Rula Jebreal, whose autobiographical novel inspired Julian Schnabel's film Miral, condemns violence by Israelis and Palestinians, quotes Yitzhak Rabin, and is dedicated to peace. So why did the Israeli Government, the American Jewish Congress and the Anti-Defamation League try to stop the film's premiere at the United Nations? It's not often that a movie's theatrical release is an historic moment. But Miral, which opens today in LA and NYC, is the first Hollywood film to look at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the eyes of Palestinians, Palestinian women, at that. The film is based on the autobiographical novel of Rula Jebreal, the Palestinian journalist, who was born in Haifa, raised in East Jerusalem, has lived in the Middle East, Europe and, most recently, New York. Directed by the New York-based Jewish-American artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel, Miral offers glimpses of history, as experienced by Palestinian women, starting with the formation of Israel and ending with the Oslo Accords. It premiered at the UN's General Assembly, on March 14th, drawing stars from Robert de Niro to Sean Penn, along with a storm of protest. Schnabel's Jewish credentials are true blue--and white. His mother was the President of the Brooklyn Chapter of Haddassah, the Women's Zionist Organization, in 1948, during the establishment of Israel as a state. Schnabel recalls seeing Exodus at Manhattan's Rivoli Theater with his parents: "Everybody stood up when they sang 'Hatikvah,' and put their hands on their chests. My mother and father were very proud." But Schnabel's history and his film's vision mattered little to the film's critics. Seeing the movie, in fact, mattered little to the Israeli Government, the American Jewish Congress and the Anti-Defamation League, who, on principle, (unsuccessfully) called on the UN to cancel its March 14th screening. This week, days before Miral's release, I talked to Rula Jebreal about her life, her story, the film, violence, and her optimism for a peaceful future for Israelis and Palestinians alike. Katie Halper: Were you surprised by the response of the Israeli government and by American Jewish organizations like the AJC and the ADL? Rula Jebreal: No, not at all. No, no, no, no. Absolutely not. No, no, no, no. After every screening, I see the fear in people's eyes. This is their censorship response, their way of avoiding the truth. The movie is really about one thing: peace. And I'm not sure this is on their agenda. I'm more dangerous than Hamas. Hamas responds in such a stupid way--with violence. But people like me--artists, writers, intellectuals, journalists--raise awareness and consciousness. You can't label them as the enemy. These are the people that build bridges. KH: When I saw the film I kept waiting for something that people could construe as anti-Israeli or anti-Semitic, which is the charge made by the film's most vocal critics, sadly without even seeing the film. But what I saw was a film filled with thoughtfulness and sensitivity. It certainly challenges the idea that we hear all the time--that all Palestinians hate all Jews. RJ: I have to thank you very much for this interview. Many people shy away from interviewing a Palestinian. They avoid talking to me. In this country where there is supposed to be so much freedom of expression, there is still a fear of considering a certain perspective. I know what is important and that is telling stories. What I'm interested in is telling the story of civil society in war time. What are the implications of war on women in terms of security, in terms of freedom, in terms of sexual harassment? I think all of that is breaking the wall of silence. I know that's not easy. The fact that in America, the land of freedom of expression, I see this concern, this fear of considering that point of view, makes me think there's an issue here that needs to be addressed. There are always two sides to every story, and if we don't listen to each other, how can we find a solution? This culture of demonization has been creating more violence. KH: You collaborated with a director who is Jewish. So much for your being an Anti-Semite. But I guess there are those who can't believe a Jew and a Palestinian can or should work together. Or more specifically, what kind of Jew would work with a Palestinian? RJ: Julian and I have the same values and both of us are very critical of what's going on around us, including in our own communities. We believe in respect and human rights. I reject violence. I think that killing Israelis is a tragedy. It's like killing our own people. Some of my own people say to me, "but they kill our people" and I say, "but it isn't right." Julian is on the same page. He always says he doesn't belong to any groups. He is only accountable to his conscience. It's the same with me. When I go to bed I want to feel like whatever action I did was right. Not because I'm on this side or the other side. At the end of the day we are all human. And working with him was really inspiring because I saw my own country through his mother's eyes, because he told me about how she saw it. I understood how much American Jews love Israel and care about it. I knew Israelis love their country but I didn't know how American Jews related to it. KH: Are you ever accused of "selling out" because you condemn violence on both sides? Because, as you just said, you're critical of elements in your own community? RJ: Yes. There are people like this on both sides of the issue. Ultimately, they are the same people. They don't realize that they are only helping each other by doing things that the other side can point to as a justification for whatever it does. And it is a cycle. So their accusations don't touch me. These people don't touch me KH: How do you feel about the future for Israelis and Palestinians? RJ: I'm very optimistic. I lived in Europe for a long time. Look at Europe, where there's freedom of expression, democracy, stability. Think about it 50 years ago. There was dictatorship, destruction, genocide, no economy, no human or civil rights. If that can happen in Europe, then that can happen everywhere. That can happen in our country and more than ever today because the Arab revolution is showing that people are ready to be protagonists in their own future. They are engaging in non-violent, democratic protests, asking for reform and change. They didn't call for a war; they didn't have anti-American or anti-Israeli slogans. What you hear from millions of young people in the streets is, "we want freedom, We want to live with dignity." That's a great sign and that's what we need to listen to. KH: So your detractors in certain quarters of American Judaism are telling Jews not to see Miral. You obviously disagree. What would you tell Jews about why they should see Miral? RJ:This film is a cry for peace. This film is against violence, wherever violence comes from. Whether it's from an Israeli soldier, a Palestinian militant, a Palestinian woman--it's wrong. It's immoral. It's killing our own country. The film is a story about love and education. It's a true story. I'm a real believer that we both deserve peace and stability. And that's only possible if we listen to each and talk to each other. It will come not through demonizing and criminalizing each other but through understanding. The example of Nelson Mandela is incredible because he left jail and didn't say, "kill all the white people." He called for forgiveness. He said are we ready to forgive each other and move forward? Are we ready to look at each face to face and not from behind guns? Are we ready to consider the others' pain as our pain and the others' blood as our own blood, to work together and try to build a bridge? Or are we going to condemn our children to live what we lived? What is happening is tragic. What happened in Itamar [the settlement where earlier this month a family was killed while they slept] is tragic, what happened [with the most recent air strikes, which have killed civilians, including children] in Gaza is tragic; what happened this morning [the bombing of an Israeli bus station] is tragic. Violence is tragic, and it's destroying our country. Violence is immoral. And it has to be stopped. Violence is the only language that has been used for 63 years. It's time to change course and to evolve and use other languages and other methods. You cannot stop killing by killing other people. We cannot continue this dysfunctional cycle. Everyone needs to see that. Rabin used to say: "I go on with the negotiations like there's no terrorist attacks." You need to show that there's diplomacy. If you don't show that there's diplomacy, if you only speak through a military language, you empower extremists. How can you hear words when there are bombs? How can you hear stories? How can you understand people and culture? It is impossible because the sound of violence drowns out everything else. Come and see this other point of view. See the other side that you don't ever see, because the news only covers violence.

