#Documentary / Neta Shoshani 's 1948 – Remember, Remember not (Israel, 2023)

Original title: 1948: לזכור ולשכוח

What did "we" do in 1948 !?!?!?!

... The response of many Israelis to allegations of systematic sexual violence against Palestinian women during the 1948 war is often characterized by a dismissive and dehumanizing rejection. This reaction reflects a deeply entrenched Orientalist mindset, exacerbated by Trump-esque misogynistic attitudes (the infamous "she's not my type"), resulting in a profoundly pathological worldview.

The controversy surrounding the planned broadcast of Neta Shoshani's documentary "1948 - Remember, Remember not" on Kan11 in June 2023, and the subsequent objections raised by right-wing activists, epitomize the challenges faced by scholars and artists seeking to confront the nation's formative traumas. Such incidents raise fundamental questions about the boundaries of acceptable discourse and the role of state-funded media in either preserving or subverting dominant narratives.

Efforts to educate the Israeli public about the foundational sin - the creation of the State of Israel through the ethnic cleansing of historical Palestine during the Nakba - encounter significant resistance. This resistance stems, in part, from the concerted endeavors across various societal systems to criminalize discourse surrounding the #Nakba, perpetuating a culture of denial and obfuscation that hinders progress towards accountability and reconciliation.

Shoshani's award-winning documentary delves into allegations of the complicity of Israel Defense Forces soldiers and the Palmach militia in numerous instances of massacre, war crimes, sexual violence against Palestinian women, and extrajudicial executions of prisoners – atrocities purportedly committed under orders from the military command during the Nakba. The film further asserts that the State of Israel has engaged in a systematic effort to suppress and conceal these historical truths.

See interview with Shoshani on #Kan11 (right before the premier at the film festival). The movie uses alot of of previously unseen footage from the period. The first segment is the story told from a Jewish family perspective, while the second from the journal of Wasif Jawhariyyeh (واصف جوهرية), and renouned Palestinian educator Khalil al-Sakakini (خليل السكاكيني).

https://kolektiva.media/w/iXTc7vsxGVxoeBwkLz1gfh

Panel discussions [in Hebrew] following the film's premier:

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=aqt6EhPq_p8

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=7lxmFHxk6AA

From #DocAviv festival program:

Two films that form one work about the "War of Independence", operating on two axes. The axis of the past unfolds the course of the war through diaries and letters written in real-time - an ensemble of voices, Jews and Arabs, building a human story about the dramatic war and allowing a glimpse into the construction of the war consciousness and its memory on all sides. The voices are accompanied by rare archival films shot during the war, many of which are exposed for the first time.

On the axis of the present, figures struggling over the memory of the war are documented - researchers, archivists, and members of the military unit searching for missing combatants. Some are entrusted with preserving the ethos, others with breaking it. Each of them believes that the way in which the memory of the formative war is engraved has a critical significance for the present and even for the future of our lives here.

https://www.hcinema.org.il/%D7%93%D7%95%D7%A7%D7%90%D7%91%D7%99%D7%91-2023-%D7%94%D7%AA%D7%95%D7%9B%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%99%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%90%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%AA/

@israel
@palestine

* fixed some typos