Mahloul, A Palestine Journey
Voices from the front lines of the conflict in Israel and Palestine.

April 2009: The Living Theatre went to Palestine and Israel.
We visited refugee camps, social centers, woman centers, squats, villages and cities, city halls.
We did workshops and performances. Mostly we listened.

This documentary gives voice to the individuals and groups living on the front lines in this divided and suffering land. Featured are Israeli "Refusniks" and activists and artists in Tel Aviv and social workers, organizers and artists in Palestinian refugee camps. Heard also are the many voices and personal stories of the Palestinians and Israelis we met who express their hopes and fears in their daily struggle of survival and resistance.

Living Theatre actors also take their theatre into the streets of Tel Aviv and and East Jerusalem and the documentary follows the course of a political theatre workshop.

Maybe it’s a good thing, when a Victor Lierbermann, which is a really crazy, racist man will be elected foreign minister, and Netenyahu will be prime minister, then maybe all around the world, Obama, and especially European countries, will truly understand that we are such a racist country and we are acting in such a violent way to Palestinians living here in Israel, and also certainly to Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza, that they will boycott us, and eventually this thing will have to end. Just like South Africa.

Excerpt from a meeting with Israeli activists in Tel Aviv.

Director's note:
Even though Obama made a huge step forward acknowledging the problem of the continuing settlements of occupied territory in Palestine, the state of Israel has yet to take any concrete steps forward to halt or vacate Jewish settlements. To add insult upon insult the Israeli government has forbidden in Palestinian schools (those in Israel and the Territories) the use or discussion of the term El Nakbar (The Catastrophe) of 1948 when most Palestinians were forced to leave their cities, lands and villages.

These are a few of the more recent developments since we were in Palestine and Israel. Our documentary also explores another aspect of Obama's speech: that of a Palestinian state. The two state solution as opposed to a one state solution is a theme we hear discussed in first person from both sides of the walls (and fences). Our friends in the film represent both sides of this issue. What is clear however is that a two state solution cannot resolve the dire poverty and 'gulag' environment that now exists in Gaza and the West Bank, and the idea of one state practically ensures that democracy (or majority rule) would dismantle the economic and political power structures that exist now in Israel.

Thus these and other quagmires provide the backdrop of the film (for example, 'the right of return' for Palestinians living outside of their homelands and the more obvious but neglected issue of occupation, and the continued human rights emergency in Gaza). We have not offered any solutions other than those proposed by our friends. We do hope that we have given a face, and faces, to a crisis that is all to often faceless and impersonal as usually portrayed in the mass media.

Want to present the film at your local venue and have a fundraising event to support the groups presented in the film?
Write to Gary Brackett garyliving@yahoo.com

DVD's are also available.

To support this project and other projects of Living Theatre Europa please go to our "support" page at SUPPORT

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RIP Juliano! (Jenin April 1, 2010) Only cowards resort to violence; the brave create!

I hope we are going to start a new Intifada soon. And we hope that this intifada will be shooting with cameras, with poetry, with values, with theater.
This the Israelis cannot kill. With M16s; this the Israelis cannot crush with tanks. We are going to march to the wall with music, we are not going to let these Israelis use our guns against us. And we hope that The Freedom Theatre will be a part of this cultural intifada, or resistance, if you want to call it.
Juliano Mer Khamis from MAHLOUL, A Palestine Journey