Five Broken Cameras

Chapter three of Eyal Press’ Beautiful Souls follows Avner Wishnitzer, an Israeli combat soldier serving in the occupied territories during the Second Intifada. In the 6-Day War of 1967, Israel captured the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and has since kept the land under an Israeli military occupation. In 1987 to 1991, a Palestinian uprising involving resistance and civil disobedience, known as the First Intifada, occurred in the occupied territories. Consequently, Israel deployed many soldiers into the occupied territories, and an estimated 1,674 people were killed in total. The Second Intifada, a much more violent Palestinian uprising in the occupied territories, transpired from 2000 until 2005. In response, Israel enacted Operation Defensive Shield, a large-scale military operation, in 2002 to stop the terrorist attacks and suicide bombings of the Second Intifada. An approximate 4,426 people were killed in the Second Intifada. Avner Wishnitzer’s public refusal to serve in the occupied territories was worth getting kicked out of Sayeret Matkal and being disgraced by Israeli society because it made people question the occupation and the treatment towards Palestinians. Even if Avner had been my father, I would have condoned his choices because I could create my own reputation in the military. Additionally, the current controversy over the Israeli occupation legitimizes his stance and actions for many Israeli citizens.

Israel and Palestine have been battling over territory, dominance, and political freedom for many years. After the Second World War, Israeli forces occupied Palestinian territory, ridding the land of Arabs. In response, the Palestinian people demanded control over their historic land, but the Israelis refused to relinquish power over the territory. In a matter of six days, the Jewish Israeli people conquered the West Bank all the way through to the Sinai Peninsula. After the war, the Israeli forces continued to take over Palestinian land by putting pressure on them to abandon their nation. Due to this ongoing conflict, Sahar Khalifeh utilizes violence and social constraints to explore the lives of Israeli and Palestinian men through vivid diction and descriptive imagery in the 1985 novel Wild Thorns.

Within the span of a few years, the political, social, and cultural climate in Palestine was whiplashed from being under the control of the Ottoman Empire, to colonization and state building by Jewish immigrants from the diaspora, to British rule through mandate, and finally the establishment of the Israeli state. The rhetoric that was used in both Zionist and Arab Palestinian propaganda created a situation that was very complex under the surface, and needs to be approached with delicate care. Taking this into consideration, as historians it is important to remain as objective as possible when reading documents from both the Jewish and Arab side because they both will show a view of the conflict that will benefit them most. As situations change, so will these views and the tone of newspapers and consumerism will change along with it.

The national media firestorm has created an immense amount of public interest regarding body cameras. In the wake of numerous publicized police shootings of civilian suspects, the public outcry resulted in police officers in several cities to wear body cameras. These cameras record the actions of police officers as they respond to 911 calls and conduct traffic stops. One of these cities is Chicago. The Chicago police department began using body cameras at the beginning of 2015 in the Northwest Side Shakespeare District. There are now 2,000 body cameras spread across about a third of the city's police sectors. It was recently announced that the police departments would expand their use.

In the media, My So Called Enemy, the video showed that friendship can overpower war. The Palestinians

The documentary, Promises, introduced the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the perspective of seven children. The film’s initiator, B.Z. Goldberg, initially interviews seven children, but gradually convinces the children to meet with peers of the opposite side in the conflict. Finally, by synthesizing the opinions of the children, the film achieves a lasting message at the end of the film -- everyone involved in the conflict is a human being, and thus one’s religion does not reflect his or her personality. Rather than enforcing this message upon the participants, the film has the children discover what it is like to be the person they hate -- a discovery which rather lingers throughout the subconscious of the film.

A shot rings out in the night and soon after, there is a body in the streets. Within days there are multiple eye witnesses on the news, protests in the streets and silence from official sources. This has become an all too common occurrence today in regards to police where the public outcry after deadly force incident can go out of control before officials have had a chance to review the facts. Nearly 1,000 people were killed by police in 2016, with 2017 on pace to top that (Washington Post). One of the most publicly sought after improvements, as there are few answers, to his situation is the mandatory use of body cameras by law enforcement officials. In theory, body cameras would preserve a public record of at least

‘Wild Thorns’ by Sahar Khalifeh is an insightful commentary that brings to life the Palestinian struggle under the Israeli Occupation and embodies this conflict through the different perspectives brought forth by the contrasting characters. We are primarily shown this strife through the eyes of the principal character, the expatriate Usama, as well as the foil character of his cousin, Adil. Khalifeh skillfully uses literary devices such as emotive language, allusions and positive and negative connotations to highlight life under the Occupation. As the audience, these techniques help encourage us to consider the struggle more in depth, and due to the wide variety of characters, invite us to relate to them.

