Paradise Now at the Jerusalem Cinematheque

Paradise Now is the name of the popular film by Palestinian-Israeli film maker Hany Abu-Assad about 2 young Palestinians from Nablus, played by Kais Nashef and Ali Suliman, recruited to carry out a suicide bombing inside of Israel. The film itself is surprisingly apolitical and focuses more on the stories of the individual characters rather than the geo-political causes and strategies behind terrorism.

One of the would be bomber's father was killed for being a collaborator with the Israeli army. We get the sense that his recruitment was a way of taking advantage of the feeling of shame that was heaped upon his family by Palestinian society for his father's deeds. After an argument with his attractive Palestinian girlfriend (played by Lubna Azabel) who heads a human rights organization he escapes to his father's grave and starts crying. She pleads with him, "Violence is not the way. What is killing more innocent people going to accomplish? We must turn this struggle into a moral one. You must also think of those that you leave behind and hurt when you commit such an act."

The film's ambiguous message with regard to the situation in Israel and the Palestinian territories was further emphasized at the film's showing at the Jerusalem Cinematheque where the director and actors were present to take questions from the mixed audience of Palestinians and Israelis. The director spoke eloquent Hebrew -"Erev Tov Gvirotay ve Rabotay (Good evening ladies and Gentlemen)." Both actors Kais Nashef and Ali Suliman, who like the director have Israeli citizenship, also spoke in flawless Hebrew which was quite a sight considering how effectively they had played two Palestinian terrorists from Nablus. Both of them spoke about how they did not get involved in politics and treated their roles in the movie strictly as characters with a background story. One of them spoke about how he lived in Tel Aviv and attends a Jewish acting school there.

The director also showed a familiarity with the Israeli psyche that matched his familiarity with the Israeli linguistic mannerisms and sayings that would only be apparent to a native Hebrew speaker. "The Jews have been one of the most persecuted people in the history of the world. They came to this land as a refuge perhaps thinking that this land was a land without a people. However there was a people here and as a result of having their land stolen, they have now taken over the narrative of the suffering Jew."

A young Israeli raised his hand and spoke in Arabic that he had picked up from his travels in Egypt and the Palestinian territories to the actor who lived in Tel Aviv about how they both lived on the same street and should learn to look at each other as equals and neighbors. The director Abu-Assad immediately chimed in and reminded him that while he and his Arab neighbor in Tel Aviv may learn to live as equals and neighbors without a problem, there were still Palestinians living under occupation in the West Bank who are being denied their basic human rights. The fact that this point was expressed in eloquent Hebrew in an Israeli Cinematheque in Jerusalem (on the seam between Jewish and Arab neighborhoods no less) by a self-defined Palestinian who holds Israeli citizenship only served to emphasize the complexity and ambiguity of identity and politics in Israel and Palestine.