Free The Idea of Israel by Ilan Pappé

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, forinstance, 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. Itthus 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