MOHAMMED TAMIMI AND IDF SOLDIER TELLING HIM TO BACK OFF IN HOLY LAND


Recent glimpses of the two sides in the West Bank

Peter Cohn calls Hamas "internationally blacklisted," and points out that international bodies such as the UN mostly consider the Jewish settlements in the West Bank illegal. He moves around in his short documentary from one place to another. A young Jewish settler from Beverly Hills dreams of a time when he and his family will walk around "our land" and not be "attacked by Arab mobs." He imagines his little family as pioneers as in the early days of the State of Israel. Nasri Sabarna, the mayor of a small Palestinian town, Bet Ommar, is at odds with the Palestinian Authority which focuses only on taxes and ignores the needs of his local people. He has donated his entire salary to poor locals. Sadly, he gives up and resigns, but a week later his son is married, a joyous occasion. Hagif Ofran, bespectacled and with a big mop of curly hair, is an Israeli woman working for Peace Now. Ofran takes photos of everything, including Palestinian boys throwing rocks and Israeli police firing tear gas back at them. An Arab landowner protests that his land has been encroached upon by Jewish settlers who cut down 40 of his olive trees. Yarif Oppenheimer, the Peace Now director, notes, as do many, that the settlements, increasing as they do, are making a two-state solution impossible. The elderly, ailing Rabbi Menachem Froman started the post-1967 settlement movement but says it was betrayed. With his young rabbi son he is an emissary of peace. He notes one meaning of "Hebrew" is "hubris, arrogance, pride." The tall Froman, impressive in a long fleecy white beard, gets more air time, and, in his last days, is tireless.

Nabi Saleh is a flashpoint town. A demonstrator, Mustafa Tamini, is hit in the face with an Israeli tear gas canister and dies the next day. His cousin, Mohammed Tamimi, speaks. Mohammed publishes a magazine celebrating Mustafa, and is involved in resistance. When Israeli soldiers attacking his town at night (like Americans in Afghanistan?) he films them. During this night raid Cohen captures a revealing scene when an Israeli soldier keeps yelling at Mohammed Tamimi to get inside and stop filming while he protests it's not his house and he's a journalist. This closely resembles scenes of Emad in Five Broken Cameras.

For this Tamimi is tried in a military court and sentenced to three months in prison. Cohn doesn't comment, but this has gone one for many years. A case just like this will be found in Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi's Five Broken Cameras (ND/NF 2012) See Ra'anan Alexandrowicz's important documentary, The Law in These Parts (SFIFF 2011), which with The Gatekeepers (NYFF 2012) are radical Israeli exposes of business as usual over the decades. (Cohen has noted in his blog that these documentaries got aired on PBS when AIPAC wasn't looking.) We should also mention the depiction of Palestinians in West Bank towns engaged in protest, sometimes with success, Julia Bacha's Budrus (2009).

Cohn covers Migron, a militant settlement, and Burqa, a nearby Palestinian town. Migron settlers have come and defaced walls with threats in Burqa. Migron is under orders from the government to evacuate, and they make a motion to remove this order that goes to the Israeli Supreme Count. Palestinian local residents are there to testify to the seizing of their property. Hagif Ofran is there supporting the Palestinians. The court rejects the Migron petition and issues a final evacuation order. Israeli security forces come to force evacuation of settlers from Migron. (It can happen. When does it and when doesn't it? Cohen does not provide lengthy explanations, only brief captions.) Settlers are taken out literally kicking and screaming; and of course, this is not good either, and Hagif notes that the demolition of their dreams is not something she can be happy about.

Cohen has something new in his depiction of "Aron," who in Old Jerusalem runs a Jewish "boot camp" in one-on-one urban self defense, or rather violent counter attack, for "Jewish kids" who "come from all over the world." He teaches a simple hate Arabs, Israel is for Jews message, mentioning 6 million Jews and Auschwitz. Unfortunately, there are Arabs nearby, and a lot of them are women and children who don't fit Aron's simple hate message.

An election is held in Bet Ommar for the first time in years and Nasri, previously an appointee, enters it and wins. In traditional Arab fashion, he is carried through he streets on the backs of cheering men.

But the film ends with the evacuation of Migron, the death of Rabbi Froman, and his burial, with bearded men singing the 23rd Psalm to guitar and accordion and much coverage with expensive digital cameras. Finally, a glimpse of Palestinian locals, apparently joyous, perhaps moving back into land seized by the Migron settlers.

His approach is "non-didactic," Cohen says, and it does keep going back and forth between the two sides, focusing on a few sympathetic people, hardworking and idealistic, mostly. What results is a powerful journal of a year or so in this land some call "Holy." In a way the film is just eloquent notes. And this review is just jottings about the film. There is some new material here; much of it is familiar from other documentaries. But everything adds to the tapestry, and Cohen's film serves as an update. By way of conclusion it offers the observation, repeated by peace activist and Palestinian rights advocate Hagif Ofran, that with the Jewish settlements, a two-state solution is rapidly approaching impossibility. This was clear years ago. Something had to be done to curtail the settlements and it was not done. Notably, from an American point of view, President Obama's failure to do anything to push Israel to dismantle the settlements has been a de facto ratification of Israel's dominance in the region, a status regarded by much of the world as illegal and unsustainable, but about which nothing can be done as long as America covers for and finances Tel Aviv. Watching this film during the sixth or seventh Israeli siege of Gaza in the past ten or eleven years, it may seem only a minor footnote: but it is important to see that people on both sides are trying to do things more quietly.

Holy Land, 70 mins., is a new documentary. Peter Cohn has a blog with information related to the project. Watched for this review on a screener for the 2014 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. It shows July 29, 2014 at the Castro Theater (San Francisco) and Aug. 2 at the California Theater (Berkeley). Nothing about a commercial release yet (August 13, 2014).

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.