Palestinian Propaganda Films Screened in Boston

 by Aaron Goldstein  

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The Boston Palestine Film Festival got underway on September 29th, featuring a variety of films profiling various terrorists and murderers.

If the Palestinians know one thing it is propaganda and how to disseminate it. The Palestinians have promoted their intifada in the print and broadcast media as well as in the blogosphere. While the United States remains generally sympathetic to Israel, the Palestinians have managed to convince much of the world of their suffering under the mantra of occupation and that they simply want a home of their own. A thorough scrutiny of the facts demonstrates the Palestinians are more insufferable than truly suffering.   Nevertheless much of the world sees what it wants to see and hears what it wants to hear and the Palestinians know this all too well.

In recent years, there have been a string of Palestinian-themed film festivals in Great Britain, Canada and the United States. Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Pittsburgh and Durham, North Carolina are amongst the American cities that have hosted Palestinian Film Festivals. You can now add Boston to that list, as the Boston Palestine Film Festival got underway on September 29th and will be running through October 7th.

This is no fringe festival. The Boston Palestine Film Festival is being sponsored by the Museum of Fine Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council as well as the Coolidge Corner Theater in Brookline and the Kendall Square Cinema in Cambridge. The films are also being shown at Harvard University and at Boston College.

Amongst the more than two dozen films being screened at the inaugural festival are Price of Freedom – a short biographical piece on one-time Palestinian Authority presidential candidate Marwan Barghouti, who is described as “the Nelson Mandela of Palestine.” Barghouti is currently serving five life sentences in an Israeli jail for five murders. On top of that, he has also called upon Palestinians to attack Israeli civilians in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and Jerusalem. Another biographical film is simply titled Leila Khaled: Hijacker. Khaled became infamous for her role in hijacking two civilian aircraft in 1969 and 1970 when she was involved with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. In addition to profiling Khaled, the film provides “an examination of the nebulous dichotomy between ‘terrorist’ and ‘freedom fighter.’”  Throw in a film about Sami al-Arian, the security fence and the plight of Palestinian laborers and, well, you’ve got the general idea.

But the film that caught my eye was Mohammed Bakri’s notorious Jenin, Jenin. It purports to present testimony about the incidents that occurred in the West Bank town in April 2002 between its residents and the Israeli Defense Forces. You might recall the Palestinian National Authority claimed the IDF had massacred 500 civilians in Jenin. But this claim could never be substantiated, even by the UN and Human Rights Watch – not exactly friends of Israel. The Palestinian Authority eventually lowered its own estimate and could only account for 56 casualties. As it turns out, most of the Palestinians who were killed were armed and had booby-trapped houses laying in wait for Israeli soldiers, who went house-to-house instead of using air strikes to minimize civilian casualties. The IDF launched the raid in retaliation for a series of suicide bombings in Israel, including the attack on the Park Hotel in Netanya during a Passover Seder which resulted in the deaths of 30 Israeli civilians while injuring 140. Many of those killed were elderly Holocaust survivors.  Jenin was known to have been home to many of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad suicide bombers responsible for killing Israeli civilians.

But one would have never known that watching Jenin, Jenin. If someone entirely unfamiliar with the Middle East had watched Bakri’s film one might believe that Israel indiscriminately kills pregnant women, children and even canaries. Witnesses accuse Israeli soldiers of mutilating bodies, shooting civilians at point blank range, deliberately destroying a hospital, using Palestinians as human shields, stealing their life’s savings and committing endless massacres.  Israelis and Jews are described as cowards and losers and an uninitiated, ill-informed viewer might very well come to that conclusion after watching this film.

Needless to say, IDF soldiers see the events of Jenin quite differently and have sued Bakri for libel.  Beginning last month, the libel suit is being heard in an Israeli court.  Curiously, Bakri was present at the screening but no time was allotted for a question and answer period.  Ever ungracious, Bakri and one of the film organizers blamed the Kendal Square Cinema for this snag. For a more detailed debunking of this film I recommend Tamar Sternthal’s 2005 review.

After viewing this film I cannot help but conclude that it is little more than a tool for incitement amongst a population that hates not only the State of Israel but the Jewish people. The residents of Jenin claim to want to live in peace with their Jewish neighbors but their true demeanor shows when Jerusalem is invoked.  In one scene, Palestinian children are marching down a street, “Jerusalem is Ours.”  A little girl predominantly featured in the film states that if the Jews were to come to Jenin they would “abandon their conquest of Jerusalem.” Those are very big words for such a very little girl.  One can only wonder what else she is being taught.  An older man while holding a key states he will not use it until there is an independent Palestinian state “with Jerusalem as its capital.” The Palestinians could not be satisfied with just East Jerusalem, as offered by Ehud Barak at Camp David in 2000.  Anyone watching Jenin, Jenin will know the Palestinians want all of Jerusalem up to and including the Western Wall.

As I left the theater, I noticed there had been no demonstrators. If this were an Israeli or Jewish Film Festival you could be sure there would be Palestinian demonstrators milling about. I have seen Palestinian demonstrators on the occasions I have attended Israel Day in front of City Hall Plaza. I have seen them on First Night protesting outside the Berklee Performance Center when a couple of Israeli musicians performed.  It mattered not what their views were. The fact they were Israeli and Jews was sufficient grounds to protest their presence. The point here is that whatever the Jews in Boston might think of Palestinians, their ideas and their actions, nothing will be done by the Jewish community to disrupt their festivities. I doubt the Palestinians will ever be capable of such restraint concerning Israelis and Jews.

Foreign Affairs: Israel-Palestine

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