OMAR EXPOSES LIFE ON THE WEST BANK AS NEVER BEFORE
Under Israeli occupation, life in the West Bank is graphically displayed as in Omar, directed by Hany Abu-Assad. In his late teens, muscular Omar (played by Adam Bakri) has a girlfriend, Nadja (Leem Lubany), who is passionate about him; using knotted ropes, he has to crawl over the Israeli side of the wall to see her, and he has been shot at. He has two boyfriends, Amjad (Samer Bisharat) and Tarek (Eyad Hourani), the latter connected to a resistance organization. One day, he evades another gunshot only to find that Israeli security officers find him soon after on foot. After giving them his ID, they ask him to stand on a rock, a humiliating balancing act, so he objects and ends up with a bloodied nose. Relating that incident to his two friends, Tarek decides upon retaliation—to shoot an Israel guard post one night, when he orders Jamek to fire. Although they apparently escape undetected, Omar is picked up one day. We see him tortured to get a confession, left in solitary confinement, and when allowed into the general population he is approached by someone who pretends to be a fatherly Muslim, cautioning him not to confess. When Omar says, “I will never confess,” those words are interpreted to mean guilt, so an Israeli intelligence officer (Waleed F. Zuaiter) makes him an offer: If you agree to report who shot the soldier, I will release you from prison. He agrees and reports his “offer” to Jamek and Tarek. The latter plans an ambush, but the Israelis arrive instead to shoot, pursue, and arrest. Another torture scene. Another deal. Omar’s relations with his girlfriend deteriorate, he refuses to make the obvious inference who the traitor to the ambush was, but he then designs his own type of ambush to bring closure. Palestine’s submission to best foreign film of 2013, the Political Film Society has nominated Omar as best film of 2014 in raising consciousness about human rights as well as best exposé of 2014 for revealing how Israel governs the West Bank. MH
BETHLEHEM EXPOSES HOW ISRAEL COPES WITH TERRORISM
Israelis have found a way to prevent and punish terrorists by cultivating “assets,” that is, Palestinian informants. In Bethlehem, agent Razi (played by Tsahi Halevi) befriends Sanfur (played by Shadi Mar’i), who is in his early teens and wants his father, Abu (Tarik Kopty), out of detention. Razi offers to release his father if Sanlfur will provide information about certain persons on the West Bank. He gives Sanfur a cellphone and clothes, treating him like father and son. One day a bomb goes off in Israel. Sanfur’s brother (Hisham Suliman), who is on the payroll of Hamas, is implicated but goes into hiding, so Razi must find a way to capture that brother. Sanfur, however, wants to protect his brother and seeks revenge, so he seeks to join a Bedouin gang for that purpose. The film is a window into conflicts involving the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, the Bedouins, and Palestinian terrorists as well as between Razi’s method and those of Mossad higher-ups. Bethlehem, directed by Yuval Adler, has been nominated by the Political Film Society for best film exposé of 2014 for portraying those conflicts. Although the film does not raise the issue why Israelis and Palestinians might be able to live together in peace, what becomes clear is that they are locked into a conflictual mode, and only transformational leadership on both sides could supply the key. Such transformation occurred in South Africa but is lacking in this situation. MH