When considering this anti-Israeli film, please ask yourself what YOU would do if your borders were permeable to murderous bombers who broadcast they want to bomb as many civilians at a time as possible and who target buses & crowded public areas. Ask yourself how you as a guard would converse with Palestinians coming across the your border station, when you know that several of them plan to blow you up as they go through your crossing. Of course you would be tense and want direct answers supported by valid documentation before you let them in. As efficiently as possibly, you'd want to determine if they were likely to bomb your site so that you could try to neutralize them promptly. As a country, you'd want to peacefully prevent terrorists from coming in e.g. with a wall or other barrier, rather than violently killing them when they do breach the border.
Elle Flanders doesn't think this is reasonable because of the inconvenience and humiliation it imposes on incoming Palestinians.
Zero Degrees of Separation presents interesting-sounding material: interviews with a gay and a lesbian couple each having one mate Israeli and the other Palestinian Arab. The talking-heads documentary is punctuated by scratchy 1940's footage of the cineaste's grandparents' contemporaries including many WW2-displaced persons traveling around the Holy Land. In addition to interview dialogue, the director films Ezra (whose Arab lover Selim is eventually deported to the West Bank) in repeated checkpoint situations. We see him arguing with soldiers, handing them New Years greeting cards, then criticizing them for following their orders to screen travelers for potential bombers.
I am skeptical that Ezra & Selim are really partners. Ezra is much older than Selim and looks like his grandfather. More importantly, we never see them touching each other or even acting warmly or affectionately. I wonder if they are simply roommates with a "marriage of convenience."
The subject of the film is what the director claims are the bully tactics employed by Israel to maintain checkpoints on roads in the West Bank. The rigor of questioning at entry points to Israel is depicted as beyond that which is necessary. However the film never mentions that many suicide bombers have posed as pregnant women, patients in ambulances, etc. The separation fence was erected as a nonviolent barrier to suicide bombers. Here it is shown as nothing but an expensive overreaction that causes Palestinians great inconvenience.
Extremely one-sided opinions are put forth as if they were objective facts. Empathy abounds for the plight of Palestinians, but none for the Israelis who endure unpredictable acts of carnage. The subjects interviewed state that being violent is a logical consequence of growing up with occupation. Further, a lesbian Israeli Rape Crisis Center worker repeatedly asserts that occupation leads men to rape and assault women & that responsibility for all violence toward women in Israel and Palestine is the fault of Israel.
At least the lesbians act like a bona fide couple, kissing and touching each other, referring to their common bed. As I've already said, I am not so sure about the veracity of the male couple.
The stars blame the occupation for domestic violence. Never mentioned is the tradition of Honor Killing that continues in Palestine to this day. It also occurs in Lebanon, Jordan, etc. where the occupation does not exist. Neither do we hear how the penalty for suspected collaboration with Israel is Death.
Other serious omissions are that Israel is the only jurisdiction in the Middle East where Gay pride parades are organized and where there are LGBT community centers. Only in Israel is homosexuality legal and discrimination is illegal. The following may be spoiler: We never learn why Ezra did not join Selim who was deported to the West Bank. I think that a gay Jew living with a Palestinian in Ramallah would be mistreated to say the least.
American Palestinian Gays recently (2006) visited Jerusalem to commune with their Arab brethren, only to be badly beaten in an unprovoked hate crime causing them to quit E. Jerusalem and return to San Francisco. When questioned in San Francisco, the filmmaker openly says that she is biased, and that her film is intended to be so too.
Elle Flanders doesn't think this is reasonable because of the inconvenience and humiliation it imposes on incoming Palestinians.
Zero Degrees of Separation presents interesting-sounding material: interviews with a gay and a lesbian couple each having one mate Israeli and the other Palestinian Arab. The talking-heads documentary is punctuated by scratchy 1940's footage of the cineaste's grandparents' contemporaries including many WW2-displaced persons traveling around the Holy Land. In addition to interview dialogue, the director films Ezra (whose Arab lover Selim is eventually deported to the West Bank) in repeated checkpoint situations. We see him arguing with soldiers, handing them New Years greeting cards, then criticizing them for following their orders to screen travelers for potential bombers.
I am skeptical that Ezra & Selim are really partners. Ezra is much older than Selim and looks like his grandfather. More importantly, we never see them touching each other or even acting warmly or affectionately. I wonder if they are simply roommates with a "marriage of convenience."
The subject of the film is what the director claims are the bully tactics employed by Israel to maintain checkpoints on roads in the West Bank. The rigor of questioning at entry points to Israel is depicted as beyond that which is necessary. However the film never mentions that many suicide bombers have posed as pregnant women, patients in ambulances, etc. The separation fence was erected as a nonviolent barrier to suicide bombers. Here it is shown as nothing but an expensive overreaction that causes Palestinians great inconvenience.
Extremely one-sided opinions are put forth as if they were objective facts. Empathy abounds for the plight of Palestinians, but none for the Israelis who endure unpredictable acts of carnage. The subjects interviewed state that being violent is a logical consequence of growing up with occupation. Further, a lesbian Israeli Rape Crisis Center worker repeatedly asserts that occupation leads men to rape and assault women & that responsibility for all violence toward women in Israel and Palestine is the fault of Israel.
At least the lesbians act like a bona fide couple, kissing and touching each other, referring to their common bed. As I've already said, I am not so sure about the veracity of the male couple.
The stars blame the occupation for domestic violence. Never mentioned is the tradition of Honor Killing that continues in Palestine to this day. It also occurs in Lebanon, Jordan, etc. where the occupation does not exist. Neither do we hear how the penalty for suspected collaboration with Israel is Death.
Other serious omissions are that Israel is the only jurisdiction in the Middle East where Gay pride parades are organized and where there are LGBT community centers. Only in Israel is homosexuality legal and discrimination is illegal. The following may be spoiler: We never learn why Ezra did not join Selim who was deported to the West Bank. I think that a gay Jew living with a Palestinian in Ramallah would be mistreated to say the least.
American Palestinian Gays recently (2006) visited Jerusalem to commune with their Arab brethren, only to be badly beaten in an unprovoked hate crime causing them to quit E. Jerusalem and return to San Francisco. When questioned in San Francisco, the filmmaker openly says that she is biased, and that her film is intended to be so too.