Ajami is a neighborhood on the south side of Tel Aviv, Israel’s largest metropolitan area; many Arabs reside there and there is a high crime rate involving drugs and violence. This movie mainly interweaves events depicted from each of the perspectives of three young Muslim Arabs working at a restaurant in Ajami, a Christian Arab who is very influential in the community, and an Israeli police officer. Therefore, even though the same events are depicted, each person’s viewpoint of the event looks different.

Because of the conflict of nineteen-year-old Omar’s uncle with a Bedouin gang, the gang swears to get revenge by targeting the lives of Omar and his younger brother Nasri. Omar requests that Abu Elias, a friend of the boss at the restaurant Omar works at and an influential person in the Ajami neighborhood, have the conflict settled in a Bedouin courtroom, but the court demands a large sum for the settlement (about $50,000 to $100,000); Omar fears he will be killed if he can’t pay this.

Sixteen-year-old Malek is from the West Bank, an autonomous Palestinian territory adjacent to Israel, but crossed the border and is staying as an illegal laborer secretly working at the restaurant in Ajami. He needs approximately $70,000 in order to pay for his mother’s cancer treatment. Abu Elias loves him and gladly covers part of the expenses, but Malek worries how he will come up with the remaining expense.

Binj is a caring, cheerful cook in his twenties, but after his younger brother kills a Jewish citizen and runs away, Binj worries about what to do with his brother’s illegal drugs he is left with. After narrowly passing a household search by the police, Binj throws away most of the drugs and decides to put flour in the bag that held the drugs to look like drugs. However, as a result of snorting the remainder of the drugs, he overdoses and dies.

The Israeli police officer Dando discovers the dead body of his younger brother who had gone missing, and suspects that his younger brother was murdered by an Arab.

Abu Elias is Christian, a minority among Arabs. He, having helped Omar with his predicament, becomes angry when his daughter and Omar get involved romantically since he does not approve of love between a man and woman of different religions.

Malek and Omar discover white powder that they believe to be drugs in Binj’s apartment and attempt to sell the drugs to a drug dealer, but in fact the drug dealer is an undercover Israel police officer and Dando is also watching while concealed. Dando notices that Malek has a high-end watch that looks like the one that belonged to his deceased younger brother and gets very angry.

It is completely different what happens after this, depending on each viewpoint. Also, Malek and Omar have an incorrect idea regarding Binj being killed and who killed him, and this leads to tragedy.

This movie depicts the suffering of Palestinians and their society, but since they are citizens living within the Israeli area, they have different problems than Palestinians living in the autonomous Palestinian district West Bank. I think this point is uniquely depicted in this movie.

I believe there are three things necessary to live happily as a human. One, a loving family; two, friends (social support); and three, a job (economic strength).

All the families that appear in this movie are full of love in their own way. They are not perfect, but each parent wants to protect their children at any cost and the children think cherishing their parents is most important. Even if this loving feeling is universal for humans, the family is a single unit for Arabs. When one person within one family commits a crime or makes a mistake, it becomes the crime of the whole family. In addition, the mother is strong and loving within her family, but because she doesn’t understand the society that has become dominated by males, she can’t handle serious matters so all difficult decisions fall to teenagers Malek and Omar as the “patriarch”.

Social support means friendships, community support, as well as the protection by the power of the government. The Palestinians living in Palestine territories like the West Bank district are surrounded by Palestinian brothers and can fall back on the country of Palestine that is able to protect them even if there is political instability. However, Palestinians living in Ajami cannot rely on Israel, the country they live in. The gangs, even though they are Arabs, target the lives of other Arabs. Because the Israel police don’t intervene in such disputes between Arabs, these people must find a solution within their own community, but this is not easy. Unless they have relatives and friends in Palestine’s West Bank district, escaping to there is not an option. These people with nothing in common except being called Palestinian are not friends. For Palestinians living in Ajami, the only support network is made up of their relatives and any friends made there.

Even if blessed with family and friends, you can’t survive with that alone. In order to survive, you need some occupation in order to eat. Even as an Arab, there are decent opportunities to get a higher education and a job in Israel. As an extreme example, Scandar Copti, a Christian Israel citizen of Palestine descent and one of the two directors of this movie, received a higher education and was able to become a popular movie director.

When this movie was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, director Scandar Copti said, stirring up controversy, “This movie represents Israel. I am an Israeli citizen, but I don’t speak for the Israeli government because I can’t speak for a government that doesn’t represent me. I am not a team member representing Israel.”

The Israel Cabinet Minister of Culture and Sport, Limor Livnat, said in response, “He wouldn’t have been able to make this movie without Israeli financing, much less walk the red carpet of the Academy Award ceremony. All the other people involved in making this movie think of themselves as Israeli citizens.” Also, Israel’s Legal Forum insisted, “If director Copti doesn’t withdraw his remark, this nomination should be withdrawn. Director Copti should have considered more carefully before receiving money from Israel.” Israeli director Menahem Golan also stated, “I wish director Copti had more respect towards investors. He should at least respect the people who worked with him.”

