In a world of real media, i.e. hungry and responsible, the May 2021 riots could have been a fertile ground for excellent television.
The thousands of documents of ordinary citizens, chilling recordings of wild violence alongside wondrous humanity, could have filled hours of docu-movies.
The chilling conversations of citizens begging the police, the WhatsApp recordings between ordinary citizens shouting "shoot at us", videos in which a mother hides her children while the Arab rioters smash cars - all of these could have filled fascinating human television documents.
Alongside these, records of extreme Islamic incitement by clerics and public leaders, the terror trends fueling themselves in the tiktok network, the terrifying extremist trends among young Arabs in Israel - all of these could provide Israeli and international viewers with a whole world of background and depth.
Not only a background on the past, but also one that looks to the future, because disturbances may have subsided but the lava is still bubbling.
Instead of grinding our brain cells with the false banality of "extremists on both sides," or blaming a brazen victim on the Torah nuclei, the media could have worked wonders.
Reflect reality, flood challenges, expose lies, challenge the governmental system as it really deserves for those who see themselves as a watchdog.
But the media chose not to be there.
No "fact" program tried to ask questions and get the votes, no investigation was conducted, the only document was a "real time" film here 11 about disturbances in Acre.
An exciting human document, but at its core stood the same forced bias that sought the sacred and absurd balance of "extremists on both sides."
Increased to do in the "Makor" program, when they dedicated an entire program to the Jewish lynching in Bat Yam, and not even a quarter of a program to the Arab riots in Acre, Jaffa, Lod, Ramla, the Negev, the Galilee, and of course in Jerusalem.
One of my fondest memories of that month of May, when I was in the Civil Defense Corps in Lod, is how we are told what we are going through there. Not for myself but for the residents, and especially for the historical truth. To the city, headlines and interpretations of air conditioners in the studios flowed to me.Despite the fact that they have no idea, they already knew everything, who was to blame and why, who agitated, who provoked, and of course - violence has two sides and we all need to understand why violence broke out so wildly.
I understood the wind direction very well.
From the fog of May I understood what I did not want to understand: no one in the Israeli media will tell what happened here.
What I did not understand, is how severe it will be, how severe the blurring and lying will be.
Happily, I was not alone in this feeling.
The guys in the Torah nucleus in Lod, who went through real trauma while discovering supreme heroism, also understood this - and lifted the glove.
Efrat Noy, the CEO, asked us to help document what happened. On the advice of Miri Lavie, an excellent friend and professional, we decided that a short Twitter video would not do the job. Under the zoom headset. We do not have the budget, manpower, distribution. But we have excellent materials and amazing human material, Miri said then. And I? I streamed. We took it as an organizational project, in "My Israel".
We embarked on a photo trip with no budget but full of soul and mission.
We went down to Lod, photographed the streets, the synagogues and mosques, the places that have been renovated since.
We lost our breath when we visited the home of a family that had fled, a house that had been burned by the rioters, and had not been renovated since.
We heard testimonies from the locals, who recounted the difficult moments, and with each story we discovered something else that was hidden from our eyes.
Some had difficulty reconstructing the events due to mental difficulty, post-trauma caused in those five days of blood and fire, when the country disappeared.
In front of our camera were also volunteers who came from all over the country.
We asked them to share with us what brought them to Lod and what they went through, and we were thrilled again by the dedication and courage of those guys, who left home and family behind and wanted to help their brothers.
We re-experienced Lod.
We brought the voices and sights from those days, the pleas to Hotline 100, the videos of violence filmed on shaky cell phones, the voices of the protective parents, the heroism of the residents and volunteers.
We tried to bring to the viewers at home a little of the difficult experience, a little of the state failure, a little of the police failure.
We brought the human and documentary story, breaking the ice of the great story, the story of a country that disappeared in the face of an enemy from within.
We talked about the past, but with anxious thought about the future.
The result is "Five Days in May," an independent investigative film we produced when we realized there was no one in the house called the Israeli media.
As we knew how to get to Lod when the flames were burning, we also knew how to gather the information and create a television document.
I salute everyone who agreed to take part in it and tell the story through the transparent tears.
Give yourself 40 minutes and a lot of mental strength, and watch it.
It is available online.
The May 2021 riots are a watershed in Jewish-Arab relations in the country.
They are also a watershed in the state's attitude toward its citizens.
The reality that exploded in May is a harsh, threatening and unpleasant reality, but blurring is not a solution.
The same blurring that emanates from research institutes, the government and most of the Israeli media is dangerous, because when the problem is ignored, it is not solved or disappears, but worsens.
Were we wrong?
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