One other point. In Hebrew, the name of the film is Chaim Yekarim. It is a literal translation. My midrash is on the fact that grammar requires the word for life - Chaim - be in the plural, and that the adjective, precious be in agreement. More than one life is precious...
- Ira
The New York Times
Op-Ed Columnist
Steal This Movie
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: August 7, 2010
The documentary takes a dramatic turn, though, when the infant’s Palestinian mother, Raida, who is being disparaged by fellow Gazans for having her son treated in Israel, blurts out that she hopes he’ll grow up to be a suicide bomber to help recover Jerusalem. Raida tells Eldar: “From the smallest infant, even smaller than Mohammed, to the oldest person, we will all sacrifice ourselves for the sake of Jerusalem. We feel we have the right to it. You’re free to be angry, so be angry.”
Eldar is devastated by her declaration and stops making the film. But this is no Israeli propaganda movie. The drama of the Palestinian boy’s rescue at an Israeli hospital is juxtaposed against Israeli retaliations for shelling from Gaza, which kill whole Palestinian families. Dr. Raz Somech, the specialist who treats Mohammed as if he were his own child, is summoned for reserve duty in Gaza in the middle of the film. The race by Israelis and Palestinians to save one life is embedded in the larger routine of the two communities grinding each other up.
“It’s clear to me that the war in Gaza was justified — no country can allow itself to be fired at with Qassam rockets — but I did not see many people pained by the loss of life on the Palestinian side,” Eldar told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “Because we were so angry at Hamas, all the Israeli public wanted was to [expletive] Gaza. ... It wasn’t until after the incident of Dr. Abu al-Aish — the Gaza physician I spoke with on live TV immediately after a shell struck his house and caused the death of his daughters and he was shouting with grief and fear — that I discovered the [Israeli] silent majority that has compassion for people, including Palestinians. I found that many Israeli viewers shared my feelings.” So Eldar finished the documentary about how Mohammed’s life was saved in Israel.
His raw film reflects the Middle East I know — one full of amazing compassion, even among enemies, and breathtaking cruelty, even among neighbors.
I write about this now because there is something foul in the air. It is a trend, both deliberate and inadvertent, to delegitimize Israel — to turn it into a pariah state, particularly in the wake of the Gaza war. You hear the director Oliver Stone saying crazy things about how Hitler killed more Russians than Jews, but the Jews got all the attention because they dominate the news media and their lobby controls Washington. You hear Britain’s prime minister describing Gaza as a big Israeli “prison camp” and Turkey’s prime minister telling Israel’s president, “When it comes to killing, you know very well how to kill.” You see singers canceling concerts in Tel Aviv. If you just landed from Mars, you might think that Israel is the only country that has killed civilians in war — never Hamas, never Hezbollah, never Turkey, never Iran, never Syria, never America.
I’m not here to defend Israel’s bad behavior. Just the opposite. I’ve long argued that Israel’s colonial settlements in the West Bank are suicidal for Israel as a Jewish democracy. I don’t think Israel’s friends can make that point often enough or loud enough.
But there are two kinds of criticism. Constructive criticism starts by making clear: “I know what world you are living in.” I know the Middle East is a place where Sunnis massacre Shiites in Iraq, Iran kills its own voters, Syria allegedly kills the prime minister next door, Turkey hammers the Kurds, and Hamas engages in indiscriminate shelling and refuses to recognize Israel. I know all of that. But Israel’s behavior, at times, only makes matters worse — for Palestinians and Israelis. If you convey to Israelis that you understand the world they’re living in, and then criticize, they’ll listen.
Destructive criticism closes Israeli ears. It says to Israelis: There is no context
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| Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times |
How about everybody take a deep breath, pop a copy of “Precious Life” into your DVD players, watch this documentary about the real Middle East, and if you still want to be a critic (as I do), be a constructive one. A lot more Israelis and Palestinians will listen to you.
Thanks for posting this Ira.
ReplyDeleteI particularly agree with when you say "Maybe I'm a cockeyed optimist, but I think it has more to do with believing that Israel is more than a dream and more than some bitter realities." Being an American immigrant in Israel I had a difficult time in reconciling the "ideal" of the Jewish state, a light unto the nations with the fact that, indeed, even the Jewish state has its flaws and makes mistakes. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say how they used to support Israel thinking it was this wonderful idealistic paradise with hard working spirit and bursting with "Jewish" morals, only to become disillusioned when they discovered that Israel was really no better or worse than any other nation on the planet, imperfect. Israel is imperfect, and not only that, it wears its imperfections on its sleeve, much like Judaism itself.
For those people who only loved or supported Israel because they thought it was some extraordinary exemplification of the struggling underdog, as it was until 1973, then I say good day to you folks. Yes, Israel is much stronger than it was 40 years ago, but still has its weaknesses. We have good and bad, right and wrong just like every other nation. But what makes Israel special is that bond that so many of us have together, Judaism, even if you’re secular, even if you don’t practice. And perhaps today that’s why there’s so much rejection of Israel.
Apparently some think that Israel shouldn’t be allowed to be a state with Jewish character. For people who believe this, they’ve lost their admiration of Israel. In their minds it’s turned into a nationalistic, colonialist nation. They use firebrand rhetoric to explain their discontent with Israel. And they can’t see past this rhetoric. They either can’t or don’t want to see that Israel’s troubles with its Arab population stem from the Arab Israeli conflict and the rejection of Israel by its Muslim and Arab nations, and not because of some inherent, evil, “Zionist” ideology that so many seem willing to believe. Read the comments on any article about Israel in the major press and you’d be shocked at how mainstream this belief has become.
But for those that realize that it is the Judaism, for its good and its bad, that makes Israel such a special place, they’ve retained their love of Israel for it is not based on some ideological, unrealistic belief. But the knowledge that Israel shall always struggle, fight for what is right. Debate it until their last breath. They embrace Israel inspite of its imperfections, or even because of them. To make it a better place, because they really do care.
They can see past the rhetoric, past the tragedy, past the bloody conflict. They don’t defend Israel no matter what, as so many of their detractors would say. They participate in the dialog and speak their minds as they should. And that’s what makes Israel great. It’s a nation for people that want to be a part of it. It listens, and tries its hardest. For all its warts, corruption, religious conflicts (internal and external), and war, Israel, even in perpetual conflict, manages to keep the fight going, to make itself a better place. And those that condemn it without any consideration as to its circumstance and intent, and without relation to events under similar circumstances in other places in the world, only delegitimize their own voices, not Israel.
http://anothermudpit.blogspot.com/2010/08/criticism-for-love-of-israel-comment.html