Promised Lands

Could have been so much more interesting to see film of Israel in the early 70s with good interviews. Instead we get interviews with nobodies rambling on, and random images, many of which drag on too long and are totally uninteresting. I could have done better myself with a hand-held camera.

Promised Lands is both an Israeli propaganda film and an antisemitic film.

It was created with a random walk through Israel circa 1968 filming random things, interviewing random anonymous people, and watching ordinary Israelis, mostly soldiers, going about their business. Then the audio clips and video clips were thrown on the floor, then picked up in random order and spliced to form the movie. It other words, it has no structure and the audio usually has little to do with the video.

The basic theme is that Israel is a 100% innocent victim. Arabs hate Jews for no reason, the same as the Nazis. Arabs are worthless stupid people. Their only hope is to rub shoulders with Jews hoping some of their wonderfulness will rub off. It portrays Jews as smug and conceited.

The film carefully avoids the reason for Arab hostility namely the invasion of Palestine in 1948, the setting up of an apartheid state, the confiscation of their lands and the genocide of the Palestinian population.

I think the reviewer above is bringing too much of his own garbage to his review. This innocent crudely edited movie has tremendous historical value. The movie was made my an American film maker. It only made about $1,000. How could it be propaganda? One of the unidentified interviewees summed it quite well. For Israelis the 73 war and the Arab's threat to drive Israelis into the sea was Auschwitz all over again.