It’s difficult to watch the film version of Oslo, the Tony Award-winning play by J.T. Rogers, without a sense of grim irony. No piece of art is objective; no work of fiction has the responsibility of sticking to every real-life fact. But the historical developments Oslo skips over in its discussion of what inspired the secret discussions between Israelis and Palestinians; the fear-mongering news footage it uses to pad out its runtime; and the side with which it aligns our perspective tip its hand toward a certain version of history that feels jarringly out of step with our current reality.
Oslo, which Rogers adapted from his own play, focuses on the covert negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) that went on between 1992 and 1993. In December 1992, married Norwegian couple Mona Juul (Ruth Wilson), a diplomat in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Terje Rød-Larsen (Andrew Scott), a sociologist and director of the Fafo Foundation think tank, decide to insert themselves into the Israeli-Palestinian talks already taking place with U.S. involvement. Because it is against Israeli law for a member of the Israeli government to meet directly with a PLO representative, and because PLO leadership, including chairman Yasser Arafat (never seen onscreen in the film), were then based out of Tunisia, two years of negotiations under American eyes have resulted in little progress.
So Terje and Mona, inspired by a disastrous visit they took to the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip some years before, decide to set up a secret negotiation process. Their goal is to get both sides to the table without any international involvement, and Terje and Mona will only facilitate, Mona insists, not actually get involved in the substance of the negotiations. (A flaw of the film’s script is how generally it refers to the talks as an effort to find “peace,” which creates some confusion regarding the specific details of what each side actually wanted and received.) After Terje and Mona cajole and convince, both sides send representatives to Norway’s Borregaard Manor: University of Haifa professors Yair Hirschfeld (Dov Glickman) and Ron Pundak (Rotem Keinan), and PLO Minister of Finance Ahmed Qurei (Salim Daw) and liaison Hassan Asfour (Waleed Zuaiter). These four men walk into a ballroom to try and hammer out a declaration of principles that will be accepted by both the Israeli government and the PLO. Meanwhile, Terje and Mona hover like school dance chaperones on the other side of the door and struggle to maintain neutrality.
It’s not easy to generate interest from people arguing at a conference table, but Tony Award-winning theater director Bartlett Sher, making his film debut, incorporates a few visual flourishes. Once the talks reach a higher level and Israel sends in Uri Savir (Jeff Wilbusch), director general of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sher’s camera tracks Savir as he paces around the table, capturing this locked room’s claustrophobic tension. Also effective is the film’s lighting, which is sometimes so overblown that it smears characters’ faces and allows us only to hear their voices, a purposefully theatrical element to underscore the importance of what is being said, rather than who is saying it. Those moments punctuate what is otherwise a generic tableau that doesn’t take full advantage of the fact that Oslo has jumped from stage to screen.
The meat of Oslo, rather, is the clandestine talks and the men leading them, and to Rogers’ credit, he doesn’t limit his characters to mouthpieces but also incorporates dialogue that hints at their personalities. The film’s best scenes include the representatives tentatively stepping toward some sort of common ground, from Hirschfeld and Qurei’s stilted-yet-polite conversation about the cold weather to Hassan’s gleeful face when he tastes Norwegian waffles. The mercurial Daw and Zuaiter are the cast’s most impassioned members, and the film’s funniest moment might be the latter’s indignant rejection of small talk: “The petty bourgeoisie construct of family does not interest me. The struggle against the Western capitalist behemoth, that is my father.” The script’s other intentional jokes, like the Norwegian chef’s suggestion that she serve pork to the Jewish and Muslim delegations, aren’t nearly as satisfying.
But the strength of the ensemble cannot make up for the script’s failure to place the drafting of the Oslo Accords within the greater context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or the film’s tendency to provide humanity to only one side. Oslo skips over the reasons for the Palestinians’ five-year-long First Intifada that led to these talks, doesn’t address general Palestinian sentiment that doubted whether the Israeli government would accept a two-state solution, and fails to truly emphasize that the Oslo Accords were meant to be a first step toward peace—not the end-all, be-all. The film’s concluding intertitles are impressive in what they leave out about the cause of the Second Intifada, or about the Israeli government’s walking back of various elements of the Oslo Accords, in particular regarding their control of the Gaza Strip. Viewers who don’t know any of this might be left with a narrow impression shaped primarily by the news footage Sher chooses to pad out the film’s length (Palestinians burning an Israeli flag, throwing rocks, and chanting in Arabic—all actions that the film presents as existing in a vacuum) and the flashback to Mona’s time in Gaza that provides interiority to an Israeli soldier, but not to a Palestinian teenager killed by Israel Defense Forces.
