We need to learn to listen to each other’s pain and hope. Understanding and empathy are the cornerstones of lasting peace.
~Amos Oz
There may well be people who were initially drawn to this blog by a list of Palestinian films, and who then after a couple of taps or clicks have found themselves looking at a post about a film depicting life in the Israeli army. Some of those people who land here unknowingly will immediately leave in a big disgusted huff, but hopefully a few will linger on this page and give me a chance here.
Imagine that the chairman of your Neighbourhood Watch is a DJ and mixtape composer with an interest in Tibetan mysticism, who smokes weed and carries a baseball bat around the hood. In characterisations of Israel which break it down into something more complex and less monolithic than 'the Zionist Entity'
How did this come about? Approximately two months after October 7th I had a few conversations with friends on both the Jewish and Arab(-sympathising) sides about films relating to the Arab-Israeli conflict...
Heatopher of late 2023 has bequeathed himself a daunting task in 2024. With no less lofty an ambition than resolving the Arab/Israeli conflict, if not for the world as a whole, but in my own head at least, I took it upon myself to watch a very strictly equal number of films from the two sides of that monstrous separation wall. These were to be watched in very rigid alternation...