The Idea of Israel (35 page)

Miriam tells George she will never leave him, and it is her sheer determination that keeps the romance alive. Now the meetings are all in Arab Jaffa. But they are constantly interrupted by her brother, Shraga, known for his fanaticism and hot-headedness. He batters Miriam badly but leaves the couple alone. However, the Stern Gang hooligans finally find a pretext to move against Miriam and George: they both witnessed the killing of the British officer in the club and therefore have to be eliminated. The gang builds a case against them,
which includes the allegation that Miriam assisted George to plan the attack on their headquarters in Tel Aviv. While Miriam awaits George for a final meeting in Palestine, after which they plan to leave the country for good, the Stern Gang executes her.

As mentioned, the template in post-Zionist movies about love affairs between Arabs and Jews ends in tragedy, specifically death. The futility of such a death and the predictability of such an ending are beautifully shown in a scene in which a Palestinian shepherd takes a picture of the two and gives it to Miriam’s brother, who fails to develop them and then has to create a photomontage in order to show the two together. This is the essence of the romantic relationship: artificial, liminal, and in reality impossible. Even the only seemingly feasible solution for such an impossible love – running away abroad – cannot materialise.

But beyond the overtly tragic message of the film, there are hidden ones as well, which turn this film into the only one I know of in which the Palestinian narrative of 1948 is not merely respected but also accepted as accurate. By itself, the execution of a Jewish woman by Jews challenges the conventional image of the bloodthirsty and inhuman Arab. Moreover, and probably even unintentionally, the movie went further than most in its historiographical view: it presents Palestinian viewpoints on 1948 as rational and deserving of empathy. The most illuminating scene in this respect is one set in November 1947, in which the patrons in an Arab coffeehouse listen anxiously to the wireless as it broadcasts the UN voting process on the partition resolution. This is the first and only time in an Israeli movie that the scriptwriter demonstrates an awareness of the fears experienced by the other side, which are diametrically opposed to those of the Jewish side. A scene of Jews listening anxiously, anticipating the opposite result of the vote, has appeared often in documentary as well as feature films since 1948, and it is followed by ecstatic dancing in the streets.

Another striking aspect of the narrative is how it is positioned with respect to the explanation for the war’s eruption. In the classic Zionist narrative, as mentioned earlier in the context of the film
Dan and Sa’adia
, the war breaks out for some unexplainable reason when
the Arabs, out of the blue, decide to attack. Here it breaks out after the Arab governments lose the vote in the United Nations and David Ben-Gurion declares the Jewish state. By taking these events into account, the connection between the fury felt by the Palestinians and their frustration and consequent assault on Jewish convoys and settlements becomes clearer. This connection is explained in dialogue by one of George’s friends in a scene that takes place in a pool hall in Jaffa. He speaks about UNSCOP (the UN Special Committee on Palestine, appointed in the spring of 1947 to propose a solution for the conflict in Palestine) and the fact that it permitted Jewish immigrants to flood Palestine while it discussed the country’s future. It was clear that these new immigrants would be staying put, regardless of what the UN ended up proposing. ‘And now the Arabs will stay defenceless, after the British leave, when they face these immigrants’, says George’s friend. This narration reflects not only the Palestinian narrative of the war, but also some of the claims made by the new Israeli historiography about it.

Yet another aspect of this film is that it brings out the human side of the Palestinians, who appear as victims of Jewish attacks on Jaffa. In one of these attacks, George’s friend and relative Pierre is killed. George is seen stooping over his body and caressing his face. George is handsome and elegantly dressed; he drives a fancy car and is far more educated than Miriam. His English is flawless, and this we know because Miriam needs him to help her speak to the Brits. As it happens, all the major Palestinian characters in the film are Christians. This is first and foremost out of loyalty to the true story but tends inadvertently to suggest that the positive Arab image is limited to Christians. However, the Muslims who appear in the film in subsidiary roles are also depicted as normal, multidimensional human beings. Unlike in
Dan and Sa’adia
, here we know what they aspire to and what they fear, and more than anything else we learn what drives their actions. They win our empathy because their conduct is rational and because we are exposed to subtle and intelligent dialogue among themselves.