What results is a very Western-specific view of this conflict and of the Oslo Accords that doesn’t embody the “both sides” approach the film ostensibly intends to provide. The obligations of a fictional film are not the same as a documentary. But when Oslo so defines itself on giving each oppositional force its own platform, it’s a noticeable disconnect when the film’s surrounding elements, like that B-roll news footage and the way we relive Mona’s memory, instead push a particular point of view that doesn’t feel equal at all. After weeks of Western news coverage on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has skewed toward diminishing the devastation and death wrought by the Israeli military upon hundreds of Palestinians, including dozens of children, Oslo feels like another component of a seemingly predetermined narrative.
When Rogers’ Oslo premiered on Broadway in 2016, it followed the playwright’s other works set in war zones, including The Overwhelming, about an American family coming to grips with the Rwandan genocide, and Blood And Gifts, about the power struggle over Afghanistan in the 1980s. According to a transcript of the Laura Pels Keynote Address he gave during the 2008 annual meeting of the theater organization A.R.T./New York, Rogers said of his approach to topical theater, “I had to start learning more—much more—so that I could tell stories that dig under the surface of people and cultures that seem deeply foreign—even scary—to me and find the connections between us. To try and understand what those connections mean.” In Oslo, Mona seems to serve as Rogers’ mouthpiece when she asks, “If we do not sit across from our enemies and hear them and see them as human beings, what will become of us?” That is a well-intentioned statement, but not one fully representative of what Oslo ends up being: a film dotted with the same cultural blind spots that compromise so many Western-made analyses of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And at this moment, those blind spots don’t feel quite as entertaining.
100 Comments
It’s awesome when 73 years of brutal apartheid and ethnic conflict give us quality entertainment. Oh darn.
You should try The Wind that Shakes the Barley…
My solution: Give the Israelis Florida.
When I was a kid in the 70’s and 80’s, the assumption is that US Jewish folks would completely run Florida by now. But no one counted on Florida Man and his wave of super ineptness…
I mean it’s a win win. The Isarelis receive a tropical paradise far from threat or danger, and we are rid of the most disreputable state in the Union.
You still have Florida Man (and Woman) to contend with though…
Over over Florida in the south there were a few million Cubans Dominicans etc it’s a true melting pot today and yes there are lots of Jews from New York New Jersey but by making fun of it you’re showing your prejudice
This is by far the best solution I’ve ever heard.
Maybe give a little to Canada too. They’re so polite and many of them own homes there anyway.
I could give them Maine, but that’s the best I can do.
Uh-oh, but where will all the Cubans move to?
FunnyReply
Dude. Palestinians want the end of Israel, not Jews. Please attempt to engage with this in good faith.
“Dude. Palestinians want the end of Israel, not Jews.”And how does Israel end without the deaths of lots of Jews?
How does Israel continue without the deaths of lots of Palestinians? The only conceivable solution is the dissolution of the Israeli state and the creation of a new state that does not subject a portion of its population to apartheid.
Or the two-state solution that majority of both Palestinians and Israel still want?
That is splitting a hair nobody needs to bother with.
Actually Hamas’s charter very much calls for death to Jews. All Jews everywhere, not even just Israeli Jews.Thankfully, they don’t represent the majority of their fellow Palestinians. Just like Bibi Netanyahu doesn’t represent a majority of Israelis (he gets only a third of the vote but just like in the United States, you can be in charge with a minority party.)
The majority of both Israelis and Palestinians still favor a two-state solution. Sadly, the extremists on both side continue to make it more and more difficult to achieve.
really out here quoting the dude who writes for the Babylon Bee
True words . I guess anyone who’s pro Palestine simply wants the jews to go away and leave. They forget that legally Israel was born and Palestine was not.
You guess wrong, friend. Most (or at least, many) people who are pro-Palestine have no problem with the presence of Israel. Many Israelis have no problem with the idea of Palestine.
