Posted on 10/28/2005 2:55:58 PM PDT by Nachum
In his riveting new film, “Paradise Now,” Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad paints an ugly picture of Israeli occupation and the harsh consequences he believes flow from it, namely suicide bombers. The movie, which won the Blue Angel Award for best European film at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, explores the friendship between Said (Kais Nashef) and Khaled (Ali Suliman), and their transformation from unremarkable auto mechanics into would-be bombers.
Underlying Abu-Assad’s movie is a chilling but powerful message: Decades of illegal and brutal Israeli rule, he argues, have wiped out hope among young Palestinians and created a growing pool of dispossessed souls willing to sacrifice their lives to snuff out those of innocent Israeli men, women and children in the name of Palestinian liberation. Simply put, many suicide bombers believe that only by undertaking such an inhumane act can they reclaim their humanity.
“From their logic, and you have to put yourself in their minds, they’ve lost their dignity,” Abu-Assad said in a recent phone interview. “The attitude is: If we can’t be equal in life, then we can be equal in death. If we can’t live equally, then we can die equally.”
Abu-Assad, also the director of critically acclaimed “Rana’s Wedding” (2002), personally decries suicide bombing because, in his view, it turns the victim into the oppressor. Still, “Paradise Now,” which was partly filmed in Nablus in the West Bank, sets out to humanize would-be bombers and explain their motives.
As part of his research, the director said he interviewed family members and friends of suicide bombers, talked to a lawyer who represents failed bombers now in Israeli jails and read in-depth reports on the subject.
Yet, even in the hands of a sympathetic filmmaker, each would-be bomber becomes a kind of monster from the moment he straps on his belt of explosives and sets out in search of people to kill. Ironically, Abu-Assad’s understanding and nuanced portrayals of sensitive Said and hotheaded but lovable Khaled underscore that point.
Moviegoers first encounter Said and Khaled as they are working in an auto repair shop. When a particularly annoying customer complains, Khaled loses his cool — and his job — by taking a sledgehammer to the car’s bumper. As for Said, a romantic at heart, he can’t disguise his boyish attraction to a gorgeous Palestinian human rights worker named Suha (played by Lubna Azabal) who brings her car in for repairs. She shamelessly flirts with the uneducated, rough-at-the-edges Said, a boy from the proverbial wrong side of the tracks.
Close friends Said and Khaled soon repair to a hillside to sip tea, smoke a hookah and decompress. Said later pays a visit to his beloved mother, whom he has watched over since his father’s execution by Palestinian militants years earlier for allegedly collaborating with Israelis.
The film’s mood quickly darkens when Jamal (performed by Amer Hlehel), a middle-aged representative of an unnamed Palestinian faction, approaches Said. He tells him that now is the time for him and Khaled to carry out in Israel a suicide attack they had volunteered for years earlier.
It is here that Said’s and Khaled’s humanity begins to drain away and the friends begin acting and sounding like shrill propagandists for such terrorist groups as Islamic Jihad and Hamas. In conversation and in their “martyr video,” Said and Khaled become the embodiment of deaf, dumb and blind rage.
Khaled: “Under the occupation, we’re already dead.”
Said: “We must continue our struggle until the end of occupation. Our bodies are all we have left.”
Khaled: “I have decided to carry out a martyr’s operation. We have no other way to fight.”
Already dead?
Nonsense. Khaled’s joie de vivre and Said’s intense love for his mother and budding romance with the sophisticated Suha make them very much alive, until now.
No other way to fight?
How about civil disobedience? How about electing Palestinian leaders more interested in making a stable peace with Israel? How about accepting Israel as a legitimate state and partner for peace?
Said and Khaled, in turning into would-be bombers, voluntarily make themselves one-dimensional, shedding the complexity and color that initially made them so engagingly human. As bomb makers outfit them with explosives, their journey to the other side is nearly complete. All that remains is a boom and the blood — which the film implies comes soon enough.
But not before “Paradise Now” takes some interesting, unexpected and telling detours.
Suha, the Palestinian woman, appears most closely to represent the views of director Abu-Assad. Before the film concludes, she persuades a would-be suicide bomber to choose life. She asserts that attacks will do nothing to weaken Israeli resolve or to improve Palestinian fortunes. Better to live, she says, than to die in vain.
At the same time, “Paradise Now” squarely contends that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories is the original sin that gives birth to the evil of the suicide bombings. Through his probing lens, Abu-Assad captures the gritty details and myriad humiliations of life under Israeli rule, including the abject poverty in Nablus’ ramshackle storefronts and the miasma of rotting garbage on its streets. When Khaled sees an Israeli military checkpoint, he seethes, as, presumably, do many Palestinians: “Mother———s!” he shouts.