Nothing says "sanctity of life" better than cervical cancer, breast cancer, and HIV! That's why on February 18th, so-called "pro-life" members of the House of Representatives, voted 240 to 185 to defund Planned Parenthood, a premier women's healthcare provider for nearly a century, serving 3 million women a year in its 800 centers across the country. The leader of the crusade, Representative Mike Pence (R Indiana), prides himself on being "a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order," promising during his campaign, " to deliver ... legislation that will prevent abortion providers like Planned Parenthood from receiving a single dime from the federal government." The fact that abortion is legal aside, 97% of Planned Parenthood's services are NOT abortions, but rather cancer screening and prevention, STD testing and treatment, contraception and general women's health care, ranging from high blood pressure to urinary tract infections. But Pence apparently, didn't get the whole Jesus healing the sick thing--the lepers, the blind, the deaf, the mute, the blood-disease afflicted, the dropsy-sufferers, the hand-withered, etc. (which in all fairness you miss if you blink while reading the bible, since Jesus's healing appears only 22 times and only in the Book of Matthew... and Luke... and Mark... and John). But Pence has decided to throw out the unaborted baby out with the healing bath water.The resolution still has to pass the Senate. In order to get the Vote Yes to Life and No to Health! campaign going in the Senate, here are our top 10 names for the amendment.

