Arts and Culture 13 July 2014
Web developer and The Electronic Intifada contributor Benjamin Doherty has released this profound and horrifying new short film titled Death to the Arabs.
In it Doherty juxtaposes footage of Israeli missile strikes and sniper attacks against Palestinians in May through July of this year with Israeli demonstrations from the same time period calling for Palestinian extermination.
He organizes the footage around calls for “maavet la’aravim” (Hebrew for “Death to the Arabs”), though other less frequent chants, including “maavet la’smolanim” (“Death to the leftists” — referring to Israelis who oppose occupation and the current military attack to those who support Palestinian liberation), are also heard.
While two killings — the sniper shootings of two Palestinian teenagers in May — are shown in the film, there is no fetishization of mangled bodies nor lingering gaze upon bodily trauma.
To me the film is all the more powerful for it is this distance between the fact of the missile strike and the expectation of death that creates a haunting sensibility of doom when framed with the audio of “maavet la’aravim.”
While the demonstrators in the footage do not guide the missiles that actually bring maavet la’aravim — death to the Arabs — they narrate perfectly the footage of the assault undertaken by the Israeli government.
Further, Death to the Arabs brilliantly illuminates an ideological and practical connection — normally unorganized and very often though not always unspoken (look up Israeli lawmaker Ayelet Shaked for an example to the contrary) — between the grassroots Israeli extreme right-wing and the more “respectable” establishment parties like Likud, Yisrael Beitanu and Yesh Atid.
Alternately put, the Israeli government is doing what the right-wing mobs are demanding and Death to the Arabs illustrates it in the most haunting fashion.
Comments
Will you publish a version
Permalink voltairen replied on
Will you publish a version with subtitles as well?
Not sure
Permalink Jimmy Johnson replied on
I’ll forward your question to the filmmaker. Don’t know what his plans are.
Nope
Permalink Jimmy Johnson replied on
He says no plans to subtitle it. In truth it’s not a documentary in that way anyway. There is lots of terrific coverage here on EI (and elsewhere) that the footage (subtitled) of the Right-wing mobs already that documents the grassroots Israeli calls for genocide. Without purporting to speak for the filmmaker, this film has different goals than documentation.
Death to Arabs
Permalink Eitan Altman replied on
We start to get used to videos with "Death to Arabs" and "Death to Leftist" (indeed leftists have also been beaten this week in a demonstration to stop the war on Gaza). For a previous such video see https://www.youtube.com/watch?... It contains subtitles.
Another one is https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I therefore wanted to put the last video in an unusual context, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?... with the Ku Klux Clan. I mixed that video with clips from the Buttler.
We also start getting used to children killed in Gaza wars. I tried to express my horror to that in https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Video has been removed
Permalink Gaza replied on
Video has been removed by Youtube due to reports of "violent" content. forgetting that the video provides context to an on-going genocide. Please reupload to a better video hosting website, maybe LiveLeak.com which allows and keeps videos with graphic content.