“The full responsibility [for the suicide bombers] is on the hand of the oppressor, the hand that controls the border,” Abu-Assad said in an interview. “Yes, Palestinians make mistakes. They have an unhealthy society, but they’ve been living under occupation for 60 years.”
It perhaps underscores the complexity and difficulty of the Middle East conflict when a gifted and nuanced filmmaker nonetheless oversimplifies this subject. To be sure, the occupation fuels rage that helps to create a combustible climate for would-be bombers like Said and Khaled. But corrupt Arab governments, violent Islamic fundamentalism and a steady stream of anti-Semitic propaganda in mosques and Palestinian media surely play a seminal role as well. Is it too much to suggest that Palestinians — like Israelis, like all people — have free will and must take personal responsibility for their choices?
Still, Abu-Assad argues persuasively that as long as Palestinians believe or are conditioned to believe that the bleakness and hardship in their lives stems from the occupation, then suicide bombers will continue to multiply like cancerous cells. But Abu-Assad offers a path of hope, even in a place where many find little that is hopeful.
“When there is an acceptance of basic Palestinian rights — not even the implementation of them — the climate will change,” Abu-Assad said. “The Palestinians are willing to accept Israelis as equals.”
ACLU?
CORRIERE.IT/english: Turin - "TURIN IMAM DEPORTED -- "HE'S DANGEROUS" Accused of praising Bin Laden. Como-based Tunisian activist also expelled." (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "The ten children taking part in the ring-o'-roses protest beneath the market clock in Porta Palazzo were all wearing suicide bomber belts. The year was 1997, and that was the first time Bouriqi Bouchta, whose idea it was, attracted Italy’s attention.") (September 7, 2005)
MEMRITV.org/Transcript - Video Clip No. 838 - 8/31/2005: " 8/31/2005 Clip No. 838: "Sheik of Al-Azhar Muhammad Tantawi Explains on Al-Hurra TV When a Suicide Bomber Becomes a Martyr and When He Is Not" (TRANSCRIPT SNIPPET: "Following are excerpts from an interview with Sheik of Al-Azhar Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, which aired on Al-Hurra TV on August 31, 2005")
MEMRI.org - Special Dispatch Series - No. 909: "BAHRAINI AUTHOR AND JOURNALIST: THE PROPONENTS OF THE SUICIDE IDEOLOGY HAVE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "In an article that appeared in the Saudi daily Al-Yawm, titled "The Globalization of Islamic Suicide" author and journalist Sawsan Al-Sha'er wrote that the extremist Islamist groups are taking advantage of global communications to recruit suicide bombers, and predicted the spread of the suicide bomber phenomenon to Britain as well.") (May 17, 2005)
MEMRI.org - MIDDLE EAST MEDIA RESEARCH INSTITUTE Special Report - No.32: "MEMRI TV Project Special Report: Arab and Iranian TV Clips in Support of Suicide Bombing" (September 1, 2004)
JIHAD WATCH.org (HAARETZ): "10 SUICIDE BOMBINGS FOILED OVER PASSOVER HOLIDAY" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "One of two Tanzim activists caught at the end of March told interrogators the group that sent them had planned a series of other attacks, including one with a device to which blood infected with AIDS would be attached.") (April 13, 2004)
"What Makes Bombers Tick..." ping.
News.BBC.co.uk: "PALESTINIAN 'TARGETED HOSPITAL'" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "In an interview shown on Israeli television, Ms Bis said her "dream was to be a martyr". She said she was recruited by the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades - an off-shoot of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction.") (June 21, 2005) (Read More...)
JIHAD WATCH.org (YNET): "PALESTINIAN GIRL HIDES GUN IN UNDIES" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "The soldiers in the Balata refugee camp, a terrorist hotbed, found the gunman inside his house and ordered him to surrender his weapon. He refused, saying he didn't have it. After questioning, they found the man's sister had hidden it her underwear. Troops then arrested the Hamas terrorist. They also found a gun holster and bullets inside the building.") (April 16, 2005) (Read More...)