What contributes to the film’s credibility is that not all the Palestinians are positive and admirable human beings. Thus, for
instance, after Pierre is killed, George and his friends plan to exact revenge. But this is in fact the reverse of the way Zionist historiography characterises not only the 1948 war but every conflict with the Arabs: an Arab action and an Israeli retaliation. Here the Israeli action comes first. In addition, the Arab retaliation in this case fails, because one of the Palestinians is greedy enough to sell for good money their plan to the Stern Gang, and the same person is also providing the information on Miriam that the gang uses to incriminate her.

The Jewish characters, by contrast, are quite negative. The worst is Shraga, Miriam’s brother. He appears in the movie with all the paraphernalia of a Hagana fighter and behaves like a mindless thug. To his underlings, when they fail to hit the targets during gun training sessions, he says, ‘Imagine you are shooting an Arab, or a British soldier – it will help.’ He contemplates expelling George from Palestine before deciding to kill him. And expulsion is the single historical fact that best connects the new Israeli historiography with the Palestinian narrative.

Even Shay, the military intelligence wing of the Hagana, appears to be acting on the basis of racism and fanaticism. They throw unfounded accusations at Miriam not because she constitutes an existential danger but because of her forbidden love for an Arab. Such a depiction could be found only in the boldest of the new historians’ works – namely, the possibility that the young State of Israel followed certain policies or that its political élite took certain decisions towards the Palestinians, not on the basis of security considerations, but out of sheer racism.

Nonetheless, one-dimensional Arabs are not replaced by one-dimensional Jews. Israel, Shraga’s best friend, is gentle and good-hearted, although he is torn to pieces because he is in love with Miriam and knows that this is why he collaborates with Shraga in the violent expulsion of George. Few members of Shay are appalled by the option of murder (but not battery and expulsion). Indeed, the Hagana’s image in this film is fascinating. Its representatives do engage in direct killings, but they debate and hesitate, much more so than the Stern terrorists. So, in a typical Zionist way, they are absolved from the accusation of violence for the sake of violence. It
thus seems easier to attribute the violence in the film to the Stern Gang and not the Hagana. George asks Miriam, ‘Have you known any of the assassins of the British officer?’ and adds, ‘You are all brothers-in-arms.’ He also associates the murder of another British officer with a potential death threat to Miriam, posing the rhetorical question ‘You know what these murderers will do when they finish the British?’ The terms ‘murderers’ or ‘assassins’ appear in the film many times when the Stern Gang is mentioned. In the final scene of the movie there is a photomontage of the couple, along with a text which reads: ‘Miriam Seidman was executed and shot by the Stern Gang after being found guilty of treason. Her guilt was never proven, her name was never cleared, and those responsible for her death were never brought to justice.’

But this is not just a story of the Palestinian tragedy. It aspires to be a more universal tale about humanity in general. In general, when dealing with issues such as this, cinema has an advantage over historiography, as is made clear by the immediacy of this film, which could not easily be produced by a written narrative. It pointedly associates geography and politics. Thus, most of Miriam’s encounters with George take place on the beach where the border between Jewish Tel Aviv and Palestinian Jaffa runs. Only there is it possible for the two to detach themselves temporarily from the hostile environment. The director juxtaposes these encounters on the shore with discussions at the Hagana’s headquarters about Miriam’s fate.

The stark contrast between the two protagonists and the murky, hostile, violent environment is also achieved through the way George and Miriam appear on the screen, as well as the physical surroundings where they meet. They are both handsome, young, and clothed in beautiful fabrics, very different from the dreary khaki uniforms worn by those around them. They are filmed against sunsets and maritime panoramas, while the rest of the scenes take place amid the ugly hustle and bustle of militarisation.

