This will not necessarily be a review of James Longley's well-made and harrowing documentary about life in the hellish squalor known as the Gaza Strip over the past two years. Whether it is unfortunate or not, the film had only a week's run at Anthology Film Archives in the West Village, so it will be difficult for wider audiences to see at the present (wwww.littleredbutton.com for more info). I will eventually give what I aspire to be an objective account of the film, yet it will be from the only perspective I possess, that of a Jew who loves Israel with an almost suffocating and sometimes troubling unconditionalism. Which brings us to the first debatable point.
Debatable, in that every Jew who searches and yearns for intellectual honesty, for clarity, for answers, finds themselves in the eternal Jewish struggle to think outside of themselves, outside of their leaden religious context, yet not betray the knowledge that in the end – no matter how many lofty contemplations they may conjecture – they are Jews; Jews who G-d has dragged and rallied through history with thunderous continuity, Jews who have marched to gas chambers whether they wore bekishas and taught Torah or sported cardigans and preached assimilation. Knowledge of self is the first step in the pursuit of understanding; realizing that what you see is merely that, what you see. We are trapped in these Jewish bodies, with Jewish brains and souls, for better and worse, and so all these points are debatable, not only by the community at large, but also by the worlds colliding within. Therein lies the persisting sentiment of guilt and fiendishness in trying to adequately talk about a film that portrays rather poignantly and starkly the suffering of Palestinians (I do not intend to hide from this word).
I remain unequipped and uneducated in that my education is purely Jewish, not only that but Orthodox Jewish, not only Orthodox Jewish but vehemently Zionistic Orthodox Jewish. It is a biasing hole so deep and blindingly dark that I may never crawl out, but of course chances are I would never dare try.
Understand that based on the above, my opinion, in a categorically intellectual setting, is worthless and irrelevant. But thankfully I am writing to my brothers and sisters who are spectacularly aware from where I sit.
They can imagine my discomfort in the theatre, watching, like a traitor about to be discovered, a street corner conversation in Khan Younis where Arab boys describe how the “Jews want to kill us all”. (Note that the word is always “Jews” when the enemy is named. Not Israeli's, Jews). They can appreciate my unsolicited, yet guttural hatred for even the most beautiful tiny Palestinian face staring at the camera form beneath their bitter mother's arms. Faces whose doe eyes and angelic lips mask, in my mind, no matter how I try to beat it out, thoughts of carnage, of deceit, of unspeakably vicious potential. But most of all my friends, you can understand my desperate desire not to believe what I was seeing.
Forget if you would the fact that the film is almost surely a propaganda piece (whether intentionally or just affectively), regardless of the fact that the website will tell you it's purpose is to “provide a voice for underrepresented points of view”. Gaza Strip opens with a paragraph that use the word “purge” to describe the intentions of the Israeli Army in its occupation of the Gaza Strip in relation to the Arabs living there and the film closes with an unnecessary and trite speech by some French (sound the Anti-Semite alarm) woman who explains how the Israelis are clearly violating the Geneva Convention. So there is no question as to the leanings of Mr. Longley. Propaganda aimed at hurting our people is painful but we would be foolish and hypocritical to condemn its usage. We have all been victims of pro Jewish/anti Goyish propaganda at one time or another – sometimes we noticed, sometimes not (you know Uncle Moishey had an agenda). Either way, the heart of the film is raw and unscripted making it difficult to swallow because those aren't sets, those are filthy hovels where these people live; that boy with flies crawling on his dusty face isn't an actor, he is a ten year old who is so sad and hopeless that he wants to die – not kill people and die, just die and leave this horror filled world behind.
So someone will say, “Naah, these Palestinians are pros. They make up this stuff for a living. The kids are told to say that”. Well, then what can I say? Maybe I'm na