Hatim Kanaaneh demonstrated against the movie “Exodus.” And he’s not feeling great about Spielberg’s plans for “Apeirogon,” Colum McCann’s novel in which Israeli characters are more fleshed out than Palestinian ones.

In depicting the agony and pain of his Jewish and Palestinian subjects in his novel, Colum McCann does not appoint himself as judge or arbiter; rather, he is quite clear that the deaths of Abir and Smadar, and the ensuing agonies of their parents, are products of colonialism. In the colonial unreality that is Israel/Palestine in Colum McCann’s novel “Apeirogon,” Palestinians are objects to be feared, confesses Rami Elhanan.

Hellbent on crafting an umbilical cord between itself and a biblical, mythical 2000-year old past, Israel has erased the ancient history of Palestinians. A review by Sam Bahour of Keith Whitelam’s “The Invention of Ancient Israel.”

Seth Rogen: “As a Jewish person, I was fed a huge amount of lies about Israel my entire life. They never tell you, that oh by the way, there were people there. They make it seem like it was– just sitting there… For Jewish people especially who view themselves as progressive and analytical and who really challenge the status quo — Like, What are we doing?”

What if Palestinians suddenly disappeared from Israel and Palestine? That is the premise of Ibtisam Azem’s mystical story in “The Book of Disappearance.” And yes, at first Jewish Israelis see it as a great miracle.

Set in Little Rock in 2006, Susan Youssef’s new feature film ‘Marjoun and the Flying Headscarf’ tells the story of a 17-year-old high school student fighting for her father’s release from prison, a struggle that leads Marjoun to a deeper understanding of her own identity. Michael Arria talks to Youssef about how her personal background shaped her vision, the evolution of Arabs and Muslims in American films, and the significance of her movie being released amid mass protests.

Raja Shehadeh writes, It is not the business of Colum McCann in his novel “Apeirogon” to provide political solutions of the conflict. He highlights in an artistic fashion that is highly moving, the humanity of two individuals, the Israeli father who has lost a child just as he does the Palestinian father’s loss. How can we take offence about this?

Historian Susan Reverby’s riveting biography of Alan Berkman is a magnificent book. Berkman was imprisoned in the 60s, convicted for his political work in the underground as a leader of an offshoot of the Weather Underground. On regaining his freedom he devoted his life to public health and helping those the system abandoned.

As annexation is put into gear, Palestinians feel that occupation is becoming an eternal fate. Emad Moussa reviews an Israeli film seeking to explain the occupation, Foxtrot, and finds it is all about Israeli trauma: “The only scene of Palestinian death in the film is reconfigured as a metaphor for Israel’s internal and transgenerational trauma, repression, and guilt.”

Artist Jérémie Pujau re-conceptualizes Israel’s national anthem as a sonata for concrete mixers, which puts the song “in direct confrontation with one of the tools of its implementation, namely the concrete of colonization.”