How about two countries at the 1967 border? How about no open-air concentration camps, the right to travel? How about no more illegal Settlements?
Best yet, how about a Jewish Homeland that grants equal rights to Palestinians?
Feel good moment of the year, projecting this on the side of a bombed out building so the children of Gaza can be taught why they have such dreary lives from the very people who keep them from leaving their open air prison. That or Madagascar 3But this seems more timely.
Predetermined narrative?Sounds like you were the one that went in with a predetermined narrative, and couldn’t accept another perspective that was different from yours.
When a work of art states an explicit goal, it is fair to use their success or failure of achieving that goal as a basis for criticism.
Have you considered that “both sides”-ism is an unacceptable perspective?
“One-sided” here seems to mean “not one-sided enough the other way.”
It really doesn’t. The review provides concrete examples of how the film is one-sided, and does not advocate anything other than the balance it apparently aimed for.
In this case, “another perspective” is one tainted by imperialist propaganda, but sure.
Kinda hilarious that you dont realize you are doing exactly what you are critizing with this review
Right, but this is a movie review, and Oslo is a movie. One of them has a little bit more responsibility.
Responsibility to what? Toe a specific propaganda line? That’s an insane belief.
Clearly the solution here is to have representatives of Israel and Palestine scale the Aggro Crag, and whoever reaches the top first wins the Gaza Strip.
Genius move: post a propagandistic review of a movie that isn’t released for several days, so people who don’t swallow your narrative can’t respond because they can’t actually watch the movie yet.
You have no idea what propaganda is.
I would say that you don’t
It is standard practice to release movie reviews several days before the movie is released. When studios don’t screen movies for critics before release, it is a very bad sign.
I find it fascinating how in Israel we view the international media as being overwhelmingly pro palestinian, however in every pro palestinian piece I read there’s always the same claim but to the Israeli side.Just shows how in this conflict everyone is a victim to their own narrative and that’s why peace is so far from us now.
Watch The Oslo Diaries for a better take. Conclusion: These events, starting with the massacre of Palestinians during services in Hebron by an Israeli settler, then the assassination of Rabin, then the political rise of Netanyahu are seen as the crux of why Israel stepped back from it’s commitments to the Oslo Accords (1 and 2).
Dang lots of folks hot and bothered about a review that acknowledges the Palestinians are human beings deserving of equal empathy.
exactly, Americans really invested in mocking anyone that questions the genocide of Palestinians.
Mostly because “genocide of the Palestinians” is not a real thing.
damn guess the repeated military assaults on Palestinian civilians, their homes, the occupation and forced removal of Palestinian people from their land, the blocking of power, food, and other resources from Palestinians, that shit’s just all regular old war crimes and human rights violations. Not genocide, though! Thank goodness.
You’re an extremely unintelligent person.
So where are the settlements in Gaza? Oh right there aren’t any. Its funny how Gazans don’t have adequate food, fuel, water, healthcare but Hamas always has thousands of the latest portable rockets on hand to shower on Israel. You would think that if Hamas actually gave a crap about its people then they would work out how to obtain things for them. I also find it hilarious how people who would normally condemn hostile actions by theocratic terrorist organizations always find excuses for Hamas. Taliban-lite.
Obatarian, first stop equating the Palestinians with Hamas.
Get bent with your insipid rationalization. Hamas leads a good number of Palestinians and controls 1 of 2 of the places they call home. Deal with it like an adult. You can’t handwave that away because it is inconvenient to your sympathies.
“Hamas leads a good number of Palestinians” — oh, so they do Free and Fair elections then? Pretty awesome terrorist democracy.
And, are you sure they threw rockets “for the hell of it”? Citation needed. I’m pretty sure this was the end of eight months of solid home destruction and Settement building.
Your rationalisation is lickspittle power dick-suckery.* You should wipe your chin.
* not homophobic if i assume Obatarian is a woman
Citation needed? Really? You think Hamas had a really good reason for firing rockets indiscriminately at communities?I would love to hear that. The excuses people give for supporting attacks on civilians by foreign backed terrorist organizations are pretty wild. It would be hilarious what kind of nonsense you come up with. BTW you’re also clearly some kind of closet case. GFY, Moron.
there is no good reason for firing rockets. But – you asshole – just because one doesn’t have a GOOD reason, doesn’t mean one doesn’t have a REASON. It is inexcusable, but still possible to glean the logic that led from A to B to C to rocket.
you asshole.
