Wednesday, October 31, 2007
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Erasing the Distinction Between Innocence and Evil
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Posted by:
Michael Medved at
9:06 PM
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On November 1st, HBO presented a new documentary called “To Die In Jerusalem: Two Daughters Lost in Conflict.” According to promotional materials, the film portrays two seventeen year old girls as they “die in a Jerusalem market, their mothers confront each other, revealing a microcosm of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the complexity of reconciliation.” Like the infamous Newsweek cover that inspired it, this documentary treats both girls – Palestinian Ayat al-Akhras and Israeli Rachel Levy – as victims of “faith or fate that brought each of them to the end of her life in such a tragic manner.” Appallingly, the filmmakers blur the distinction between murderer and victim, evil and innocence. The Israeli girl went to the market to buy Sabbath supplies; the Palestinian girl went there to murder strangers in a homicide bombing. The publicity for the film also downplays the security guard killed alongside the girls, and the thirty bystanders wounded in the blast. The real reason for the “complexity of reconciliation” is that the mother of the bomber, encouraged by a society that praises her murderous child as a heroine with posters and commemorations, now feels “hesitant pride” in her heinous act. Ignoring the gigantic moral gulf between crazed killer and blameless target doesn’t advance the cause of peace, but perpetuates the ignorance and blindness that faciliates continued terrorism.
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