The 50 Years War: Israel and the Arabs (2000)

Brian Lapping and Norma Percy

UK

300 min, color/B&W, English (dubbed where necessary)

An excellent, fair-minded, and balanced documentary about the incessant strife in the Middle East that has yet to be resolved to anyone's satisfaction, The 50 Years War concentrates on political events (mostly wars) and is choke-full of archival footage, revealing interviews with just about every principal participant, and is as unbiased as one can possibly get without being accused of some hidden agenda. It is quite long (5 hours) and is split into six 50-minute episodes ranging from the U.N. partitioning in 1947 to the breakdown of the Oslo Accords that began in 1998.

There is very little about the Israeli Defense Forces, which is somewhat odd given the social and political role the IDF plays in Israel. There is no glorification of combat either despite the stunning tactical and strategic achievements of that small army. In fact, the documentary very quickly disposes of fighting and jumps into the politics of negotiations (or shunning). One somewhat suspicious conclusion the film draws is that the Soviets precipitated the Six Days War by scaring the living daylights out of the Egyptians with warnings of bogus Israeli military preparations. As the film would have it, even the gallant Egyptian Minister of War could not stop that even though he did go to verify with his own eyes the total absence of any such preparation. While it is true that the Russians played their own little Middle East games, one can hardly conclude that without them Egypt would not have attacked anyway.

The film does show something that many would rather forget: the fact that the endless plight of the Palestinians has been prolonged by their own leaders and the surrounding Arab states, not just Israel. The film frankly depicts how the Palestinian extremists tried to take over Jordan and, having failed, how King Hussein drove them out for destabilizing the country. It then shows how they tried to do the same in Lebanon where they ran into the opposition of the Christians who had their own ax to grind with the Muslim Lebanese. So the Palestinians were driven out of there as well. Not to mention (and the film does not) that other Arab states strongly discouraged the refugees from settling permanently within their borders, both because they would be an expensive drain on the economies (at least for a while) and because they could still be useful against Israel.

One thing that probably becomes quite clear is that this unfortunate situation is really nobody's fault in the sense that the Europeans unloaded their guilty conscience into Palestine, causing the natives endless pain and suffering. (Well, I guess that actually does make the Europeans guilty.) But given the reality of Israel, the Arabs' continued efforts to destroy the state, with all the consequences of war, terrorism, and poverty, have not been constructive either. As a democracy, Israel is liable to extreme swings in policy because it all depends on the mood of the electorate and who they put in charge. It was startling to see such wide divergence in policy preferences (and actions) among the various leaders over the years.

Arafat will probably enter history as "The Smiling Terrorist," for it is quite funny that all footage with him is relentlessly upbeat, and he is always shown full of optimism. How he went from terrorism to state building will probably be a recurrent theme for historians in the future. Two revelations that were news to me were Yitzhak Rabin's reluctance and resistance to any sort of accommodation with the PLO, which, in view of events that followed and his own tragic death, is mildly ironic. The second was just how extremist Yitzhak Shamir actually was. I don't know about the Syrian delegates but I wanted to get up and spank him, he was that irritating. His interview is quite astonishing because he has lost none of his views either. To think that much more than the 1991 Madrid talks could have been achieved had someone else, like Shimon Peres, been in charge makes me nauseous.

Because coverage ends in 1998 (with Netanyahu), the documentary does not cover the al-Aqsa Intifada, the rise of militant Islam, or the spread of terrorism in the region. I would love to see this documentary extended to the current period.

August 14, 2003