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I used to hate Israel. I used to think the Left was always right. Not
any more. Now I loathe Palestinian terrorists."
Humankind cannot bear very much reality, but occasionally it breaks
through even to the most hardened Leftist ideologue. Here, reality
about the Palestinian jihad breaks through to the Irish Leftist
filmmaker Nicky Larkin: "Nicky Larkin: Israel is a refuge, but a
refuge under siege," from the Independent, March 11 (thanks to Ygalg):
I used to hate Israel. I used to think the Left was always right.
Not any more. Now I loathe Palestinian terrorists. Now I see why
Israel has to be hard. Now I see the Left can be Right -- as in
right-wing. So why did I change my mind so completely?
Strangely, it began with my anger at Israel's incursion into Gaza
in December 2008 which left over 1,200 Palestinians dead, compared to
only 13 Israelis. I was so angered by this massacre I posed in the
striped scarf of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation for an art
show catalogue.
Shortly after posing in that PLO scarf, I applied for funding from
the Irish Arts Council to make a film in Israel and Palestine. I
wanted to talk to these soldiers, to challenge their actions -- and
challenge the Israeli citizens who supported them.
I spent seven weeks in the area, dividing my time evenly between
Israel and the West Bank. I started in Israel. The locals were
suspicious. We were Irish -- from a country which is one of Israel's
chief critics -- and we were filmmakers. We were the enemy.
Then I crossed over into the West Bank. Suddenly, being Irish
wasn't a problem. Provo graffiti adorned The Wall. Bethlehem was Las
Vegas for Jesus-freaks -- neon crucifixes punctuated by posters of
martyrs.
These martyrs followed us throughout the West Bank. They watched
from lamp-posts and walls wherever we went. Like Jesus in the old
Sacred Heart pictures.
But the more I felt the martyrs watching me, the more confused I
became. After all, the Palestinian mantra was one of "non-violent
resistance". It was their motto, repeated over and over like responses
at a Catholic mass.
Yet when I interviewed Hind Khoury, a former Palestinian
government member, she sat forward angrily in her chair as she refused
to condemn the actions of the suicide bombers. She was all aggression.
This aggression continued in Hebron, where I witnessed swastikas
on a wall. As I set up my camera, an Israeli soldier shouted down from
his rooftop position. A few months previously I might have ignored him
as my political enemy. But now I stopped to talk. He only talked about
Taybeh, the local Palestinian beer.
Back in Tel Aviv in the summer of 2011, I began to listen more
closely to the Israeli side. I remember one conversation in Shenkin
Street -- Tel Aviv's most fashionable quarter, a street where
everybody looks as if they went to art college. I was outside a cafe
interviewing a former soldier.
He talked slowly about his time in Gaza. He spoke about 20 Arab
teenagers filled with ecstasy tablets and sent running towards the
base he'd patrolled. Each strapped with a bomb and carrying a
hand-held detonator.
The pills in their bloodstream meant they felt no pain. Only a
headshot would take them down.
Conversations like this are normal in Tel Aviv. I began to
experience the sense of isolation Israelis feel. An isolation that
began in the ghettos of Europe and ended in Auschwitz.
Israel is a refuge -- but a refuge under siege, a refuge where
rockets rain death from the skies. And as I made the effort to
empathise, to look at the world through their eyes. I began a new
intellectual journey. One that would not be welcome back home.
The problem began when I resolved to come back with a film that
showed both sides of the coin. Actually there are many more than two.
Which is why my film is called Forty Shades of Grey. But only one side
was wanted back in Dublin. My peers expected me to come back with an
attack on Israel. No grey areas were acceptable....
Any artist worth his or her salt should be ready to change their
mind on receipt of fresh information. So I would urge every one of
those 216 Irish artists who pledged to boycott the Israeli state to
spend some time in Israel and Palestine. Maybe when you come home you
will bin your scarf. I did.