THIS PALESTINIAN LIFE is a film about people who perservere despite the odds stacked against them. The film documents specifically the aspects of perseverance or steadfastness of the Palestinian nonviolent struggle against Israeli occupation and the deliberate, ongoing, illegal annexation of Palestinian land.
An Arabic term used for everyday acts of nonviolent resistance is sumoud – steadfastness, perseverance. In the film, Egyptian activist and filmmaker, Philip Rizk, tells the stories of Palestinian villagers who attempt to remain steadfast, to persevere, in the face of settler violence, the injustice and duplicity of the Israeli government, and the ambivalence of the international community.
BACKGROUND
In 1948 Israel displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, uprooting them from the villages where they had lived and worked for centuries.
The events of 1948 were part of a strategy to remove Palestinians from land where the immigrant Jewish community sought to build their state. The atrocities the Jews had faced in Europe brought them to Palestine to build a new future for their people. This new future, however, would come at the cost of the native Arab inhabitants of the land.
Today, Israel maintains control over the majority of Palestinian land. Surrounding the valleys of many Palestinian villages are more than 400 Israeli settlements, all of which have been deemed illegal according to international law. The number of settlements grows, despite their illegality, as Israel continues to colonize with impunity, and often with violence, land that does not belong to them.
The Israeli army protects Jewish settlers as they attack school children, prevent Palestinian shepherds from tending to their flocks, and bulldoze ancient olive groves. This system threatens the very way of life of Israel's Palestinian neighbors.
When the conflict makes the news, it is often Palestinian violence that gets the most airtime. Much less frequently covered – although no less real – is the daily, systematic violence inflicted by the Israeli state upon the Palestinian people and their land. Rarer still are attempts to report the many acts of peaceful, nonviolent resistance by ordinary Palestinians.
THE FILM
Among the many attempts to portray and communicate the reality of the Palestinian situation, THIS PALESTINIAN LIFE does something unique. The film does not attempt to provide an overview of the entire conflict. No "expert" opinions are featured. Rather, it takes an oral history approach and listens to particular individuals – both women and men, young and old – and their experiences under Israeli occupation.
In their quiet way, the individuals show you that they would rather speak out than remain quiet, that they would rather remain steadfast than react violently, and that they would rather die than leave their land.
THIS PALESTINIAN LIFE seeks to celebrate that threatened culture. The unity of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank is acknowledged by featuring communities from both areas. The film seeks to connect community leaders from the segregated Palestinian areas of Gaza and the West Bank with each other, so that they can build upon each other's efforts and that each might be inspired by other's sumoud.