Director Copti doesn’t want to lose his identity as a minority in Israel, and perhaps he didn’t want an easy solution of “just being nice” for the conflict between Israelis and Arabs. However, I hope director Copti doesn’t forget about the opportunity he has been given as a new superstar in the movie world to improve the situation of Palestinians in Israel. I hope he will not be swayed by words like, “If you hate the people of Israel, don’t accept their money,” or, “Leave if you hate this country.” I hope he can say with an artist’s enthusiasm, “I will keep getting money and keep making better work; I will change history by making movies that can improve the Arab situation.” At least I think he is blessed with talent and opportunity to do so.

日本語→

Paradise Now—a 2005 collaborative movie between France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Palestine—depicts Palestinian problems from the point of view of Palestinians, focusing on two young Palestinian suicide bombers. Director Hany Abu-Assad is a Palestinian who was born in Nazareth, Israel, and immigrated to the Netherlands when he was 19 years old.

This movie takes the stance that young suicide bombers aren’t monsters at all and that they are ordinary young people. Said and Khaled, two young men given this mission, live without hope in the West Bank in Palestine and turn to terrorism, believing that they can get to paradise by participating in terrorist activity. Khaled is a loser who keeps getting fired from his jobs, and feels that the only way to become a hero is to die as a suicide bomber. His close friend Said is smart and popular with girls, but, since he has the past of his father being executed by fellow Palestinians as a “traitor” for being part of a pro-Israeli faction, he believes he must die as a hero in order to remove the dishonor on his family name.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict originated from the United Kingdom’s three-pronged diplomatic strategy that had the purpose of strengthening the UK both during and after World War I. The first prong was the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence in 1915 against the enemy Ottoman Empire; the United Kingdom promised the Arabs under Turkish control independence in exchange for armed uprising against the Ottoman Empire. The second prong was acquiring financial support for the war from the Rothschild’s, a wealthy Jewish merchant family; to do so, the United Kingdom issued a letter of support for the establishment of a Jewish nation in 1917 through their Foreign Secretary Balfour. The third prong was the Sykes-Picot Agreement; the United Kingdom covertly negotiated with their allies, France and Russia, regarding the division of the Middle East region after the Great War. In the end, the Arab and Jewish armies, together as part of the British army, fought the Ottoman Empire in World War I, and Palestine (containing current Jordan) became mandated territory of the United Kingdom.

After World War II, the United Kingdom chose to give up Palestine, a land rife with political instability, and entrust the intermediation of this problem to the United Nations. In the United Nations General Assembly on November 29, 1947, the UN Resolution 181 that proposed that Palestine be divided—56.5% given to a Jewish nation and 43.5% toward an Arab nation—and that Jerusalem be under international control was approved with 33 for it, 13 opposed, and 10 abstentions. However, in February 1948, the Arab League nation members voted in Cairo against the founding of an Israeli nation, and the antagonism between Jews and Arabs in this land became very serious. When the United Kingdom’s mandate over Palestine ended in May 1948, the Jews, based on the UN Resolution 181, declared their independence on May 14, and the nation of Israel was formed. Simultaneously, a large army consisting of five nations of the Arab League (Egypt, Trans-Jordon, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq) invaded Palestine with the goal to prevent their independence, and the First Arab-Israeli War began. The Arab side, which was expected to be victorious, failed to wield its full power due to internal disunity. Israel, after a hard-fought battle where 1% of their population died in action, came out victorious, and 700,000 to 800,000 Arabs who lived on Palestinian land became refugees. Continuing until today, many conflicts have happened on this land including several Arab-Israeli Wars.

In 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was formed with the objective of liberating Palestine from Israel’s control. In 1993, based on the Oslo Accords between the PLO and Israel, the Palestine Authority was established. This is an autonomous government that is split into the West Bank between Jordan and Israel, and the Gaza Strip on the northeast side of the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt.

The setting of this movie is the West Bank on the Jordan River. The future of this area is unpredictable, but currently, there are three districts in the West Bank: one district where the Palestine Authority has administrative power as well as control over the police, one where the Palestine Authority has administrative power while the Israeli army controls the police, and one where the Israeli army has administrative power as well as power over the police. Particularly in the third area, everyday life for Palestinians is highly restricted, with everything including home or school construction, well digging, and road building needing permission from the Israeli army. In all three areas, it is possible for Israel to prohibit transit for Palestinians.

It is clear that director Hany Abu-Assad, as a Palestinian, is addressing the situation Palestinians are in, but this movie is not political propaganda. His way of filming this movie is very cautious and he includes humorous scenes; his goal seems to be for the audience to know the true face of the West Bank territory. His philosophy is perhaps most like that of Suha, the fleeting love interest of the protagonist Said. She is the daughter of a hero of the independence movement, was born in Paris, raised in Morocco, and returned to the West Bank. She opposes violent conflict, and she tries to persuade Said to abandon revenge and implement peace in the Palestinian district by means of a nonviolent human rights movement, but this sentiment fails to reach Said.

At the beginning of the movie, there is a scene depicting a young Israeli soldier menacingly checking Suha’s luggage at a checkpoint on her way back to the West Bank. However, at the end of the movie, there are young Israeli soldiers, much like the one in the first scene, on the bus that Said is riding in order to suicide bomb, but the soldiers on the bus are young men with beautiful smiles and look very kind. They are really beautiful young men. However, these young men are to die soon with Said. This movie is not propaganda saying which side is right or wrong, and I feel the director’s wish for the audience to know the true face of Palestine as best as possible without prejudice.

日本語→