Disturbing the Peace

As a peace activist,had hoped it would be inspiring,but instead noted how easily can shape the narrative under guise of "promoting peace." Shown IDF soldiers juxtaposed to Palestinian civilians,"military might" vs mother/daughter snuggling. I wonder why Mr. Apkon chose to OMIT any images of Pal military. Was it an accident that Hamas/Islamic Jihad,etc were completely absent?! And all due to"the occupation"?- how explain the hatred,rejectionism and violence initiated by the Palestinians well before 1967??Makes soldiers appear buffoons vs. Puppet parade by wall seeking to limit suicide bombing. Wow.

You know the answer. Absolutely nothing ... and yet still even within a country you have people fighting each other. And how is it possible? If you brainwash people enough, if you tell them at school, at home, but especially from the head of state, that the "others" are the enemy, they are objects to be destroyed ... and when you see the news and think "an eye for an eye", then you get into a death spiral that is almost impossible to escape.

While the recent actions from USA (or rather the current President Trump), did nothing to help the situation - quite the opposite happenned with their actions ... people within the country, Palestinians and Israelis try to find a way to each other. I had heard from an organization that tried to bring victims together. So parents who lost their children, either by a terrorist attack or by the army, are not out for revenge, but try to break that cycle.

Whatever your take and whoever you think is in the right overall, the right thing would be to bury the hatchet. But the big question is how to do it? And is it possible for this movement to achieve what politics were not able to do? We will see ... and let's hope it does. For the people who live there foremost and have to endure this ...

On a purely factual level there's not a lot new in this documentary about striving for a just peace on both sides in Israel/Palestine – even for an interested lay person who follows the news with any focus.

But that doesn't keep the film from being both extremely important and deeply moving.

Seeing these men and women who had been filled with hate, ready to kill or die for their 'side', but who now fight for peace and understanding brings back memories of Gandhi, Martin Luther King and others who understood that we are all human, that we all grieve our dead and that our shared humanities are far more important than our differences.

We get to know elite Israeli soldiers who risk the hatred and contempt of their countrymen by refusing to fight in the occupied territories after witnessing the death and destruction they've caused. They refuse to be occupiers.

On the other side we meet Palestinians like the woman who was inches away from becoming a suicide bomber before coming to understand that the people she would kill would leave behind grieving mothers no different than those she sees all around her in Palestine. She refuses to be a terrorist.

And in these many stories of saying 'no' to violence, hate and death, 'yes' to kindness, empathy and working together towards understanding the film provides a tremendously powerful sense of hope – not only for this troubled region, but for the human species as a whole.

The film is about former enemy combatants--Israeli soldiers from elite units and Palestine fighters, many who have served years in prison--who have joined together to challenge the war mentality and say "enough". Their journeys from soldiers committed to armed battle to nonviolent peace activists lead to the creation of Combatants for Peace. Although the film deals primarily with the Israel-Palestine conflict, it's application is really universal. It is quite magnificent and we got to dialog with Stephen Apkon afterward, via Skype. He is an incredible human being, an inspiration to me. The film has wide distribution throughout the world and hopefully will become a template for the human race moving toward a peaceful co-coexistence. I highly recommend it and will see if I can buy it from Combatants for Peace.

"Disturbing the Peace" (2016 release; 92 min.) is a documentary about the Israeli-Palestine conflict. As the movie opens, we are told it is "West Bank, 2005", during the 2nd Intifada, and we get to know a couples of Palestinians and their hatred for Israel. We then switch to "Israel, 2005" where we get to know a couple of Israelis, and their hatred for Palestine. But a surprise awaits us: these individuals from both sides have agreed to meet. Is it a trap or a set-up? Or can they find a way forward that is radically new and different?

Couple of comments: this movie is co-directed by Stephen Apkon and Andrew Young. They document the humble but daring origins in 2006 of a movement that eventually became known as "Combatants for Peace", an Israeli-Palestine collaboration unlike any other. Along the way we get a thumbnail sketch of the Israeli-Palestine conflict over the years, as well as the surprising background of the core individuals of the CFB movement (including a Palestine woman who was just hours away from carrying out a suicide attack). The key moment in the film is a argument between a Palestine husband (a key member of the CFP movement) and his wife about the sense of it all and whether the CFP movement is the right way forward, while their 2 daughters (and we the viewers) listen in to the back-and-forth. Just watch! This documentary is essential and mandatory viewing to get the full picture of the Israeli-Palestine conflict, and how a small group is trying a different approach, trying to spread its message of peace and hope to a large audience.

"Disturbing the Peace" has been out for over a year, so imagine my surprise when out of the blue it opened at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati this weekend. Better late than never, I suppose. The Friday early evening screening where I saw this at was attended poorly (only 1 other person besides myself), and that's a shame. This is a movie that, like the message from the Combatants of Peace, deserves a wider audience. If you have a chance to check it out, be it in the theater, on VOD or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray, I strongly encourage you to do so.