Less than divine intervention
The lunatic United States-based IsraSpeak on Palestine permeates all aspects of American society and politics from the White House to Hollywood, writes Haim Bresheeth
Trust the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to produce its own headlines. In a move scripted by an unsuccessful comedy writer, this august body of tinsel town sages has let us all know that it has now joined the anti-Arab hysteria of that other American body of sages, situated in Washington. Like its political parallel, the Academy seems to act out a script written in Jerusalem, seemingly by the great master General Sharon himself.
In an unprecedented move, it has refused the Palestinian entry for the Foreign Film, the sublime Divine Intervention (Palestine, 2000) by Elia Suleiman. It seems that even this refined and understated film has somehow elicited the ire of the gods, so much so that they have dabbled in the duties normally reserved for the United Nations, or the secretary of state. The refusal of the official Palestinian entry was justified by the claim that the Academy "does not recognise Palestine as a nation", no less!
Now you have to admit that this is rather original. Instead of relying on international bodies which, after all, have recognised not only the Palestinian nation, but also the fact that this nation is the subject of brutal military occupation which lasts for decades despite UN and Security Council resolutions, Hollywood is making sure that it will be easily and automatically identified with the most rabid Israeli government ever in power. After all, even the US government has yet to decide that the Palestinians do not constitute a nation, or maybe do not even exist. It may well be that such declaration is also on its way, unfortunately delayed by the need for coalition- building around the next Gulf War to be soon fought against Iraq. But why should we be surprised?
The Bush administration has been using the Israeli agenda, priorities and terminology since it came to power, and it seems that Sharon is the voice speaking from its bowels when uttering positions on the Middle East, so why not Hollywood? Has Hollywood not done its part in the past for Zionism? Have they not come up with Exodus as the ultimate answer to the lily-livered liberals, doubting the wisdom and justification of a colonial project ranging into the third millennium? Have not many of its founding fathers and their sons and daughters not supported Israel on every opportunity?
But now it seems that the ideological and political struggle has passed into the realm of the absurd and the virtual. The Israeli government is famous for refusing to accept reality -- Golda Meir went into history with the Utterance "There are no Palestinians!". Ever since 1967 various Israeli governments have done their best to guarantee that such a political entity never exists, by occupation, strangulation, starvation and continual harassment of the whole Palestinian nation, despite all international voices against this barbaric behaviour. Making the Palestinians disappear seems a major theme of every Israeli government, and especially the current one. How interesting then, to remember that Elia Suleiman's first feature film, A Chronicle of Disappearance (Palestine, 1996) is a film made exactly on this theme, the forced and orchestrated 'disappearance' of Palestine and its people. This systematic policy has led to Israel controlling all of Palestine, directly or indirectly, all its water sources, electricity, food and medical supplies, roads and its airspace. There is not a single aspect of Palestinian life which is not under the control of Israeli forces, apart from death itself.
Is it surprising then, that young Palestinians choose to die, and to make their death the only method of fighting this erasure from the land, from history, and now, also from our public memory?
Hollywood, Bush, and Israel can indeed declare that Palestine does not exist, or that it is no longer 'recognised' as a nation. What will be achieved by this folly? Will this be the secret weapon to win the hearts and minds of Arabs and Muslims elsewhere? Is this what is likely to stem the wave of terror which we are promised by Western governments?
By adopting the positions and policies, not to mention the lunatic IsraSpeak on Palestine, the American society and polis are proving their innate inability to deal with the other, and especially the Arab other. The only way they seem to be able to relate to the existence of Arab others in the Middle East, is by a combination of denial, erasure and extermination.
They also may believe that such a position is not only justified, but will also produce positive results. Furthermore, Britain's slavish following of the Washington agenda is also guaranteeing that the resulting ructions will not stop at the East Coast, but will also reach our shores as a wave of resolute and abandoned despair. People who do not exist, like those in Palestine or in Chechniya, have also nothing to lose -- they have already lost everything there was to lose. Israelis should be the first ones to realise this. Their government's insistence on 'disappearing' the Palestinians has only led to the struggle against the continued occupation becoming the bloodiest, most frightening political process we have recently witnessed. In the last few years we have seen that form of resistance adopted throughout the Arab and Muslim world, and the horror exported far and wide. Now the war is no longer limited to the battleground, but has traversed to the cultural arena -- it is indeed becoming a Clash of Civilisations. This formative disturbing concept, so important in the 'thinking' of George W Bush and his cronies, is threatening to take over more and more of our life and existence, to swamp our rational judgment and obliterate our civilised options.
To those who still have doubts, one can only advise a close look at Israel. Some years ago, the world was resounding with the language and attitudes of reconciliation and peace, of a process fraught with danger, which was to remove the greatest danger of all. Instead of the dangers of peace, the Israeli society has chosen the dangers of war, endless conflict and continued occupation. This is not just a strike against reason, against the human and national rights of the Palestinians, but also against the Israeli people, and their rights to live in peace. Peace and security are indivisible -- there shall be no peace to Israel without peace for Palestine, no justice for one without justice for the other.
By venturing into public denial, erasure and excision, the Israelis, Americans and Hollywood are crossing the last boundary of reason -- those who do not exist, will fight to obliterate the ones trying to erase them; those who are not allowed to live, will make life impossible for their oppressor; those whose utterances are strangled and suppressed, will also think and act along such lines. It remains to end with the words of one of Judaism's great Sages, Hillel the Elder, who said: "Do not do unto your neighbour that which you would not have done unto you". What a pity that those who call themselves Jews forget one of the most important utterances of Judaism. Has the moral fibre of historical Judaism turned into a mere killer-instinct?
