Customer Reviews

Occupation 101 - Voices of the Silenced Majority

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This film is a must-watch for all Americans with a conscience. It is devastatingly eye-opening in its portrayal of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, who are being brutalized by oppression. This may serve as future historical documentation of the sad events unfolding in the Middle East. Our children and their children and so on might some day look to this film for answers to the big question: "Why are they still fighting?" THANK GOD this film was made.

The interviews and testimonials were compelling, and more importantly, balanced. This DVD does not bias towards one side over the other. This is an extremely emotional topic for many people, and the filmmakers and producers did a tremendous job to be objective. The list of interviewees is impressive, as are their credentials. You can see why this film took over five years to complete. After watching the DVD, it will give you a better perspective on how this conflict is portrayed in the US media versus what is actually happening on the ground in the Palestinian territories. There are heart-wrenching scenes about the human tragedy unfolding to everyday people. The editing is superb and the 1 1/2 hours went by quickly. Anyone who regards themselves as fair-minded should watch this DVD.

This film is long overdue and should be a mandatory item in schools. It dispels the propaganda campaign that the pro-Israeli lobby has been so successful in creating since its military conquering of Palestine in 1947-1948. There is a great myth about how Palestine was an empty land before the recent flood of Jewish immigrants flocked to its shores. So how does one explain the 750,000 Palestinians forced to flee for their lives when the Jewish militias started destroying Palestinian villages?

Let the world hear the truth for once without all the filters of the Jewish-Israeli Lobby, then judge for them selves as to the who the real war criminals are. Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela have themselves said the Palestinians face a situation far worse than the black South Africans did under the racist white Apartheid system. Also, read Israeli historian, Illan Pappe's account in his latest book "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine" if you wish to know the facts of the creation of Israel and the simultaneous destruction of Palestine. Please see this film and read Illan Pappe' book...

This is by far the best documentary to detail the history of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. No B/S just facts and testimonies from experts and political activists. Whether you are an expert on the Middle East or just heard about it today, this DVD will paint a very clear picture and show you the other side of the story! The Palestinian side and even through some Israelis' words, which is very rarely seen in the US. I highly recommend this DVD even to the pro Israeli lobby! I dare you to watch it with an open mind and for once ask your self this question; What if the Palestinians weren't the ones who started this whole conflict after all?????

I have been involved with enlightening others about the truth of life in Palestine for years now. I kept watching this documentary with a critical eye and by the end of it I thought to myself, "Well, this is very biased. Perhaps a little more about the plight of Israelis and it would have been just right." I sat down to write this review with every intention of giving the documentary 3 stars. And then I took a minute to think about it and realized what a cynic I have become. If suffering was something that could be measured by physical means, the truth is that Palestinians would top the charts compared to Israelis. This documentary wastes no time in attempting to balance itself and, even though it seems biased because the statistics are so bizarre, sets out instead to tell the truth.

Also watch Peace Propaganda & the Promised Land: U.S. Media & the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict! Media Education Foundation 2-DVD Set. If you are to watch one documentary about the Israel-Palestine conflict, this should be it.

"Any violence by a large population is not because the people is more violent than any other. It's an alarm, it's a sign, it's a signal that something is wrong in the treatment of this population."

This blanket excusal of violence introduces Occupation 101, a film designed to evoke sympathy for Palestinians and contempt for Israel, which is currently being promoted to schools, churches and activist groups. What follows is ninety minutes of indoctrination. Scenes of squalid refugee camps, Israeli soldiers confronting protesters, despairing Palestinian mothers and teary-eyed children serve as a backdrop to well-rehearsed indictments of the Jewish state by a who's who of anti-Israel activists. Narrator Alison Weir and the producer/director team of Sufyan and Abdallah Omeish present a litany of anti-Zionist canards. The message throughout is that Palestinians are blameless victims while Israelis are entirely responsible for Palestinian violence.

Occupation 101's worst offense is its twisting of the history and facts of the conflict in order to equate the Palestinian cause with celebrated civil rights struggles around the world. Viewers are led to see the situation of the Palestinians as parallel to black South Africans under apartheid or southern blacks during the civil rights era. To pull this off, a decade of unprecedented terrorism directed at Israelis in their homes, cafes, vehicles and religious festivals is made nearly invisible, severing the connection between Israeli measures -- like house demolitions and sweeps through Palestinian villages -- and the Palestinian attacks that precipitated them. This is essential to the film's portrayal of Israeli actions as colonialist aggression rather than as a response to terrorism. The hate indoctrination that permeates Arab society and produces cadres of young Palestinian suicide bombers groomed in hatred, intolerance and rejection of peaceful coexistence is swept under the carpet.

A succession of film clips depict oppression in Northern Ireland, in Algeria, against black civil rights marchers in America and South Africa. Words of righteous indignation by Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela are juxtaposed with these scenes of violence. This culminates in footage of Israeli forces assaulting -- without a hint of context -- stone-throwing Palestinian protesters. The viewer is led to see the Palestinian cause as connected to a worldwide struggle for civil rights. But the viewer is being fed a lie, because the concept of equality and coexistence championed by civil rights leaders in South Africa and America is inconsistent with the Palestinian leaders' exhortations to violence.

The actual voices of many Palestinian leaders, as revealed by translations from Palestinian Media Watch and MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute), incite hatred and violence. For example:

"Because there are none who love the Jews on the face of the earth: not man, not rock, and not tree everything hates them...Everything wants vengeance on the Jews, on these pigs on the face of the earth," (Imam Sheik Ibrahim Madiras on Palestinian TV, Sept. 10, 2004, courtesy of Palestinian Media Watch.)

