Warning. Knee-jerk review.

One Day in Gaza. (Warning. Knee-jerk review.)

How can I review this programme as objectively as, say, Carol Midgley of The Times does?  

Midgley is clearly ready willing and able to take “One day in Gaza” at face value. It’s easy for her. She views it as - literally - “one day” in Gaza. Representing the average viewer, she sees this documentary as a straightforward 24-hour slice of life and death. That’s it. Free from unnecessary baggage (context, history, and tribal affiliation) she has it taped. 

Hampered by the disadvantage of partiality, I’m finding it harder to see it her way. The film was tipped as ‘two-sided”. The previews promised “film from both sides” and it did indeed show some footage filmed by the IDF.  But were the two sides the Palestinian side and the Israeli side?

No. Not really. However, the ‘two’ sides we did see were revelatory in their own way.  On the one hand, there were ordinary Palestinians, the ’peaceful protesters’ and heroic, self-sacrificing freedom fighters. On the other hand, and “for the first time” we were given a glimpse of what lay behind the project, including Hamas’s  Yahya “We will  Tear Out Their Hearts” Sinwar.

So, here’s the revelation. The Great March of Return wasn’t merely a spontaneous uprising as it’s often portrayed by the western media; an irrepressible boiling-over by the unbearably oppressed and suppressed. 

For Carol Midgley ”Its strength was in talking to both sides and drawing out the miserable complexities.” Yes, that would have been a strength, had they genuinely talked to both sides. But they did not. In fact, the bulk of the film represents a sympathetic portrait of Palestinian victims - the wounded, the bereaved, the impassioned and the deluded. A nod towards balance takes the form of a brief clip or two of IDF spokespersons being questioned by a disembodied and obviously hostile British voice. 

“One Palestinian man said that the Israel Defence Forces used the march, on the day the new US embassy opened in Jerusalem, as an excuse to open fire.”

But surely the underlying premise of this documentary was “The Embassy” - that moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem (which the Palestinians “want” for their capital) was enough of a provocation to validate the whole Great March.  The film’s crass and clumsy juxtaposition of the wealthy, self-satisfied Trump entourage, filmed from a distance, next to the beleaguered Palestinian people who had been cruelly deprived of their Right of Return was surely intended to convey a powerful filmic message.

“A man whose brother died said: “If you shoot at someone’s head you intend to kill not scare or deter.” (Apparently 90 per cent of those hit were shot in the legs.)”

A young freedom fighter was filmed at length speaking with passion and fire. Eventually, the camera panned out to show ….Da-da! …..the lower part of one of his legs was missing. Poignant, maybe. Original? Not so much. More of a cliche. An overused filmic device. Aren’t I mean? Well, maybe, but people with more extensive injuries have been known to run marathons. Hamas! Get that man a prosthetic!

The voice-over was particularly emotive. The accent. The diction. I looked it up just to make sure he wasn’t from the PSC. (Not sure, but don’t think so)

I saw it as yet another ‘dead baby’ style shocker. A profusion of gore and guts. The IDF was depicted as disingenuous and inhumane. They ‘claimed’ stuff. They made feeble excuses, you know the drill.

Let’s look at it another way for a moment. What kind of film would these filmmakers have made if the Great March of Return had been ‘successful’? Say the IDF suddenly decided to prioritise its international image, and to wait till a few hearts had actually been torn out before applying resistance? 

What if the Israeli government decided to cave in to international pressure and open the borders completely? Say they granted the right of return to the millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants and Israel became another Muslim majority country. What kind of film would it be then? 

What if that nice lady’s kitchen had been invaded by a mob of knife-wielding “Palestinian youths with anger burning in their hearts?” Would they film blood splattered all over her nice wooden worktop with as much relish?

I hope I don’t ever find out.

Update:
When is a Jew not a Jew?
Oh yes, I forgot to mention - as David Collier says, throughout the film the translation of what could distinctly be heard as “Yehud” appeared in the subtitles as “Israeli.”
Why would they do that?