Review of Arna's Children (2004) by Rajn — 22 Jun 2018

I just watched this film that touches on a little of the egregious brutality of the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine. It was by no cinematographic masterpiece of cinematography but certainly gave us in the Quaker Meeting House where we viewed it a privileged, revelatory glimpse into the intolerable conditions being imposed on Palestinian people by the Israeli occupiers.

The film, moving enough in its own right, was more poignant for having taken place at a "More in Common" community event to commemorate and celebrate the 44th anniversary of British MP Jo Cox's 44th birth.

Anyone interested in gaining a better insight into a world few of us are likely to experience directly should watch this video. Some among us had been to Jenin. One told of the permanent state of menace the Israeli authorities impose on the Palestinian people, the never ending cruelty and humiliations they heap upon them.

The Palestinian people are effectively prisoners of the State of Israel. Someone informed us that Israel has a runs a sophisticated program to undermine and neutralize young, potential leaders from the well educated Palestinian middle class that exists in places such as Nablus and Ramallah.

They thus “nip in the bud” future effective resistance leaders. They arrange for bright young Palestinians to go abroad, to places such as the University of Chicago, and then take measures to make sure many of them do not return to Palestine.

The Israeli authorities fear more than anything the arising of a charismatic, intellectually able leadership that could lead mass peaceful resistance to them, because they know that such resistance is the only form of resistance against which they have no chance of winning.

Much of the current Palestinian leadership, people such as Mahmoud Abbas, are either corrupt and/or pathetically weak, which suits Israel just fine. It is almost as some high profile Palestinian politicians were working hand-in-hand with the Israelis, betraying the freedom struggle of their own people and encouraging a war of attrition that is bleeding the life and morale of the Palestinian people.

This remarkable film was all the more special for the fact that the mother and son, both sadly now dead, had at some stage both served with the Israeli armed forces. Arna expressed regret for having, as a young soldier, driven Bedouin people from their homes.

Juliano, her son, served in the IDF but was punished after he refused to comply with what he considered was a morally unacceptable order from his commander. The work these two, with dedicated others, did with outstanding imagination and great courage, considering they were well known as Jewish people in a Palestinian town under siege by the Israelis, to channel the pain and trauma of young Palestinians into artistic, theatrical productions will, because of this filmed record, live on in the world as an inspiration to us all for decades to come.

In situations of egregious injustice, such as what is being suffered by the Palestinian people, there will always arise cases in which some react, in their sense of total frustration and limitation in every respect, with rage and violence and carry out acts that none among us would condone.

When you watch this film please ask yourself how you would react if you, your family, all the people you care about and love had to live as these people of the OPT are condemned to live. Would you meekly accept the subjugation and repression of your people by a heavily armed, ruthless people who present themselves to the whole world not as your cruel oppressors and persecutors but as your victims? This evening I learned a lot, on emotional and other levels, from this film on the terrible, almost hopeless plight of the inomitable Palestinian people and some of the deliberate, systematic cruelty that is inflicted on them day in day out by an oppressor who not only totally militarily dominates them but has the resources, skills and contacts to make very sure that the Palestinian side of this tragic story is rarely, if ever, dispassionately and honestly reported by the corporate media, the “mainstream media”.

The Palestinian people are betrayed by their leaders and by our indifference to their suffering. The very least we on the outside of the situation can do, to my mind, is to join in the growing BDS (Boycott Divestment Sanctions) movement and thus signal, symbolically and materially, that we do not support racism, ethnic cleansing, illegal occupation, illegal collective punishment, house demolitions, routine harassment and persecution of a people and a very 21st century form of genocide by stealth that is unique in that it has the feature of “plausible deniability” deeply wired into it.