Palestine 36

By Oren Kessler, author of the book 'Palestine 1936'> I have a number of quarrels with this film but I’ve limited myself to three of its most egregious failings: > > The utter distortion of how Jews acquired land (whatever land they owned was paid for – not “transferred” over by perfidious Brits) > > The complete absence of a guy named Hajj Amin al-Husseini (maybe you’ve heard of him) > > The silencing of the nearly 400,000 Jews who lived in Mandate Palestine in 1936. I don’t mean metaphorically. I mean there are exactly two words spoken by a Jewish character in as many hours of film. > > It’s the last of these that’s the most glaring omission. Eight minutes in, at a ceremony inaugurating the Palestine Broadcasting Corporation, Palestine High Commissioner Arthur Wauchope – played by Oscar-winner Jeremy Irons – nudges an unnamed figure in a costume beard to the microphone to intone “Kol Yerushalayim” (“The Voice of Jerusalem”), before an unnamed Arab dignitary utters the equivalent “Iza’at al-Quds.” > > One later scene shows Jewish immigrants in the distance, wordless but conspicuously light-featured, diligently toiling behind a kibbutz wall. And that’s it. It’s a glaring, flagrant omission. > > This is, after all, a film about an Arab revolt against Jews in which the latter are all but airbrushed because the filmmaker appears to wish they weren’t there in the first place. But wishing doesn’t make it so. > > Here’s the film’s promotion poster for the Arab world. Next to Irons, you may recognize Liam Cunningham (Davos Seaworth in Game of Thrones) and Robert Aramayo (a young Eddard Stark in the same series). What you won’t see it a single Jewish character, because they’ve been wished out of the film. > > There are things to praise about the film. Archival footage is skillfully restored, colorized and integrated. There are a few funny moments, like an Arab child introducing a British visitor to his family donkey as “Balfour – Lord Balfour.” Several of the Arab actors – many of them citizens of Israel – deliver compelling performances. > > But as a work of history, it’s malpractice. > > We shouldn’t expect any different from Qatar or Turkey, two of the primary state backers (along with Iran) of Hamas. But I do think we can and should demand better from the BFI and BBC. Or, for that matter, from the Oscars.