Shakespeare already wrote in the play "Hamlet": "The lady protests too much".
The more we deny, the more clearly we are guilty.
And this, it seems to me, is the best reason to put the Jordanian film "Fareha", which is moving the brass and politics in recent days.
I'll start with a full disclosure, which all of his clients forgot to mention: I didn't see him either.
From what I heard from others who saw it, the scene in question - in which IDF soldiers are shown in the War of Independence executing an entire Palestinian family, including a helpless baby - is indeed shocking, violent and deeply moving.
But it's a movie.
plot
I don't remember the US Department of Defense or the Treasury screaming that the US soldiers are being slandered when the movie "Apocalypse Now" was released.
I'm trying to find a response from the government in England to Israeli films about the days of the Mandate, which showed immoral acts of one or another British officer, such as looting, rape and torture - and I'm not succeeding.
And why?
The democratic pluralist argument is simple: the right of each creator to create more or less likable characters from their hearts.
If Hannibal Lecter (the serial killer and cannibal in "The Silence of the Lambs") was created - why not a murderous IDF soldier?
But a much better reason is the real standing behind the IDF and its mechanisms. I think we can all agree that not all female and male soldiers are good. The headlines of the newspapers sometimes herald a rapist, an oppressor or a traitor.
They are people like all people, which means that there are also a handful of less successful ones.
But it's important to emphasize again - it's a handful.
I truly believe that most of our soldiers are people with a moral backbone.
They don't shoot recklessly, and they don't exterminate babies in cold blood.
The outcries of libel and lies in a feature film do, in my eyes, the opposite of what the opposing poets intended.
They draw attention and fire to the problematic actions of the IDF. To the minority.
Let's put aside for a moment the fact that a Jordanian film is not exactly a blockbuster with a bright commercial future - now everyone who has heard Ben Gabir, Lieberman and Troper will want to see what all the fuss is about.
An insignificant film that three New York film students would see has become a must-see.
But the bigger problem is the fact that there is a feeling that the speakers do not believe that the IDF is a moral army.
If we believe in the rightness of the way, in the necessity of the action, in the fact that every task is considered and checked - and I believe this is the case - we must accept the fact that there are also problems and mistakes.
A film that even accuses an entire company of murderous acts, does not testify to the IDF at all. It testifies to its creator, who has now received without having planned a public relations portion at no cost. The cries of the breakup hurt us much more than in the film.
You don't like the narrative?
Cancel your subscription to Netflix, don't vote for him at the Oscars, don't go to the screening in one or another theater.
But remember that when we protest and protest too loudly - it seems that we have something to hide.
were we wrong
We will fix it!
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