By the way, YOU are supporting attacks on civilians as much as people who support attacks on Israel. Asshole.
“there is no good reason for firing rockets.”But you wanted a citation that it wasn’t for shits and giggles. You couldn’t cough up a reason for it either. “It is inexcusable”Yet here you were, trying to make excuses for it. BTW there are no settlements in Gaza. You are too ignorant to acknowledge there are 2 separate Palestinian groups involved in 2 separate conflicts.
You are pissed off that I am pointing out how your canned narrative is so lacking in facts or even sense. Fact of the matter is, you are supporting indiscriminate attacks on Israelis by an Islamicist terror organization. “By the way, YOU are supporting attacks on civilians as much as people who support attacks on Israel.”Not at all. Whataboutism is the last refuge of someone who can’t defend their own position. I have not said anything to that effect. You are projecting, because your script can’t account for any kind of criticism of Palestinians. Especially those acting in a way which is by your own admission inexcusable, under the direction of Islamicist terrorists.
Again, asshole, i am against your conflating Hamas with Palestinians.
Again, asshole, the rockets flew after months of Settlements being built.
Again, asshole, there is a difference between a reason and an excuse.
Are you intentionally obtuse?
You are back to square one with the same stupid half-assed rationalizations. Hamas are Palestinians, you stupid dishonest dipshit. Just ones you don’t want to acknowledge. The ones who control Gaza and fired off all those inexcusable rockets. “the rockets flew after months of Settlements being built”So now you are trying to claim settlements are an excuse for the rockets. There are no settlements in Gaza. Settlements in the West Bank have been going on for decades. You are giving me bullshit generalities because you are too ignorant of basic facts here. Hamas doesn’t give a rat’s ass about what goes on in the West Bank. You are grasping at straws here. They fired off rockets because they felt like doing it. Because Israeli reprisals are great for Hamas’s recruiting efforts and they are utterly incapable of governing their people “Again, asshole, there is a difference between a reason and an excuse.”Only for people trying desperately to support people by ignoring facts and willful ignorance. Its hairsplitting and rationalization for a position. Not an argument anyone has to take seriously. Its obvious how intellectually dishonest and uninformed you are here. I am sure you sound intelligent in any number of echo chambers. But here you sound like a moron with a script you don’t even understand fully.
asshole, go look up “collective punishment”. Try to figure out if it’s an asshole thing, or a rest-of-the-human-body thing.
You ran out of script. How pathetic. Look up “elaboration” as in try to support a point with facts as opposed to cheap facile garbage. Get lost, Dumbass.
…says the asshole who can’t defend his cries of collective punishment, so resorts to doubling down on ..being an asshole. Sorry, asshole: your opinion is too cringe for Israelis to say out loud. You are an embarrassment.
nothing more pathetic than the use of the word “pathetic”. Bye bye, loser.
You sound quite triggered and incoherent. The problem being my posts didn’t follow the narrative you were hoping for and you had to resort to fictional strawman points. Arguing against things I have not said and positions I did not take. I guess that is what happens when you run out of script and have to think for yourself. Maybe you should try to learning about a subject before diving in and attacking people online. Or you can just fuck off. At this point I am just going to flag or dismiss your posts. You have nothing left worth responding to.
wow, three days ago someone said upthread “Wouldn’t waste your time with Obatarian. If he can’t refute what you’ve written, he’ll claim he didn’t read it.” An amazing prediction of the future? Or is Obatarian just a transparent asshole with zero dialectic and shitty rhetoric?
What what would you have the Israelis do? Come on give me a real answer? This is from a people that only have one response of kill all the Jews.
“C’mon, it isn’t REALLY ‘genocide’. We’re just stealing your land, bombing you into oblivion, appropriating your culture, erasing you from history, and denying your existence. It’s more of a light ethnic cleansing, an ‘ethnic rinse’ if you will.”