Joe Sacco’s graphic novel, Palestine, deals with the repercussions of the first intifada in Israel/Palestine/the Holy Land. The story follows the author through the many refugee camps and towns around Palestine as he tries to gather information, stories, and pictures to construct his graphic novel. While the book is enjoyable at a face level, there are many underlying themes conveyed throughout its illustrated pages and written text.

In my first year of high school, I was assignment a reading of the book Burned Alive by Souad for my AP human geography class. This book is written by a Palestinian woman who survived an attempted honor killing as a pregnant teenager. Despite controversy around the book’s authenticity, it had an impact on my naïve mind, and it brought global conditions to my attention.

Furthermore, the Israeli occupation of Palestine that the film depicts is a part of the 2000-2005 second intifada between the two nations (Manekin, 2013). Nablus, in Palestine is where Said and Khaled are based, and the mission is to take place in Tel Aviv across the border. A noticeable feature of the movie is the concept of deadness, the two main characters are not suicidal but the life they are trapped in has created a sense of them being dead already (Nashef, 2016) this is represented by the oppression and the lack of opportunity that is present. This theme can be further seen in their town – Nablus. Due to the conflict, the landscape and infrastructure is bleak, destroyed and very much discarded. The depiction of the lifestyle experienced during that period of conflict, highlighted to me potential motivations.

Five Broken Cameras is a documentary movie which explains the happenings that are going on between a west bank village and the protests between Israel and Palestine. This film was directed by Emad Burnat, a Palestine farmer, who bought his first camera in 2005 when his fourth son Gibreel was born. In 2009 Emad thought it would be a great opportunity to shoot a documentary film that goes over the brutal destruction of five years and five broken cameras later of the violence in the village of B’lin that a family had to face. On October 9th our class had the great opportunity to listen to an amazing speaker, whose name was George Abueed, who is a Palestine peacemaker. George is fluent in four different languages, and has been speaking English

At the end of the film, 5 Broken Cameras, a very moving quote displaying the importance of healing was said. This quote stressed the importance of healing as being an obligation for the Palestinians as well as how healing is a form of resistance against oppression. The idea or concept presented in this quote was depicted many times in the movie in regards to certain characters who demonstrated brave and determined faces towards their enemies, regardless of their ability to actually push the army back. No matter how many times they were injured physically, mentally, and emotionally, the Palestinians from the village continued to be joyful and participated in festivities as well as participated in the demonstrations against the Israeli police.

The graphic novel Palestine, published by Maltan journalist Joe Sacco in the early ‘90s, is a journalistic piece that represents his recollections of two months spent talking to and living with Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. The casual narrative style, which some might say is too shallow for such heavy subject matter, in fact allows Sacco to avoid many of the pit falls that have made Western reporting on non-Western conflicts unhelpful at the very least and more often incredibly damaging.

Lesson is: Don’t break the camera!” “But-” I started to protest. But my dad insisted on taking my mother’s photos first. My mother, sensing my glee, got up. “Okay then.” She gestured towards the beach. “Take scenery photos.” My father, realizing that he could take scenery photos, went to work adjusting his camera. My mother turned towards me. “Why are you disturbing us?” She inquired “I have a surprise for you!” I squealed. I ran off towards the shore, the stepping stones seemingly bouncing in my wake. I ran hard, feet hitting the sand with powerful strides, kicking up little clumps of wet sand that soon got all over my face. I ran, for soon the tide would come in, destroying my precious work of art. My mother came after me, hot on my heels. As soon as she saw it, she started staring blankly in amazement at the masterpiece I had created. “You did this?” She was all zombie-like, apparently in awe of what I had done. Her mouth hung open, and for a while, all she did was stare. “Yes.” I told her very confidently, even puffing out my chest a little, to completely convince her that what I told was the truth, and nothing but the truth. My mother stayed frozen for a few more seconds, then ran back to my father. Now, it was her turn to ignore the stepping stones. “Look what Kira did!” My mother shouted