Becky Garrison at Killing the Buddah:
Julia Bacha’s film tells the woefully under-reported stories of how ordinary Israelis and Palestinians engage in nonviolent grassroots advocacy toward a more equitable future. After I saw her documentary Budrus at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival, I made an effort to clear my schedule to catch her short film My Neighbourhood when it screened at Tribeca this past spring.
Through the eyes of Mohammed El Kurd, a Palestinian boy growing up in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in the heart of East Jerusalem, we sense his anger and confusion when at the age of 11, his family is forced to share their home with Israeli settlers as part of a campaign of court-sanctioned evictions to ensure Jewish control of this area. As he comes of age, he joins in the peaceful protest against the evictions, where he finds himself unexpectedly side-by-side with Israeli supporters.
While the film doesn’t come to a Hollywood ending—this is life, not Los Angeles—real-life justice often doesn’t roll on like a river as per the prophet Amos. But I left the theater feeling a bit more hopeful that some good news does trickle down.
Said Netanyahu two weeks ago, “We will never accept a divided Jerusalem.” Last week he said, “Whenever the Palestinians’s put pressure on me to give in on this matter or on that, I will build more settlements in the West Bank.” Then he announced that another 800 illegal homes would be built in the occupied West Bank. In order to have a Palestinian state and an Israeli state Jerusalem must be divided West and East. The outlaw Netanyahu and his rogue state of Israel does not now, nor have they ever wanted Peace with anybody.