Funny thing about that is the first shots fired in this latest conflict came from a place with no Israeli settlements, launching thousands of rockets at communities for sh1ts and giggles specifically to provoke Israel reprisals. Hamas would rather have Gazans living in rubble and fear than actually try to govern the people under its control.
False. The first shots came when Haredi extremists stormed Palestinian neighborhoods, chanting “Death to Arabs”, under the protection of mounted IDF troops shooting tear gas and rubber bullets.
Palestinian neighborhoods in The West Bank. So Hamas launched a massive indiscriminate attack from Gaza out of sympathy? Nope. Do you understand Gaza and the West Bank are run by two different groups trying to kill each other? Of course not. That always gets ignored in the discussion. There are two separate conflicts going on. You have no idea what is going on or worse it interferes with your canned narrative.
You keep equating the Palestinian people with Hamas. In an earlier post, which I dismissed, you intimated we are all terrorists and suicide bombers. It seems like you’re the one who has trouble conflating different groups of people. Understandable, as we’ve all been concentrated into camps. Hamas is never mentioned once, in this review, nor in my post, which was very clearly about Palestine and Palestinians. You can obfuscate and rewrite the facts and history all you want. We are still here. We still exist. The world sees your shame, and finally America is as well. Don’t you have some olive trees to dig up? Maybe a house to bulldoze or something?
I equate people under control of leaders with their leaders. Which is what honest people do. If Gazans were led by people who weren’t wannabe Talibanis, they would have already negotiated a truce with either Israel &/or Egypt for at least one open border. Instead they fire rockets, murder fellow Palestinians, and recruit via Israeli reprisals. “Hamas is never mentioned once, in this review, nor in my post,”Which is a function of your ignorance. You should have, but didn’t. Instead you equated the situation with the West Bank to that of Gaza and pretended one had something to do with the other. They don’t. They are two separate conflicts that you ignorantly/dishonestly conflated together. “Don’t you have some olive trees to dig up? Maybe a house to bulldoze or something?”Nah, I am too busy in a shelter while rockets are going off above my neighborhood.
Parsing the conflict so you can cherry pick who the sinners are huh? It’s one conflict that’s been going on since Britain spearheaded American and European colonization of the land. Nice to hear you still have a neighborhood though. Most Palestinians have lost ours.
So you are simply acknowledging your basic ignorance of the situation and simply trying to handwave it away. Since it does not fit in your ready made facile narrative. The fact that you are looking for “saints” and “sinners” shows how utterly out of your depth you are here. Looking for easy answers out of laziness or willful ignorance. “ It’s one conflict that’s been going on since Britain spearheaded American and European colonization of the land.”True, but way past the point where it leads to anything constructive or relevant to the topic. Merely a form of deflection. “Most Palestinians have lost ours.”Just what Hamas wanted. They were worried about having to actually govern their people. This saves them the trouble. They get support by acting stupidly violent. This latest conflict was largely caused because Hamas wanted to test out new rockets to see if they can hit Tel Aviv.
Nope. The latest conflict was caused when Haredi and IDF stormed Palestinian neighborhoods, cracking heads. You keep forgetting that, as you seem to have conveniently forgotten whose stolen land you’re living on. We’re not “past the point” where we just have to accept the erasure of an entire people. Fascinating you accept the charge of genocide but then wave it away as a “form of deflection.” It happened so long ago, who can remember, nothing to be done about it now!
Nope.I keep ignoring it because its an irrelevance to why rockets were fired at Israel, sparking off a military conflict. Your premise is ridiculously ignorant, Again, Hamas doesn’t give a flying fuck what happens in the West Bank. They were driven out of the area by Fatah. It is why they control all of Gaza. Those rockets weren’t fired out of solidarity with their despised brethren in the West Bank. They were fired for the hell of it. To invite reprisals, test out their latest toys and consolidate control.
You labor under the delusion that Palestinians are one united people with the same goals and motivations. There are two separate Palestinian groups. Not just the ones in the West Bank you keep harping on. But well armed Islamicist led ones who do nothing but attack Israel to stir shit up. Who don’t even have settlers in their domain. “as you seem to have conveniently forgotten whose stolen land you’re living on.”The United States was built on that premise. Do you think that justifies terrorism against it today? Nope. Deflection or just the usual “Israel has no right to exist” bullshit that keeps people from taking Palestinian supporters seriously. You are trying to make lame excuses for attacks on civilian communities using indiscriminate mass attack weapons by Islamicist terrorists. That is just pathetic.
