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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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Two Films at the U Film Society Tackle the Israeli Conflict
Wednesday 12 June @ 12:40:25 |
 by Ed Felien
If you have any doubts about Israel's intentions toward the Palestinians you should check out the double feature this weekend at the U Film Society.
“How I Learned to Overcome My Fear and Love Arik Sharon” is a quasi-documentary by Avi Morgrabi. It is very weird. Morgrabi thinks he's Michael Moore looking to link up with Sharon the way Moore tried to link up with the head of General Motors. Morgrabi says he's a leftist and that his wife and children left him because he was getting swept up in the story of Sharon. That part (which is unfortunately the largest part of the movie) is pretty unbelievable. There is no evidence of a woman or child ever living in the sterile apartment Morgrabi calls home. He pretends to have phone conversations with his estranged wife, but they're not convincing. There are no left wing decorative touches, like posters or books. And, worst of all, he has no analysis. He clearly gets swept away by the “charisma” of Sharon and intoxicated by the presence of power.
Getting through all that is difficult, but there are some priceless gems if you're willing to wade through bull%@!#$&. At one point Sharon is talking to new settlers, and he's telling them how to go about it: “When you build a settlement, don't build a fence around it. Let your neighbors build a fence, then, little by little, you can expand. I would say more, but this camera . . .”
It is interesting to see Sharon court the right-wing Orthodox vote. He goes to them for all night sessions. They provide the theological underpinning to justify Israeli expansion onto Palestinian land. A newscast a few weeks ago showed an Israeli settler saying his land was given to him as part of a covenant with God. He was building on land that was part of Jacob's ladder, land promised to Israel by God. It's hard to argue the point, but recent archeology [read, especially, “The Bible Unearthed” by Israel Finklestein] suggests strongly that the whole thing was made up by King Josiah and his buddies in the 7th and 8th centuries BCE to justify Judah’s pre-eminence over Israel and to legitimize Josiah's ambitious plans for expansion. There is no evidence for Abraham, for Moses wandering 40 years in the desert, for Joshua fittin' the Battle of Jericho, for David killing Goliath, for the fabulous wealth and wisdom of Solomon. It was propaganda written to justify expansion 2,700 years ago. The tragedy is that it is still being trotted out today to justify driving the modern day Canaanites off their land.
The last scene in Morgrabi's film is of a rally that Sharon never attends. There is a curious guitar player singing, “Let the right rise. Pull down the creep [Barak]. . . Bibi [the right-wing candidate] or Akman Tibi [an allusion to Barak, actually Tibi is an aide to Arafat].” Morgrabi is dancing around working himself into frenzy in support of Sharon. Of course, the story he missed in this “documentary” is Sharon's assault onto the Temple Mount happening at probably the same time. You have the sense that Sharon told the photographer to go to the rally so he wouldn't have to worry about him when something real happened. Sharon's march onto the Temple Mount is considered the first act of the current war or Intifada. Sharon so insulted the Palestinians they felt they had nothing left.
“Bethlehem Diary” is a 60-minute documentary about the Israeli sealing off of Bethlehem since September 2000. It is showing with the Sharon film. It is much more straight-forward. Technically it is a nightmare. The sound and picture quality are terrible. The story line drags and lurches. At best it is awkward, but it is a convincing portrait of what it must be like to live under Israeli occupation in your own land. The continual roadblocks, the gunfire, the shelling, the U. S.-made attack helicopters. Palestinians must get a permit to go to work, to pray in their mosque, to shop for food, to go to school. They must cross through checkpoints. They face soldiers with automatic weapons. The people are obviously tired, fatigued, suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. The young people are moving away, but the older and the very young are trapped. The Israeli strategy is obviously to make them leave.
It all seems so very unfair.
The films screen this weekend, June 15 and 16, at 5 p.m. at the Bell Museum.
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