsewhere in this issue, look at the picture of A’had and her brother.  The photo was part of a video taken by Bilal Tamimi.  Bilal produced the footage used by Aljazeera at https://goo.gl/YnoJ2.  As Daniel says, Bilal is a kindhearted man who has been diligently documenting the military occupation and the conflict in Palestine from his village of Nabi Saleh. His clips have been used by the New York Times, Aljazeera, +972 Magazine, Mondoweiss, and other media.  There is an article in the New York Times about his efforts at http://goo.gl/WiPywa

Daniel told ISM-NorCal that Bilal’s current video camera is on it’s last leg and is not high quality.  So we bought a used Canon 7D camera recommended by Daniel, along with zoom lens, camera case, CF card, and Rode mic, even though our bank account has rarely been lower.  The camera and equipment have now been delivered to Bilal in Nabi Saleh through our contacts.

We then appealed to you, our community, to cover the costs of this purchase, and I’m happy to report that you restored our bank account to a little more than the low level where it was before the purchase.  With your help we will hopefully have the resources to meet the next urgent need of this kind.  In the meantime, watch for the next Palestinian nominated for an Academy Award, or maybe a Pulitzer.  It might be Bilal.