You keep trying to pivot the discussion to Hamas as if I care about them. I don’t. I care about Palestine and Palestinians. What has been done to us is morally indefensible, so you cannot directly address. So you must punch at Hamas, the perfect scape goat mechanism the hardliners made possible. You keep ignoring the abuse and violence perpetrated by the Haredi and the IDF and “settlers” and Likud, as if it’s unrelated. As if keeping people in a camp, with no clean water, no freedom of movement, no prospect of economic development, and a few hours of power a day, is unrelated to what’s happening now. And finally, I can’t believe it took you this long to bring it up, the “does Israel have the right to exist” red herring, the indicator of a bad faith argument and that you don’t have a leg to stand on. Israel is a nation of some 9 million people with an economy of more than $370B. It has the the most sophisticated air force, intelligence services, and special forces in the world. It has the full backing of the United States government. It has nuclear weapons. Israel is not going anywhere. “Does Israel have a right to exist” is indeed just as asinine as asking “Does the United States have a right to exist”. It’s a riddle that serves no purpose. The real question is, and always has been, do the Palestinians have a right to exist? Your sentiment is pretty clear on that.
“You keep trying to pivot the discussion to Hamas as if I care about them”They’re the ones who fired the rockets, kicking off this round of conflict. Literally what started the bombing and destruction by Israeli military forces in this current round of conflict. Its not pivoting, its getting to the heart of the matter. I stopped reading your post after that sentence because I knew then and there I am talking to an ignorant dishonest piece of trash. Someone with no interest in facts and working off a canned story that leaves out all the important elements in play.
LoL sure dude. You stopped reading. I don’t think you’ve processed anything I’ve written thus far, so you’re par for the course. Pretty much what I expect from kapo scum.
“kapo scum”. Funny. Nope.
During a botched kidnap attempt on a computer mogul, grifter Coco and her lover Junior and their gang accidentally kill an innocent bystander — the wife of Louisiana Senator Hornbeck. But the entire kidnap scheme is revealed to have been a ploy by Junior to manipulate Coco into killing Senator Hornbeck’s wife. Junior then gets paid off by Hornbeck, kills their accomplice Ruben, and leaves the rest of the gang to be killed by Hornbeck’s henchmen. Junior escapes to a tropical getaway, but while sunbathing weeks later, a waitress brings him a drink and it’s revealed to be Coco, who shoots and kills him with a silencer. FBI Agent Sadie Hawkens (Emma Thompson) and New Orleans detective Friedman (Alan Rickman) wrap up the case when they snag a dirty cop who’s been cleaning up after Senator. Hornbeck. Now you don’t have to watch Judas Kiss.
McNultyy gets busted down to patrol after pissing off Sergeant Rawls for failing to close the case against Barksdale. He eventually leaves the police department after getting wrapped up in a fake news campaign involving a fake serial killer, intended to generate support and funding for the police department.Frank Sobotka offers to turn state’s witness; the Greek has him killed. As a show of solidarity the union votes him in as treasurer, which ultimately leads to the dissolution of the union. Avon Barksdale kills his longtime ally and best friend, Stringer Bell. He ultimately loses the drug war against Marlo, and young and hungry new comer. Michael is unable to escape the streets; he eventually joins the drug game and is taken under Snoop’s wing, until he’s forced to kill her before she kills him. Omar Little gets executed when he’s shot in the back by a child, Kenard, who’d been a low profile background character for much of the series. You can skip The Wire now, too.
Polonius dies, Ophelia dies, Laertes dies, Gertrude dies, Claudius dies and Hamlet dies. Everyone else lives happily ever after. Now you don’t ever have to see Hamlet.
Good grief, kapo, you’re gonna do that and leave out the most obvious ones? “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.” Was that not in the wiki summary you cribbed? As if further confirmation was needed that your intellectual shortcomings match your moral degeneracy.
I was actually quoting the stage version of Peter Pan! Jeez, your more butthurt than a product tester at a dildo factory.
And a homophobe as well. Not surprised.