Again and again, Miriam and George try to disengage from the national plot into which they were tossed. George throws a bomb into the sea that he promised to detonate in a Jewish area; Miriam’s face appears gloomy amid the sounds of cheering Jews, celebrating
diplomatic victory in the UN. All this comes across in the film, despite the film-makers’ more limited ability to identify with the other side compared with the capabilities of the historians. Cinema focuses on individuals, and its creators can therefore more easily display sympathy with the other side – and with respect to one’s own national myth and narrative, calling up that sympathy poses a challenge. Generally, sympathy arises from emotive identification with a screen hero or from a more universal and critical view on life; rarely is it based, as is the case with historians, on new facts. New documentation for a film with a historical dimension is essential, but it is not the crucial component in the creation of a new historiographical picture of the past. Historical films of course have scriptwriters and directors who must support a historical plot with documentary material, but they can readily identify the more imaginative parts of the story. Even if a film tells a basically true story, such as Oliver Stone’s
JFK
and
Frost/Nixon
, or Richard Attenborough’s
Ghandi
, they are still an admixture of fiction and reality. Such licence is obviously a luxury that documentarians cannot permit themselves.

The Documentary Post-Zionist Challenge

Esh Tzolevet
was not the only film in Israel that exposed dilemmas and taboos. A few films went so far as to take on the manipulation of Holocaust memory in Israeli politics and discourse. Ilan Moshenson’s 1979 movie
Roveh Huliot
(The Wooden Gun), for example, conveyed Israeli uneasiness over the possible link between the Nazi wish to annihilate the Jews in Europe and the Zionist desire to see the expulsion of the Jews from Europe for the sake of the Jewish community in Palestine. Some of these themes were treated in television docudramas. Motti Lerner’s 1994 three-part TV miniseries
The Kastner Trial
, for instance, was based on the true story of a Zionist activist who saved Hungarian Jews by bribing Nazis and who later tried to cleanse his name in a libel trial but failed. The film highlighted the uneasy connection between the Jewish leadership in Palestine and the Holocaust, and put forward the uncomfortable conclusion
that the survival of the community in Palestine always came first. A 1995 docudrama by Benny Brunner, based on Tom Segev’s book
The Seventh Million
, focused on Jewish leaders’ decision not to become involved in operations to save Jews that did not bring survivors to Palestine and to concentrate on efforts to save Jews who were physically and mentally fit and likely to contribute to nation-building.

Beyond the makers of docudramas are the documentary film-makers, who intervene very little in the raw reality they film, believing strongly that it speaks for itself. One of the best among them is Eyal Sivan. An early film of his,
Yizkor: Slaves of Memory
, tested the limits of how far one can challenge from within one’s own national ethos and mythology. In the film he follows the manipulation of Holocaust memories in the Israel high school system during the period between the Passover festivities through Holocaust Remembrance Day Yom Hashoah, and up to the celebrations of Independence Day, Yom Ha’atzmaut. The camera hardly leaves the classroom or schoolyard, and an extended version includes an extremely poignant interview with Yeshayahu Leibowitz, who was mentioned in
Chapter 4
above. For me the unforgettable remark in this interview was that the Holocaust is not a Jewish problem: ‘We did not do it. The Germans did, and it is therefore their problem.’ By contrast, the occupation should concern the Israeli Jews, because this is an evil of their own doing. Calling on Israel to focus on its own crimes and less on its victimisation was a demand rarely heard of even at the peak of the post-Zionist era.

Yizkor
leaves the viewer with a mixture of optimism and despair. The school manufactures a false and unconvincing Jewish narrative of self-righteousness and victimisation that lumps together the ancient stories of the Hebrews in Pharaonic Egypt with accounts of Nazi Europe and the 1948 War of Independence. The students do not always seem to fall prey to this metanarrative, but neither are they offered any alternatives, and thus are likely to become the slaves of this manipulated memory in future. What it also shows is the grotesque business of enslaving memory for ideological purposes: there is an efficient use of materials employed for the various memorial ceremonies, which have an almost postmodern character in which
everything is the same whether it happened five thousand years ago or yesterday. An efficient teacher, then, will instruct the students not to waste the posters describing the exodus from Egypt so that they can be used again in a Broadway-style presentation on the various death camps of the Holocaust. On Yom Hashoah, each student is assigned a banner with the name of one of the camps on it, and the viewer almost senses a competition among the children to receive the banner that represents the worst site of the Nazi genocide.