Thursday, July 8, 2010

Budrus

Today Darin and I were invited to a film screening for Budrus – a documentary about the village of Budrus in the West Bank.  Link to Budrus film site.
Budrus is one of at many villages in Palestine that are threatened by the construction of Israel’s security wall (also called the security fence, the barrier, apartheid wall, etc. depending who you talk to).  I have posted here a map published by B'tselem in 2008 of the Israeli Wall current and planned route.  Notice Budrus in the top left corner of the map. The 1967 Green Line is represented in (surprise) green, and red is the route of the constructed or planned Israeli wall. See the entire map here.

In 2003, a man named Ayed Morrar started organizing the villagers in Budrus for non-violent resistance against the wall.  The villagers stood in their groves of olive trees, preventing the Israeli bulldozers from uprooting them. In the film, the way the villagers talked about their olive trees made me cry – they talk about the trees like they are their children.  It also reminded me of Avatar – the classic story of brutal technology uprooting the natural world, at the same time the spirit, livelihood and history of a people.

Ayed and all the villagers spent days getting up in the morning and standing with the olive trees, but eventually the Israeli Border Police who were there enforce the construction of the wall started to use violence.  The film show ample footage of Palestinian women being beaten with sticks by the Israeli soldiers, tear gas and stun grenades thrown to disperse the crowd.  Later, Ayed Morrar’s daughter jumps into the hole of the bulldozer, stopping it from continued digging.  To quote the film: it becomes a battle of wills. Israeli and international activists join the villagers in protests. The Israelis occupy Budrus and put the village under curfew.  Young men start to throw stones, and the Israelis start to shoot live bullets. They occupy Palestinian homes in the village.  Over a period of 10 months, the battle of wills continued.  In the end, the Israelis moved the Wall to the West of Budrus, leaving 95% of their olive groves untouched.

The story of Budrus is encouraging.  It also focuses in on some of the focal issues for Palestinians in resisting this occupation.  When we were watching the film, the audience was cheering when they watched the young men from Budrus throwing stones. I did not cheer. I truly believe that throwing stones will not work. In fact, it only gives the excuse for continued violence from the Israeli side.  However, NOT throwing stones after continuous provocation is so much more difficult than throwing stones. It takes a battle of will inside each Palestinian to NOT resort to throwing stones or other violence…. the humiliation they experience is such that throwing stones and fighting back is by far the most natural reaction.  NOT fighting back takes more strength than you can imagine.

For me, the part of this film that I was most focused on was this non-violent aspect. The vast majority of Palestinians are non-violent and resist the occupation in a quiet way, going about their daily lives. But with enough provocation and humiliation, anyone will resort to throwing stones. That is what the film Budrus shows very well.  Hamas and Fatah members of the village also worked together. They focused on strategy, not on their emotions.  This is what I really believe is needed here… a larger strategy and leadership that can help to inspire people to take the more difficult path. Not throwing stones.

2 comments:

Rosemary Washington said...

Jenna, Your post reminded me of another wonderful movie I saw recently on dvd: Lemon Tree. Have you seen it? Here is a review from amazon.com that I've copied for you: Director Eran Riklis makes his home in Tel Aviv, but his films tend to occupy the borders between nations. Co-written with Suha Arraf, Lemon Tree serves as a companion to their previous collaboration, The Syrian Bride. Hiam Abbass from The Visitor returns as Salma Zidane, a widow who tends the family lemon grove along the Green Line dividing Palestine from the West Bank (Arraf and Abbass are both of Palestinian-Israeli descent). When the Israeli defense minister, Israel Navon (Doron Tavory), and his wife, Mira (Rona Lipaz-Michael), move in next door, his security detail advices him to destroy it since terrorists could use the trees for cover. After Navon conveys his intentions, Salma springs into action, hiring a recently-divorced lawyer, Ziad Daud (Ali Suliman, who co-starred with Abbass in Paradise Now), to take her fight to the courts. Initially, Navon has all the power and Salma has none, but Mira, who also suffers from empty nest syndrome, feels for the lonely woman next door--and Ziad finds her compelling in ways that Salma's Palestinian neighbors finds inappropriate (he's younger and rumors link him to a politician's daughter). Then the media gets wind of the skirmish and paints it as a classic David versus Goliath story, but the Israeli Supreme Court will have the final say. Like the The Syrian Bride, Lemon Tree presents a parable about the Middle East, but the characters feel more like real people than cardboard cut-outs, and Abbass commands the screen with her calm, determined presence. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Jenna Magee said...

hi Rosemary,

Thanks for your comment! I have not seen the movie the Lemon Tree, but I have read the book by Sandy Tolan. I always recommend it to people, it's a great story about both sides of the conflict and as the movie review said, shows people as real human beings.