People love to ignore that Palestine has refused several attempts at reconciliation. And i never want to hear, “Israel has made people side with the via their propaganda” again. We don’t need more crap about connected Jews manipulating the world. As if the Jews/Israelis even could make the West like them via the media. People actually believe that?
I mentioned before on this thread, people also like to ignore the fact that there are 2 separate Palestinian people’s at this point with entirely different goals, at war with each other. Even to the point where Fatah sided with Israel and Egypt to keep Gaza borders closed and Hamas plotted to take over the West Bank through assassination. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatah%E2%80%93Hamas_conflictThis conflict killed the Oslo Accords back in the day.
I equate people under control of leaders with their leaders. Which is what honest people do.
Holy cow, you are a moron. And actually not intellectually honest.
Troll better. Your infantile rationalizing doesn’t change the fact a good number of Palestinians are led by an Islamicist terrorist group which launched rockets at Israeli communities for the hell of it.
Wouldn’t waste your time with Obatarian. If he can’t refute what you’ve written, he’ll claim he didn’t read it. Then he’ll level homophobic attacks at you.
Really, they had a culture? You talking about roughly 2 million Muslims that only have lived there for 75 or 100 years, compared to 1 billion Muslims in roughly 100 other countries two miles away. The only culture they had is the one that told them to leave their land because us Arab countries are going to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth and it didn’t happen bud.
YES IT’S THE JEWS
That’s that’s the problem you see it as genocide, I see it as Israel defending itself against crazy people who don’t really want peace at the level of the politicians
Shed some tears for suicide bombers and fratricidal terrorist organizations? If that is your thing. They are human beings, led by theocrats and kleptocrats. Leaders who couldn’t give a flying f–k about the welfare of their own people.
Maybe, yes maybe not, but we still have a review of the review of something that happened 20 plus or so years ago and it’s impossible not to slant things one way or the other when you were a writer or any human being . Pretty obvious the reviewer had preconceived notions and just didn’t like the film. Personally I don’t know what would be so entertaining about this film or the subject matter I think you can read it in a three column times article in 10 minutes and do it more Justice
this is not the first time I’ve seen you leaning towards the anti-Semitic..maybe do a little soul searching and read up on real history…
Can you provide some examples? I am seeing criticism of how the movie is framed and the omission of more context, not a condemnation of the state of Israel or Jewish people in general. The review does not even dispute the charged images of Palestinians used in the film, it simply points out that these are presented without any of the actions of the Israeli government that would provide context to understand that there are two sides (at least) involved.
People like this are incapable of real introspection. They just repeat the buzzwords they’re told to.
Criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic. Criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic. Criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic.I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but maybe you’ll actually understand it if you see it enough times.
I I agree with you that not being a Zionist should not be construed as anti being Jewish. In fact there are a lot of Christian religions that believe in the state of Israel as well but that doesn’t mean I’m anti-christian religions as I am into the state of Israel PS I am pro Israel and I am anti-palestine for the simple reason that I think they are all crazy for not accepting a true two-state solution back when Egypt and Anwar sadat was with Jimmy Carter
“they leave out about the cause of the Second Intifada, or about the Israeli government’s walking back of various elements of the Oslo Accords, in particular regarding their control of the Gaza Strip.”Ever notice how everyone discussing the Palestinian side of the conflict ALWAYS omits the fratricidal war between Hamas and Fatah? The one which led to a split over which faction controlled which region. It was one of the key reasons for the failure of the Oslo Accords. Arafat was trying to cover up he was a war with Hamas at the time and had no control over them. Arafat also was using suicide bombers as a negotiating tool. As for the Israeli role, Yitzhak Rabin took a bullet in the name of peace in the region. Nobody else involved has shown anything to that level of courage and determination to the goal.
I remember a standing ovation when I saw this on stage—it was good! Also, NYers reward all shows with standing ovations—and people feeling pretty good while I felt pretty depressed about how far we were from even that moment of possibility. I can imagine that now a lot of that may feel worse as even here in the US the Israeli-Palestinian conflict gets a closer look and wider airing. For what it’s worth, it was well in the “safe” for liberals territory as a play, but also not then positioned as the whole history. To no one’s surprise, the audience for a Broadway play is likely both conservatively liberal, but also mostly old enough to remember Oslo. This is speculation on my part, but it sounds like it should’ve been kept tight (for honestly a long play to begin with) and gone tighter. There’s no movie length with enough context and it shouldn’t have tried.
