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Authors: Ilan Pappé
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the broken heart of an attractive hero. Also worth considering with regard to cooperation, friendship, and evenromance across the divide is the interesting difference between the attitude of historians, especially in the new age of relativism and even postmodernism, and that of film-makers. While the historians may deduce an optimistic conclusion from such incidents in history, the cinema usually presents them through the lens of tragedy, as an indication of the unbridgeable abyss that separates the two sides and cannot be overcome. Thus, fiction is far more realistic in its depiction of relationships on the ground than the typical academic illusions about humanity and human beings.
Still, the films in which Jews apppeared as villains and Palestinians as heroes did seem to have an effect at the time. Switching conventional roles challenged the image of the Arab in the Zionist metanarrative. No academic work could reach such a broad audience or produce such a clear message. The best of this kind was the 1989 film Esh Tzolevet (Crossfire), which went beyond the subject of romance and presented, in a way never before seen in an Israeli feature film, a Palestinian perspective on the 1948 war. It warrants extensive mention here. 14
Humanising the Nakba: Esh Tzolevet (Crossfire)
However progressive some of the films appearing in the post-Zionist decade were with respect to the occupation and the conflict, almost all of them lacked empathy towards Palestinian positions on the Nakba, in particular the sense of catastrophe and the right of return. What the more critical films did was to challenge the 1967 occupation, although it is true that the Arab, in a timeless sense, does become more humanised and appears, on several occasions, as the hero.
Most of these films lacked a historical dimension; they were located outside any well-charted chronological or geographical framework. The viewer never knew whether the locus was inside or outside the Green Line, or what time or year the events took place. Even so, they did present a Jewish occupier/colonialist and a native Arab/Other.
Crossfire is one of the few post-Zionist feature films that, like the classic Zionist films, dealt directly with the 1948 war. Very few people in Israel have seen the film, either when it first appeared or afterwards, and its maker, Gidon Ganani, does not belong to the ranks of Israel’s hegemonic culture producers. Therefore it is not a good example of any salient trend or development. Yet it clearly shows the potential for an alternative representation of the idea of Israel.
The film is based on a true story: an impossible love affair between George Khouri, a Palestinian, and Miriam Seidman, a Jew. They meet accidently at a British checkpoint circa 1947. While searching Miriam’s belongings, the soldiers toss her basket on the ground, spilling its contents. George helps her collect her things and thus they become acquainted with each other. Miriam works in her mother’s restaurant in northern Tel Aviv, and George makes his way there on the pretext that he had to stop nearby because his car’s engine got overheated and he needed water. On his second visit, he is thrown out by Miriam’s brother, a member of the Hagana, and his mates. Miriam’s apology gives rise to another meeting and then another, always due to Miriam’s insistence and initiative. Although the meetings take place at intimate sites, such as the Andromeda Rock in Jaffa where they go for a night-time swim, they do not lead to a more intimate relationship between the two, because George does not take advantage of the many opportunities falling his way. As the overall situation deteriorates and tensions between the Palestinians and Jews increase, the meetings move to a British club. During one of those meetings, two Stern Gang terrorists enter and murder a British officer. Stern Gang members follow the couple on the suspicion that Miriam may be working with the enemy.
Miriam tells
Still, the films in which Jews apppeared as villains and Palestinians as heroes did seem to have an effect at the time. Switching conventional roles challenged the image of the Arab in the Zionist metanarrative. No academic work could reach such a broad audience or produce such a clear message. The best of this kind was the 1989 film Esh Tzolevet (Crossfire), which went beyond the subject of romance and presented, in a way never before seen in an Israeli feature film, a Palestinian perspective on the 1948 war. It warrants extensive mention here. 14
Humanising the Nakba: Esh Tzolevet (Crossfire)
However progressive some of the films appearing in the post-Zionist decade were with respect to the occupation and the conflict, almost all of them lacked empathy towards Palestinian positions on the Nakba, in particular the sense of catastrophe and the right of return. What the more critical films did was to challenge the 1967 occupation, although it is true that the Arab, in a timeless sense, does become more humanised and appears, on several occasions, as the hero.
Most of these films lacked a historical dimension; they were located outside any well-charted chronological or geographical framework. The viewer never knew whether the locus was inside or outside the Green Line, or what time or year the events took place. Even so, they did present a Jewish occupier/colonialist and a native Arab/Other.
Crossfire is one of the few post-Zionist feature films that, like the classic Zionist films, dealt directly with the 1948 war. Very few people in Israel have seen the film, either when it first appeared or afterwards, and its maker, Gidon Ganani, does not belong to the ranks of Israel’s hegemonic culture producers. Therefore it is not a good example of any salient trend or development. Yet it clearly shows the potential for an alternative representation of the idea of Israel.
The film is based on a true story: an impossible love affair between George Khouri, a Palestinian, and Miriam Seidman, a Jew. They meet accidently at a British checkpoint circa 1947. While searching Miriam’s belongings, the soldiers toss her basket on the ground, spilling its contents. George helps her collect her things and thus they become acquainted with each other. Miriam works in her mother’s restaurant in northern Tel Aviv, and George makes his way there on the pretext that he had to stop nearby because his car’s engine got overheated and he needed water. On his second visit, he is thrown out by Miriam’s brother, a member of the Hagana, and his mates. Miriam’s apology gives rise to another meeting and then another, always due to Miriam’s insistence and initiative. Although the meetings take place at intimate sites, such as the Andromeda Rock in Jaffa where they go for a night-time swim, they do not lead to a more intimate relationship between the two, because George does not take advantage of the many opportunities falling his way. As the overall situation deteriorates and tensions between the Palestinians and Jews increase, the meetings move to a British club. During one of those meetings, two Stern Gang terrorists enter and murder a British officer. Stern Gang members follow the couple on the suspicion that Miriam may be working with the enemy.
Miriam tells
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