Yulie Cohen Gerstel spoke to us from her home in Tel Aviv about the challenges of making My Land Zion and the reaction she expects it to provoke...
BBC Four: The credits say that the film was inspired by a book by Motti Golani, a friend of yours, who's also in the film. What was it about the book that led you to make the film?
Yulie Cohen Gerstel: The title of the book says it all - Wars Don't Just Happen. I have learnt so much from reading it, and it inspired the way I made My Land Zion. For example, I confronted my parents about their myth of the 1948 War. Motti defines it as two different wars. One was a civil war between Palestinians and Jews under the British mandate until they left Palestine. The second war he calls The 1948 War - the first war of the State of Israel against the Arabs - which was not "the few against the many" as we have been educated and told.
The mythology of my parents' generation is that they were fighting for their lives in the war of independence against the British and the Arabs, with their backs to the sea, to secure a homeland. After a lot of research I was forced to reassess my own convictions about the rightness or innocence, of the State of Israel. I had to face up to the history of the wars of Israel, new points of view regarding the Holocaust and the experience of Palestinian refugees who were evacuated between 1947 and 1949.
BBC Four: You talk very frankly to your parents in the film about the "myths" that Israel's been based on. Was this the first time you'd had such discussions with them? And how receptive were they to the film?
YCG: Yes, it was the first time that we discussed and confronted these "myths" which established the State of Israel. I believe that for my parents the filming and the final film has been a relief. They are 74 and it's part of a process they are going through of reappraisal; a positive inner change in their point of view, as they look back at their own history and that of the State of Israel. Being able to dispell their own myths by also admitting to their mistakes.
BBC Four: One of the key questions the film asks is whether you were right to move back to Israel from the US to bring up your daughters. What do you hope they will get from watching the finished film?
YCG: I hope that my daughters will explore and learn about the complexity of life in general and especially our life as Israeli-Jews in the State of Israel in 2004. How? By understanding the history of this Holy Land, its habitants for the last 160 years and the history of the Jewish people. It is complex and I don't have any clear answers, but I do believe in raising these dilemmas for my daughters, hoping that they will find their own answers regarding life, humanity, morality, justice and love.
BBC Four: Despite your dialogue with a settler, Ruthie Gillis, you clearly don't approve of them. Why not?
YCG: Since 1967 there have been 380,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza. This has been, I believe, the biggest historical mistake made by the governments of Israel. During my research for My Land Zion I discovered that after the 1993 Oslo peace accords, the Israeli authorities sent another 100,000 Jewish settlers to the West Bank. I then realised that there never was an intention to create a Palestinian State - which turns Israel into a sort of Apartheid state.
BBC Four: There's a line in the commentary when you say, "We Israeli Jews must immediately stop being an oppressive colonial state, even if Arafat lives forever." How do you think his death will affect Israeli-Palestinian relations?
YCG: The death of Arafat gives a new hope for Israelis; a chance for new negotiations towards an agreement. However, I don't trust my own government and their intentions. Having made My Land Zion, I now think the Israeli governments, throughout the 56 years of the State of Israel, wanted wars and were afraid of peace - Rabin was the exception, and that led to his assassination by a Jewish student. Today it is even worse because they want the "Greater Israel" and not the 1967 borders.
BBC Four: It was very clear from the reaction to your first film, My Terrorist, that your opinions are hard to take for some sections of the Israeli audience. I suspect this film will be no different. How do you cope with this hostility? Do you start to feel more like a campaigner than a filmmaker?
YCG: The hostility I receive is very hard for me, but I believe that I am struggling for my life here and for the better life of my daughters. I am not leaving, I am staying and I want to live in a better place than the one where we are now, which kills its children. As for my feelings as a campaigner and a filmmaker, frankly, I believe that every artist has (and should have) his or her agenda and it is revealed in our work.
printable version