"We are waging a cruel war with the brothers of monkey and pigs." (Imam Mohammad Maadi on Palestinian TV, Sept. 12, 2004)

"The Jews are Jews...the Jews are a cancer that spreads inside the body of the Arabic and Islamic nation..." (Imam Sheik Ibrahim Madiras on Palestinian TV, Jan. 7, 2005)

Myth and reality, legend and history; these are the obstacles to understanding the Arab-Israeli conflict. The title of the documentary, `Occupation 101' is aptly chosen. The film work is an instruction tool mimicking a basic-level class whose first goal is to overwrite the biased and fatalistic perception of Israel and replace it with reality with the aid of modern footage, biography and current events.

The directors, Sufyan Omeish and Obdallah Omeish engage the viewer in a brief history of the region using frequent interviews with local human rights and peace activists, Israelis and Palestinians. The interviews tell the story of Israel's occupation of Palestine not merely from today's current `West Bank' and `Gaza' vantage point but that of the whole Zionist movement. Between the interviews and biographies of Palestinians struggling against occupation are film clips and photos, examples of Israeli brutality against Palestinians, not only from the IDF but from Israeli settlers in the occupied territories. The images destroy the filtered American media lens and the myth of innocent Israel against the aggressor Arab.

The interviews and subjects are clearly biased. There was little attempt to get both sides of the story... but it is one side of this very important challenge.

The film's objective continues by correcting numerous other misconceptions about Israel including: "Jews and Arabs have always been at war", "Israel's force is one of continual self -defense" and the misunderstanding of what it means to be an occupied territory.

Finally, the 2007 film questions current American foreign policies. The United States has been a huge, and at times, the only prop to Israeli power. The biased support to unrecognized Zionist agendas paints a warped picture of the conflict. The film's final push is a call to accountability. While the film may downplay the violent roles of many Palestinian movements the message implicates Israel as needing to be the responsible player. Israel's grossly excessive force could be restrained to encourage the peaceful coexistence of Palestine's occupants.

One could quibble about a lot of little things and, yes, as an earlier reviewer wrote, "It tells the story of the Palestinian side" rather than pretending to present both sides. But I have studied and written about the conflict and visited Israel and Palestine (West Bank and Gaza) and talked at length with people from just about every perspective, and I would have to say that the film is fundamentally on track. And this should not be surprising: occupation is terrible. As an American (and an American Jew), I can see no justification for our country's totally one-sided support of Israeli policies. Yes, Palestinian violence against Israeli civilians is wrong (and speakers in the film all say that), but (as the film also emphasizes) the core of the problem is occupation. President Obama needs to say that loud and clear. And I'd like to see PBS have the courage to show this documentary followed by a panel presenting arguments for and against.

Out of all the documentaries on the Palestinian and Israeli conflict, this has got to be one of the best documentaries I've seen so far, it was directed and produced by filmmakers Abdallah and Sufyan Omeish, and it's a very compelling and thought-provoking film. Occupation 101 is absolutely essential viewing for anyone interested in global peace or those who want to know exactly what life is like in these occupied territories like Gaza, The West Bank, Rammalah, Nablis etc. It tells the story of the Palestinian side and sets in perspective many other issues. The documentary very appropriately starts with the words "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge" and as you'll see in the documentary, that many people especially in the west don't get the true facts. It features some very well known voices supporting the Palestinian cause including Noam Chomsky, Paul Findley and author Rashid Khalidi among others. It starts right from the late nineteenth century when the Jewish population in the Palestinian regions was 3.2% and the rest 96.8% were Muslim and Christian Arabs. Then it navigates the timeline of how the Jewish population grew and how Israel was formed and later how the illegal occupation of the UN recognized lands has continued in the last sixty years since its formation, the Palestinian population was ethnically cleansed from the land when they were forced from their homes or fled in terror after all the massacres. Those 750,000 Palestinians and their descendants whom Israel made into refugees now are over 4 million people who languish in refugee camps where, as one refugee boy explains the walls crack when they are struck by Israeli missiles. It also shows some footage from the first and second intifada (uprising) from the westbank and other areas and how badly Palestinians were treated at checkpoints and how some of their homes were demolished so that more Jewish setllers could rebuild it and stay their illegally, this film however is not anti-Israeli as they do show the horrible suicide bombings done by Palestinians, an act that should be condemned of course so it's definitely not biased, both sides want peace but there obviously has to be a compromise. It also delves deep into the apartheid that is going on which by the way Jimmy Carter wrote about in his famous book `Peace Not Apartheid'. This of course is nothing new for me but for those who haven't known about the atrocities that Israel have committed in the past (since 1948) and still do this until today should be informed. So how does Israel get away with all of this? The film explains that not only does the international community do nothing to hold accountable Israel, the US actually provides more aid to this corrupt state than all of Africa and South America combined. "Everything Israel does in the occupied territories, US tax payers are paying for it" Noam Chomsky states and there is widespread Zionism which is explained in the film. Occupation 101 has already won eight awards in various film festivals across the country and is quite successful, alot of people right now have been concerned with this situation and the truth will eventually come out. So the documentary was very well made and informative even though it was abit too slickly produced but it does show how great and talented the filmmakers were and shows how fascinating and truly great the Palestinian people are. They have a right to defend themselves against these oppressive tyrants known as the Isra-hell army, LONG LIVE PALESTINE!.

It is a document you can use in your library collection with any regret. It is honest, true, and all what we need to help our kids, students, people learn about the situation in the Middle East instead of stumbling in our made-up curriculum that we use in our schools and libraries, and what our media want us to know or not know. I used this for my students and asked my kids to watch and learn. Since the first day I obtained it, it never stayed with me, but every student had watched it would recommend it to another to watch and enjoy. I said enjoy because learning the truth is always sad but enjoyable.