The real problem is that anytime the Israeli Parliament can’t agree on what the root cause of the problem is that one guy gets to overrule everyone and say it’s zombies
Not much discussion of the actual movie here. I would have liked more specifics on how Terje and Mona’s way of doing things was different from previous peace efforts. I understand it was crucial that none of it be considered “official” but what else was different? Have their tactics been successful anywhere else? I thought Jeff Wilbusch’s performance as Uri Savir really stood out, but he went from hard-ass to reasonable in literally one scene, and it was a little jarring.
I have to admit I am puzzled by this review, as I felt the film sided with the Palestinians. I admit I am not American, so I have not seen the types of recent fear-mongering news coverage that you say makes the film ill-timed. I will say: it would not surprise me if there are critical reviews of the film from the pro-Israeli side, that it lionises the Palestinians and has similar blind spots about the Israeli cause… In any case, the film is not interested in saying who is right and who is wrong, but about mediation and dialogue, and learning to communicate across that ‘vast ocean’ between the two peoples. The Israeli diplomats believe they are right, the Palestinian diplomats they are right: how do we form treaties? How do you make peace with your enemies?
On your point about the Israeli soldier being given more interiority than the Palestinian getting shot: I just… you are criticising the film for not being what you want it to be, rather than analysing the film’s own intentions and message. She sees the fear in both soldiers’ eyes, and then any potential for shared humanity is ruined by the structures at play. I felt it was quite clear in Ruth Wilson’ s monologue that the Palestinian child’s death was weighing heavily on her mind, and that it was going ‘left unsaid’ because she was acting as a diplomat in that moment: because that’s what the film is about! Diplomacy!
Having just finished watching the movie, I decided to research the accuracy of the film, as I do literally every movie that is based on a true story. Not being 100% historical does not make a movie any less entertaining (which, by the way, is not an insult, if you understand the multiple meanings and uses of words: to keep, hold, or maintain in the mind – Merriam-Webster Dictionary) or interesting, it is simply an attempt to make it more engaging for the viewer. Movies like this keep me engaged, but also ignite a curiosity in me to find out more. And because I would never use a movie as the basis for my entire knowledge of a subject, I search elsewhere for more information, as any intelligent person should.Performing my due diligence has caused me to encounter far too many articles by critics who seem to have watched a completely different movie than I did.
Now the entire purpose of this movie was to show the how the Oslo Peace Accords began and progressed, which is does. To expect that it will cover the entirety of the 72 year Palestinian-Israeli conflict is asinine. That’s like saying there can’t be a movie about Nazi concentration camps without including the entire histories of Hitler, Germany, and the Jewish people, the bombing of Pearl Harbor without including the entire histories of every nation involved in WWII , the September 11 attacks without including the history of Islam and the US, slavery in America without including the history of racism and world exploration, Apartheid without the entire history of South Africa and racism, and basically every conflict and/or historically significant event without including the entire background of everything and everyone involved. In fact, before every Harry Potter movie the director better give us a history lesson on the life of every character. Oh, the original Star Wars should never have been made, because we have no idea how they came to be in that situation. Yes, I’m being outrageous, because the entire argument is outrageous.
As for the movie having a predetermined narrative, I’m with the reviewer who said it sounds like the author had a predetermined narrative. In my opinion, the movie made both sides sympathetic, while showing the flaws of each of them as well. The entire point of showing the Israeli soldier and the Palestinian teenager was to feel sympathetic toward both of them. I did not feel that either of them were the villain, but both were victims of a larger issue. Having sympathy for specific individuals does not mean you do or do not agree with their actions. Empathy. Look it up. Both sides made mistakes, some larger than others, but the movie did an excellent job of staying neutral, while humanizing individuals on both sides. I had no opinion on who was right or wrong in the larger picture after watching it. If anything it made me have positive feelings toward both the Palestinians and the Israelis. My further research changed that opinion, but it doesn’t change my feeling that there can be good people on the “wrong” side of an issue, and that the movie did not show either side in a negative way.