1. The Anti-Pap-Test Amendment: Planned Parenthood provides nearly one million Pap tests each year.
2. The Pro-HPV Bill: Pap tests screen for HPV (Human papillomavirus), a disease which at least 50%of sexually active men and women get at some point in their lives. Approximately 20 million Americans currently have HPV and another 6 million people become newly infected each year. But this amendment means that even more people would contract the virus and the genital warts it causes!
3. The Pro Life, Pro-Cervical Cancer Bill: Pap tests also screen for, help prevent and lower rates of cervical cancer, which, though highly preventable and treatable, is one of the top 5 killers of women.
4. The Anti-Mammogram Bill: Planned Parenthood also provides 830,000 breast exams and mammograms each year.
5. The Pro-Life, Pro Breast Cancer Bill: These exams screen for breast cancer, which approximately 200,000 women will be diagnosed with and 40,000 women will die from this year. But if this bill passes, we will be able to get those numbers up even higher! As fewer women have access to these life and breast-saving exams, more women will lose their breasts and lives to cancer!
6. The Pro-HIV Amendment: Planned Parenthood provides nearly four million tests and treatments for sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. If the Pro-STD Amendment passes, imagine how many more people will not only have untreated STDs, but will unknowingly spread them to other people! With HIV, chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, herpes and more, the possibilities are infinite!
7. The Pro-Unplanned Pregnancy Bill: Planned Parenthood services help prevent more than 612,000 unintended pregnancies each year. But if the Pro-Unwanted Pregnancy Bill passes, there could be 612,000 more unplanned or unwanted pregnancies and countless more women without access to contraceptives, resources and education
8. The Anti-Fertility Bill: Just as Planned Parenthood helps women avoid unplanned pregnancies, it helps those who want to be pregnant get pregnant with male and female infertility tests, resources and information. But if the Anti-Fertility Bill passes, who knows how many hopeful would-be parents will be hopeless and child-less!
9. The anti-general Healthcare Bill: Planned Parenthood also provides general health care, such as anemia testing, cholesterol screening, diabetes screening, physical exams, flu vaccines, help with quitting smoking, high blood pressure screening, tetanus vaccines, and thyroid screening. This Amendment would increase rates of disease and even death for countless women! In all fairness, at least the Republicans are consistent in their anti-health care stance.
10. The pro-UTI Bill: Planned Parenthood tests and treats UTIs or Urinary Tract Infections, which 1 of 5 women have at least once, and consist of burning pain during urination, an urge to urinate when your bladder is nearly empty, feeling like you need to urinate all the time, difficulty controlling when you urinate, lower abdominal pain or back pain, and blood and/or pus in your urine! This amendment would mean more pain and more pus! What could be better?

Don't let Darrell Issa's verbal ineptitude or crime-ridden past fool you: The last person Obama wants investigating him is the cunning California congressman who is the incoming chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. When Issa called Obama "one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times" he was speaking from experience and with authority. Issa's background in auto theft and the auto alarm business, makes him a dangerous double threat, a cop AND robber, whose crime-dar enables him to sniff out corruption in ways the more law-abiding among us can't even imagine. I don't mean to knock Issa's fellow Republicans, many of whom have their own impressive criminal record: grand larceny (stealing money from the poor/working class/ middle class and giving it to the rich); rape (of the planet); attempted murder (repealing healthcare); I could go on but I don't have all day, and neither, dear readers, do you. But Issa's thuggery is unique because it precedes his taking office and isn't legitimized through technically legal policy. Here are the 10 reasons Issa should have Obama quaking in his boots.

