Barricades (film)

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Barricades (

Holocaust
for Jews, and it was also the first time that Israeli Jews had an opportunity to experience the emotional significance of the Naqba to the Palestinian people.

Loevy first came up with the idea behind the documentary in 1968, while studying film in

Arab residents of the country.[1]
Loevy made the film in 1969.

The plotline focused on two families: the Shevat family of Haifa, which had lost two sons in battle during the War of Independence, and the family of Hussein Abu-Muhammad Yehia of the Jalazoon refugee camp near Ramallah, who lost two sons when the family fled from their ancestral home in the town of Ramla. For over two decades, the families had been trapped in the past, still mourning their two sons. Though Israel was then living in the shadow of the Six-Day War, Loevy made a conscious decision to base his story on 1948, explaining, "We focused on that year in order to push the testimonies back into the past.[1] The two families in the film never meet; instead, a visit to the graves and a visit to the ruins of the Arab village are juxtaposed.[2]

By the time the film was finished, however, Israel was engaged in a brutal

Yediot Ahronot he said that if the War of Attrition had still been raging, he would not have screened it either.[1]

Yet even Tadmor's decision's was guarded. He agreed to screen Barricades, but only as part of a popular talk show, The Third Hour, so that the content could be discussed by a panel of "experts," which would ideally include both Arabs and Jews. Only Jews participated, however. One Arab guest,

Anwar Nusseibeh, former Jordanian defense minister and governor of Jerusalem. In the end, none of them participated, and the Director General of the IBA Shmuel Almog decided not to replace them.[4]

An editorial published in the newspaper Maariv two days after Barricades was aired noted that in the end, the ensuing discussion was unbalanced. Not only did the film fail to present the Palestinian side of the issue, but the remaining guests were either politicians or people known for their political positions. It added that whereas Loevy had succeeded in depicting an emotional portrait of two families' personal tragedies, the guests focused on the political issues while engaging in a game of political one-upmanship with the absent representatives of the Palestinians. "It would have been better," wrote the author, "if intellectuals, whose conscious is plagued by the problems inherent in our relationship with the Arabs, had participated."[5]

Despite the politicization of Barricades, the film challenged pre-existing notions about

Palestinian refugees then prevalent in Israeli society and led many people, however briefly, to reconsider their attitudes toward the Palestinian right of return. The debate surrounding the screening of the film also presaged the tension surrounding Loevy's 1978 film Khirbet Khizeh
.

Notes

  1. ^
    Yediot Ahronot
    , 1 August 1972.
  2. ISBN 9780203426494
    .
  3. ^ Kapitan, 1997, p. 30.
  4. ^ The following account was related to the author of this article by Ram Loevy in a personal interview. An article appearing in the Israeli press at the time ("Only Jews Participated in The Third Hour," in Haaretz, 2 August 1972) hints at the dispute, but places the onus of blame on the Arab participants. Another article in Yediot Ahronot from the day of the screening (Gil Sadan, "Eban Will Not Participate in The Third Hour This Evening," 2 August 1972) says that Eban refused to appear unless the Arab participants of his choosing also appeared.
  5. ^ Doron Rosenblum, "A Sad Discussion About a Sad Topic," in Maariv, 3 August 1972.

External links

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