It was calm. There were no clashes in Palestine at the
time we started to plan our trip to Palestine in the beginning of 2015. In
summer the daily temperature in Palestine rises over 40C, so we decided to
shoot our documentary in autumn, when the weather in Palestine is cooler and
tolerable for Estonians, the olive picking season also flattered us.
We
communicated with the Estonian NGOs, which have mediated volunteers to
Palestine. As a result we became friends with Estonian volunteers who had
worked in Palestine before. Using Skype and Facebook we made friends with
people from Palestine, with the possible participants for our documentary,
throughout spring and summer.
It
was restless and bloody, the tensions between Israel and Palestine had rose to
a high level, while the trip, we had planned earlier, actually started October
10th.
The wave of Palestinians knife attacks towards Israeli
soldiers and settlers started in October - during one month Palestinians killed
11 Israelis, mostly using knives. On the other hand, Israeli forces shot dead
66 Palestinians in October. The frustration in Palestinian society has
accumulated through the decades. The Israeli occupation and building of Israeli
settlements at the West Bank continues, peace talks got stuck, the concrete
barriers and checkpoints separate people from their work, families and the
world outside.
This
time the clashes were detonated by rumours that Israel plans to take over Al
Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem which is a holy place for Palestinian Muslims. There
is a lively discussion among Palestinians if these clashes are the start of the
third intifada (third uprising) or not. Most commentators point out that this
time Palestinians use knives and stones instead of guns and bombs. There is no
organisation behind the attackers, they are not connected to any movement and they
act on personal initiative. This is different from the previous uprisings.
We can not bypass Palestinians fight for their freedom
and the conflict between Israel and Palestine while making a documentary about
development cooperation in Palestine. This feeling got support from the real
life we saw in Palestine while we arrived. So we started shooting and finding
the answers to questions: How the conflict and isolation affect different
generations in Palestine? What is the role of EU development cooperation in the
Palestinian communities, does it have any effect at all, if Israeli government
fails to alter its policies towards Palestine?
Our team – author Arp
Müller, director Mati Kark,
cameraman Priit Vehm – arrived to
the capital of the Palestinian Authority, to Ramallah October 11th. On our way
we saw through our eyes and through the camera lens tall and grey concrete
walls, kilometres by kilometres, separating the communities. We saw fires made
of old tires, Palestinian youngsters throwing stones towards Israeli soldiers
and soldiers shooting tear gas grenades and rubber bullets near the checkpoints
and Israeli settlements all around Ramallah. At the same time quite normal life
continued at the centre of Ramallah – girls and boys were jogging ignoring the
smell of tear gas which covered the whole city, men and women were chatting and
spending time at the bars and drinking beer. Young Estonian women – Maarja,
Helle-Mari and Helena – helped us to adjust in this environment.
We
had an opportunity to join with the press trip organised for German journalists
by EU representation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. I would like to
express my thanks to communications officer Shadi Othman from EU representation
who has helped several Estonian journalists during their visits to Palestine.
With a help of a 3 day fully scheduled press trip we
got huge amount of information and different views about the social and
political situation in Palestine. We met the director of the Media Center of
Palestinian government Ehab Bessaiso, we met the former presidential candidate
Mustafa Barghouti and we made acquaintance with Jalazone refugee camp from
1948. We attended excursion headed by the former Israeli soldier, front-man of
Israeli NGO Breaking The Silence Nadav Weiman to the former main market street
of Hebron, where Palestinians are now prohibited to walk. It is worth to
mention that our excursion fell under the attack of Israeli settlers who kicked
our cameraman with a leg. We were shown several projects of EU development
cooperation – for example advancing the rights and living conditions of
Palestinian inhabitants in Eastern Jerusalem; for example cow farm, dairy house
and community center at the village Beit Duqqu. Some young Palestinian
journalists also attended the press trip. We experienced the everyday tragic
through communicating with them. We saw, how reacted Young radio journalist
Rama, while she read news from social network that one of her best friends has
committed an attack toward Israelis and as a consequence was shot dead.
We
moved forward from Ramallah to the small city Tubas at the north of Palestine.
It is much more conservative area than Ramallah. All the women of Tubas cover
their hair, You can not buy alcohol from the shop. We were greeted by a local
peace activist and school headmaster Yalal Khudairy, an agriculture businessman
Mohammad Shraim and a lawyer and basketball coach Abedalraziq Dragmah. These
men founded NGO Al Okhuwa and made cooperation with several volunteer English
teachers from Estonia. Our initial plan, while we were still in Estonia, was to
go with a camera to the local school and follow the children learning English
with the teacher from Estonia. At the last moment it came out that the
volunteer from Estonia who planned to continue the project in Tubas this
autumn, did not have an opportunity to make it, because of organisational
obstacles. Ministry of Education of the Palestinian Authority also rejected our
appeal to shoot a documentary at the Boys Elementary Shool in Tubas. This was a
fallback for us.
At this point our team made a decision to depict the
situation in Palestine through the short stories, through short essays. We
decided to tell a story of a peace activist and school headmaster, who lost his
brother and sister by Israeli bomb 1967, but despite joining a terrorist
organisation for revenge he started a peace organisation and talks about the
need for conciliation. We tell about the children who were born in refugee camp
and who throw stones at Israeli soldiers.
We will tell a story about Jayyous farmer Shareed
Khaleev. He is famous, because he won Israeli state at the Israeli Supreme
Court. The state of Israel was forced to demolish and move to another place so
called security wall which did not let him to harvest his olive trees. At his
farm we also met a Jewish volunteer Anat Zohari who helps Palestinian farmers
at the olive picking season every year in order to show that not all Israelis
support the occupation at the West Bank. Anat explained us, how Israelis also
would benefit if the occupation at the West Bank would end.
We decided that through this kind of stories we can
explain to the TV-watchers, why the member states of EU support Palestinians
with more than billion euros annually. Through this kind of personal stories we
will explain, how does the support from the EU and Estonia, money and
development cooperation programs, affect local people. We would like to achieve
that after watching our documentary no viewer will blame our government because
of sending money and people to help Palestinians. We will show Palestinian
people's experience and hopes connected to the ongoing EU development projects.
On the last week of our trip we came back to
Jerusalem, where we had several appointments and interviews, for example with
the head of EU representation in the West Bank and the Gaza strip Ralph Tarraf.
Throughout our preparations in Estonia and trip in Palestine we tried to find
also any Israeli settlers from West Bank settlements (considered illegal by UN
and EU) who would agree to talk with us in front of the camera. At last we
succeeded and visited and interviewed a rabbi at Alon Shvut settlement.
In the end of our trip we have
almost 30 hours of material. Day before flying back through Tel Aviv Ben Gurion
airport we rewarded us with couple of hours sunbathing and swimming at the
beach of Tel Aviv.
