MARION DREYFUS: A REVIEW OF A DOCUMENTARY FILM ON HEBRON
HEBRON … A Documentary Directed by Giulia Amati and Stephen Natanson
Reviewed by marion d s dreyfus
When I saw the smarmy polemic piece of imbalance purporting to be this documentary, made by ignorant know-nothings who acknowledged they are not Jewish (no crime), know no Hebrew (not a crime, either), know no history (big crime), and in particular are too stupid to even be able to recognize the fact that 95% of their film was underwritten by, narrated and commented upon by ultra-Leftist haters of Israel, journalists who regularly and casually savage Israel, and Palestinians who simply lie and serve up self-conscious rubbish/spin to the perceived bland camera-wielders making this damaging piece of tripe, I was disgusted, at a rather full screening (unusual at 4 pm on a weekday) on the Upper West Side to hear and see how many of the largely elderly, probably Jewish audience vigorously applauded this ugly, poorly researched, untrue and troublingly distorted film.
Luckily, it was people who are aware of the contextlessness of this unfortunate mess that spoke up at the Q&A, and told the clapping mouth-breathers that the film they applauded was untrue, unbalanced, unhistoric and fundamentally unwholesome–one saw how abashed they were listening to the knowledgeable, afterwards, openly discussing what a scandalous dissing of Israel and truth the so-called doc was. Israelis in the audience defended the history and questioned the rationale for omitting context and adding scabrous lies in the 90-minute sponsored piece of ordeal. One went to the film out of duty, because one easily predicted it would be painful and disrespectful of truth, but one must be witness to these lies in order to correct the public impression, and if one does not report on these dandled and fansified lies, the radicals win the day, hands down.
The filmmakers, who admitted to NO knowledge at all of Hebron before they happened upon it as a topic for their film-making, were embarrassingly dumb, and admitted they did not really understand the history, and thus could not really probe into the background, relying upon the lies and misrepresentations of agenda’ed Leftists and radicals who would be and are blackballed in Israel for their offensive take. The film did not once even allude to the terrorism that stalked Israel for decades, or the REASON for the wars they just itemized as if it were a shopping list–the film failed to say that all the wars were initiated and carried out by arab belligerents. Somehow, the wars “just occurred,” and the land was then “occupied.” Patriots and citizens are repeatedly called “Fascists” by such as Uri Avneri, B’Tzelem anti-Zionists and troublemakers, and HaAretz writers as well as anti-IDF malcontents and radicals carrying the pennant for arabs–all of whom are victims, somehow, never perpetrators. Jewish women in Yesha are shown screaming and cursing, ditto kipa’ed kids who curse the filmmakers–we are not given the context of what makes them distrust the mischief-makers’ ill-portrayals.
On the side of balance were the occasional inputs by patriot David Wilder, a Hebron historian, and several Orthodox Judea and Samaria residents insistently identified as “settlers.” The term is not one of approbation. Although the filmmakers said they left a great deal “on the cutting room floor,” and they “could not cut any more,” angry Israeli teens and upset wives not at their best were caught on camera, shown at length, without explanation for why they were so upset, and what made the teenagers furious at the filmmakers so angry. We were supposed to extrapolate the rage as just another symptom of craziness that the poor, underhelped, disavowed and unhappy arab residents of Israel have to cope with. Tsk. Corroboration of claims made by said arabs was of course omitted.
The filmmakers took on faith (which?) whatever the arab locals opined. Few Israelis outside of Yesha were interviewed, but were carefully smeared as “deliberately unaware” of what goes on in Hebron.
Why is this important? With a film about a misplaced elephant or a ladies hair salon in Kabul, the review of a film, and a film itself, makes no grave difference. But in the case of Israel, which impacts Jews globally, and Christians and muslims in the EU and the United States as wel;l as elsewhere, these movies make a decided difference: People who do not learn for themselves take a film as honest currency, and forever bear the branding of bad data and erroneous transmission. Anti-Israel sentiment is at an all-time high in the past decades, and current political events exacerbate these high-yaller sentiment. Thus a false and inflammatory documentary such as this one adds combustion to an already fiery mix. It ought not be, and is not, excused.
The Hebron situation is a difficult and thorny one. Solutions are hard-to-impossible to come by. But this documentary is not helping, and does not contribute fairly to an understanding of the two sides of the issue. It contributes to a muddling of the circumstances, and serves to further murkify the waters that have been roiled for centuries. This reviewer has been to the wonderful ancient city on several luminous occasions, and has had the honor of working in the IDF a few months, too. My perspective is more informed than that of the two clueless filmmakers from France and Italy and other European venues not known for their empathy for Israel’s circumstances.
The film is one of the two dozen or so making up the Human Rights Film Festival. It is, of the dozen or so films I have screened in this festival, appallingly illegitimate and wrong, and does not belong in the festival–clearly a political interpolation into an otherwise-legitimate roster of films.
marion ds dreyfus . . . 20©11
In English, Arabic and Hebrew. English subtitles.
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