1. Issa knows crime from the inside: Issa was accused of stealing a car in 1971 and indicted for stealing another one in 1972. (In all fairness, Issa's airtight alibi is his statement "I don't steal" and his claim that his brother did it.)
2. Issa is an expert at going after crimes that don't exist: With two car thefts under his belt, Issa was prosecuted in 1980 for auto-auto theft-- faking the theft of his own Mercedes and selling it to a car dealer. Just as Issa claimed that his car was robbed, even though it wasn't, he now claims that Obama's administration is one of the most corrupt administrations even thought it isn't.
3. Issa packs heat: Issa was arrested twice on illegal weapons charges and was convicted of a gun possession misdemeanor in the 1970s. (Cops pulled him over after he drove the wrong way down a one-way street and found a .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol with seven bullets in its ammunition clip, as well as 44 bullets and a tear-gas gun.) In the 1980's, Issa took over a security company whose manager he fired with the aid of a gun. Issa claims "Shots were never fired. . . . I don't recall [having a gun]. I really don't. I don't think I ever pulled a gun on anyone in my life." Here, Issa seems to pose the age-old philosophical question, if a gun is brandished and no shots are fired, is there really a gun? And in all fairness, who can keep track of whether or not they've pulled a gun on anyone in their life. I, personally, don't think I ever pulled a gun on anyone in my life, but you can never be sure, am I right, people? Anyway, you can't call Issa a hypocrite because he opposes gun control.
4. Issa will burn Obama-- literally: Like the well rounded criminal so many aspire to be, the multifaceted Issa is proficient with cars, firearms and fire. Eight months after Issa took over the security company, a fire broke out, which state authorities deemed "suspicious in nature," and which arson investigators determined was "not an accidental fire." Issa had, coincidentally, I'm sure, just quadrupled the building insurance from about $100,000 to $460,000 and had taken a key computer from the building a few days before the accident. Also, flammable liquid seemed to have been poured on the only area without sprinklers.
5. Issa's voice will stop a criminal in its tracks: Inspired by the auto-theft Issa modestly attributed to his brother, Issa became passionate about car alarms, invented the viper car alarm in which his recorded voice warns fellow car thieves to "step away from the car." It must be Issa's familiarity with auto theft that makes him so able to talk to car thieves. Now Issa is using his voice to tell Obama to "step away from the White House."
6. Issa puts his money where his mouth is. And he's a millionaire so that's a lot of money: The richest member of the house, with a net worth of $300 million, Issa spent $1.7 million of his own money to bankroll the successful recall California Governor Gray Davis. In the bipartisan spirit exemplified by Mitch McConnel, Issa vowed to make the time Gray "has left in office the most miserable that I can." After it became clear that Arnold Schwarzenneger was the party favorite andssa "tearfully"stepped aside.
7. Issa means Business. Big business: Issa is committed to giving voice to the voiceless and defending the interests of big business. Asking for feedback on which regulations to go after as incoming chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Issa wroteto 150 trade associations, companies and think tanks including Duke Energy, the Association of American Railroads, FMC Corp., Toyota and Bayer, the American Petroleum Institute, National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association (NPRA) and health care and telecommunication companies, which are some of Issa's biggest backers! (see the letter here.)
8. Issa's not afraid to tell it like it is: He's compelled to probe until he finds the truth as he demonstrated in 2008: "I have to ask ... why the firefighters who went there and everybody in the city of New York needs to come to the federal government for the dollars versus this being primarily a state consideration." Issa can't see the big deal in 9/11, which the putative arson sees as just another "fire,%u201D %u201Can aircraft... that had no dirty bomb in it, it had no chemical munitions in it."
9. Issa's Twitter Avatar Screams Law & Order: To quote Salt N' Peppa, If Twitter Avatar "could kill [it] would be an uzi... A shot gun,bang!What'supwith that thang?" Really, what's up with that @darrellissaavatar? It's Issa, of course, policing Washington DC and cracking down on what he calls "one of the most corrupt administrations." And don't be fooled by the crossed arms. Far from symbolizing resignation and paralysis, this gesture communicates Issa's acceptance of his duties. His stick figure seems to undermine his authority and the seriousness with which he oversees Obama. This formal choice, however, allows Issa to mock the government workers, such as police, who constitute the welfare state that makes Obama so "corrupting." Thusly does Issa communicate his nuanced ambivalence and conflicting allegiances.

10. Issa's Twitter background says Law & Order and Naked and Lanky: Issa wants to make sure you're getting the message, so, in case you miss the subliminal one in his twitter avatar, his twitter background image-- in which we see a naked, equally cross-armed figure wearing a police officer hat%u2014says it clearly. This figure looks askance, suggesting Issa's omniscience and omnipresence. The long legs represent the agility and the lengths to which Issa will go in pursuit of the most corrupt president ever. And the nakedness represents how natural authority feels to Issa.

Meg Whitman predicted nobody was going to care about her former housekeeper Niki Diaz on November 3rd. It looks like she was projecting, in more ways than one.

Meg Whitman covers Regina Spektor's hit "Fidelity" ("It Breaks my Heart") as she describes why the undocumented housekeeper with three kids should be deported. Make sure to check out her prediction at the end. Really classy. If you like politics, music, hipstery angst and/ or cleavage, you'll love this video.