WASHINGTON TIMES.com: "WOMEN'S MAGAZINE OFFERS TIPS TO TERRORISTS" by John Phillips (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "With its bizarre format including articles on "breathing gymnastics to conquer the passions," evidently essential knowledge for those tempted to have a final fling before strapping on an explosive-laden corset, Al Khansa could indicate that al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden has made a strategic choice in favor of "women's emancipation through martyrdom," according to the Gnosis report. "This is a turning point in the project planning of international terrorist networks, which until now, unlike in the Palestinian intifada or in Chechen nationalist extremism, were limited to the exclusive employment of men in operations," the SISDE analysts said.") (January 17, 2005)
News.BBC.co.uk: "'JIHAD' MAGAZINE FOR WOMEN ON WEB" by Sebastian Usher (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "The magazine is called Al-Khansa, after a famous Arab woman poet in the early days of Islam, who wrote eulogies to male relatives who had died in battle. It appears to be the first "jihadist" publication aimed exclusively at women. The magazine says it is published by an organisation called "The Women's Media Bureau in the Arabian Peninsula". "The main objective seems to be to teach women married to radical Islamists how to support their husbands" And it claims that the former leader of al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, Abd-al-Aziz al-Muqrin - who was killed by Saudi security forces in June - as one of its founders. Al-Khansa also appears to be linked to the most well-known jihadist outlet on the internet, Sawt al-Jihad - or Voice of Jihad.") (Last Updated August 24, 2004) (Read More...)
JIHAD WATCH.org (THE SCOTSMAN): "IRAQ: JIHAD FOR KIDS" (March 6, 2005)
AIM.org: "JIHAD FOR KIDS" by Robert Spencer (June 11, 2002) (Read More...)
"images5.theimagehosting.com/2child.gif"
Google Search: "images5.theimagehosting.com/2child.gif"
WorldNetDaily.com: "U.N. 'EXPLODES' AMERICAN KIDS Broadcasters Not Showing Graphic Ad Depicting Soccer Children Blown Apart" (March 6, 2005)
MEMRI.org - Special Dispatch Series - No. 819 - MEMRI TV Project: "MOTHERS OF HIZBULLAH MARTYRS: WE ARE VERY HAPPY AND WANT TO SACRIFICE MORE CHILDREN" (November 25, 2004)
INTERNET-HAGANAH.US (JERUSALEM POST): "SHIN BET: CHILD TERROR ON THE RISE" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "According to a Shin Bet report, the use of children in attacks is now common among all the Palestinian terror organizations. Since the outbreak of violence in September 2000, 309 minors were involved in planned and executed terror acts, with 126 involved since the beginning of 2004. Children as young as 11 years old are easily persuaded to join the conflict with assurances that they will gain respect in the next life. Terror organizations then distance the young recruits from their families and schools and subject them to religious and nationalistic indoctrination. The report also revealed that terror organizations hide bombs inside children's toys and satchels in order to evade detection.") (November 5, 2004)MEMRI.org - MIDDLE EAST MEDIA RESEARCH INSTITUTE - Special Dispatch Series - No. 673: "UMM NIDAL: 'THE MOTHER OF THE SHAHIDS'" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Umm Nidal Farhat [1] came to public attention for the first time when she was filmed helping her son Muhammad Farhat leave home to carry out the March 20, 2002 attack during which he was killed. About a year later her second son, Nidal, was killed by Israeli forces. In an interview published in both the Israeli-Arab Kul Al-Arab weekly and the London Arabic-language daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Umm Nidal reiterated that martyrdom (Shehada) is the most supreme act, and one of the basic principles of Islam. The following are excerpts from the interview:") (March 4, 2004)JIHAD WATCH.org (NEW YORK TIMES via IHT): "A FRENCH MUSLIM FAMILY TAKES PATH TO MILITANCY" (August 2, 2004)
JIHAD WATCH.org: "PICKING JIHAD OVER CHILDREN" (January 27, 2004)
InHonor.net: (Online Videos)
PMW.or.il - TV Archives - Video Library: "CHILDREN ARE COMBATANTS IN PA IDEOLOGY"
JihadUnspun.com: "FEMALE MARTYR DRIVES CAR BOMB INTO US FORCES IN RAMADI" "By Muhammad Abu Nasr, Free Arab Voice and Omar Al-Faris, JUS" (Jan 03, 2005)
IMRA.org.il: "FEMALE SUICIDE BOMBERS FOR GOD" -Yoram Schweitzer Jafee Center for Strategic Studies (October 9, 2003)
GOOGLE Search Term: "JIHAD WOMEN"
ISLAM ONLINE.net - Fatwa Application - "ASK THE SCHOLAR" - Topic: "PALESTINIAN WOMEN CARRYING OUT MARTYR OPERATIONS" (May 22, 2003; October 5, 2003)
ISLAM ONLINE.net - Fatwa Application - "ASK THE SCHOLAR" - Topic: "MARTYR OPERATIONS CARRIED OUT BY THE PALESTINIANS" (May 22, 2003; July 13, 2003)
Only in the movies.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47121
"Al-Jazeera's new name for 'martyrs'
Arab news service calls suicide bombers 'Paradise Operations'"
Posted: October 29, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
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