Sir: In the wake of the shooting down of an
airliner and of a raid 150 miles into Lebanese territory to write about a film may seem trivial. However, it is part of the same situation.
Accompanying Robert Bolt's film Lady Caroline Lamb is a 'documentary' on Israel, with emphasis on the achievements of its Technion. Clearly meant to be an inspiring picture of a vigorous and progressive country full of promise, it is a grievously distressing example of insensitivity and truth distorted.
It is called Out of the Wilder ness. Obviously Palestine had not had the advantage available to Israel of advanced western technology and American aid; but it was well cared for: it had orchards, vineyards and factories. The Jaffa orange was famous long before Israel was born.
Only once were the indigenous
people of the country mentioned in the film, and then en passant. Their tragedy, which has been the concomitant of the establishment of the State of Israel, was totally ignored. Yet two-thirds of Palestinians now live in exile and poverty; and the land, the farms, and the properties of every kind from which they fled at a time of fighting, for which they have been offered no compensation, and to which they have pleaded again and again to return — in vain — are the basis of that material prosperity extolled in the film.
We are shown the high ugly blocks of flats built since 1967 on the crest of a hill overlooking the ancient city of Jerusalem ("city of peace "). The commentary fails to indicate that though they are for Jewish immigrants, they stand on expropriated Arab land, in occupied territory — a violation of the Geneva Conventions to which Israel is a signatory. Less than half a mile away, as I have seen on the spot, Arab refugees from the 1948 war still live in caves in the hillside. They do not feature in the film.
How transformed, how beautiful
even, those flats could look, if they were occupied by both Jews and Arabs on an equal footing! Instead of these "created facts" standing like an arrogant challenge, making peace more difficult, they would then themselves symbolise the necessary ingredients for peace.
This would surely be truer to the spirit of Judaism, which gave the world the Ten Commandments and the prophets, than much of what is happening now and certainly truer to it than what the promoters of this film seem to think important.
"Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field. And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever." (Isaiah 31, 16-17). Eleanor Aitken 63 Holbrook Road, Cambridge
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