relative comfort, who could afford to identify with the Other. They were, of course, accepted warmly by Israel’s Palesinians, and in that sense strengthened Arab–Jewish cooperation, but mass audiences in the more deprived areas may have received them differently.
Nonetheless, the fact that some of the films that depicted the Israeli as occupier and coloniser and the Palestinian as victim were shown for several weeks was an indication that they were intriguing enough to create empathy, or at least interest. Indeed, it does seem that the critique genre, whether hidden or fairly overt, was quite popular for a while. This popularity was the result of the curious fusion of an aggressively free-market political economy with the rise of multiculturalism in Israeli society. The continued capitalisation of the Israeli economy also explains the success of, and even the drive for, a more critical response to the local cultural market, not just as a fulfilment of an ideological agenda. As Pierre Bourdieu commented so aptly, both academic and cultural products represent not only political and social transformations but also economic products that need to be marketed. 11 This is clearer in the case of the cinema than in that of academia.
In some instances, however, commercial considerations were secondary. What such film-makers wished to do was to connect, or reconnect, to the world they came from – and this was particularly true of Mizrachi and Palestinian film-makers. The Mizrachi film-makers were producing their more critical work at a time when the Mizrachi Jews’ overall economic, judicial and political conditions had improved. But improvement was not enough, at least in the eyesof these artists. They, like other members of their community, were in fact frustrated at the persistent social and economic polarisation within Jewish society in Israel and in particular with the marginal position of their own community in the national myth and narrative.
Yet despite these impressive forays into other perspectives, the treatment of the Other in films and plays was inhibited by the projection of an Israeli image onto the Palestinian. It was as if the other side could be understood only if its heroes acted like Israelis or subscribed to an Israeli concept of reality. For instance, in the 1986 film Avanti Popolo , an Egyptian soldier, speaking in a Palestinian dialect (which Israeli Jewish viewers would not notice), conveys the message of human values common to both sides by quoting Shakespeare’s Shylock. An Anglophile Egyptian common soldier must have been a very rare sight on the Sinai battlefield and yet he was invented to provoke sympathy from the Israeli audience. 12
Some of the bravest attempts to show the world through the eyes of Zionism’s victims, as suggested by the late Edward Said, were woven into fictional or real tales of impossible love. 13 Romance and sex sell, and romance was the main sweetener for the new views offered to Israeli filmgoers. Most of these films were modelled on a Romeo-and-Juliet sort of plot: a Jewish woman falls in love with a Palestinian man against the wishes of their respective families and societies. In reality, this was and is an extremely rare occurrence – and one which indicates how exclusionary the project of Zionism was. More than a century of settlement did not produce any significant romantic, let alone familial, ties between the settlers and the native population. No other settler society has been that ‘pure’, apart from the whites in South Africa.
The eroticisation of the conflict generates a sensual identification with the heroes. As with Hollywood films about African Americans, so in the ‘enlightened’ Israeli film industry the ‘Arabs’ were exceptionally handsome or beautiful. The focus on sex and beauty permits what psychologists call displacement: instead of identifying with the cause of the general suffering inflicted on the other side, the viewer identifies with
Nonetheless, the fact that some of the films that depicted the Israeli as occupier and coloniser and the Palestinian as victim were shown for several weeks was an indication that they were intriguing enough to create empathy, or at least interest. Indeed, it does seem that the critique genre, whether hidden or fairly overt, was quite popular for a while. This popularity was the result of the curious fusion of an aggressively free-market political economy with the rise of multiculturalism in Israeli society. The continued capitalisation of the Israeli economy also explains the success of, and even the drive for, a more critical response to the local cultural market, not just as a fulfilment of an ideological agenda. As Pierre Bourdieu commented so aptly, both academic and cultural products represent not only political and social transformations but also economic products that need to be marketed. 11 This is clearer in the case of the cinema than in that of academia.
In some instances, however, commercial considerations were secondary. What such film-makers wished to do was to connect, or reconnect, to the world they came from – and this was particularly true of Mizrachi and Palestinian film-makers. The Mizrachi film-makers were producing their more critical work at a time when the Mizrachi Jews’ overall economic, judicial and political conditions had improved. But improvement was not enough, at least in the eyesof these artists. They, like other members of their community, were in fact frustrated at the persistent social and economic polarisation within Jewish society in Israel and in particular with the marginal position of their own community in the national myth and narrative.
Yet despite these impressive forays into other perspectives, the treatment of the Other in films and plays was inhibited by the projection of an Israeli image onto the Palestinian. It was as if the other side could be understood only if its heroes acted like Israelis or subscribed to an Israeli concept of reality. For instance, in the 1986 film Avanti Popolo , an Egyptian soldier, speaking in a Palestinian dialect (which Israeli Jewish viewers would not notice), conveys the message of human values common to both sides by quoting Shakespeare’s Shylock. An Anglophile Egyptian common soldier must have been a very rare sight on the Sinai battlefield and yet he was invented to provoke sympathy from the Israeli audience. 12
Some of the bravest attempts to show the world through the eyes of Zionism’s victims, as suggested by the late Edward Said, were woven into fictional or real tales of impossible love. 13 Romance and sex sell, and romance was the main sweetener for the new views offered to Israeli filmgoers. Most of these films were modelled on a Romeo-and-Juliet sort of plot: a Jewish woman falls in love with a Palestinian man against the wishes of their respective families and societies. In reality, this was and is an extremely rare occurrence – and one which indicates how exclusionary the project of Zionism was. More than a century of settlement did not produce any significant romantic, let alone familial, ties between the settlers and the native population. No other settler society has been that ‘pure’, apart from the whites in South Africa.
The eroticisation of the conflict generates a sensual identification with the heroes. As with Hollywood films about African Americans, so in the ‘enlightened’ Israeli film industry the ‘Arabs’ were exceptionally handsome or beautiful. The focus on sex and beauty permits what psychologists call displacement: instead of identifying with the cause of the general suffering inflicted on the other side, the viewer identifies with
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