"Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country." - The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 13)
"There are no innocents in Gaza. Mow them down." - Michael Ben-Ari
Israeli film director Yoav Shamir directs "Checkpoint", a fly-on-the-wall documentary which presents footage shot at several military checkpoints imposed both within Palestine and along Israel's borders.
The film, which possesses no narration, captures the psychological toll these checkpoints take on the more than three million Palestinians who live within the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Much of its footage consists of interactions between Israeli soldiers – bored, tired, struggling and often failing to maintain some semblance of humanity – and the Palestinians who are required to pass through these stops to go about their daily lives. Many of the incidents shown highlight how the checkpoints are designed to demoralise, dis-empower, humiliate, belittle, inconvenience, and psychologically brutalise the Palestinians. Frequently, large groups of Palestinians are detained at checkpoints for long hours, held for no reason other than to further cement their subjugation. And so we watch as women and children are hounded, mother's are forced to abandon their offspring, Israeli soldiers harass pretty Palestinian girls, Palestinians are humiliated at gunpoint, Israeli soldiers brag and refer to Arabs as "animals", and Palestinian detainees are made to stand in the rain/snow for hours whilst waiting for "permission" to cross checkpoints.
By now, Israel is renowned (and widely denounced) for the very sophisticated form of "soft" ethnic cleansing it employs. What "Checkpoint" does is put a human face on both sides of this knife's edge. Director Yoav Shamir was himself once a checkpoint guard, and so the film offers a certain nuance which someone with a one-sided agenda may not have captured. The Israeli soldier's aren't monsters, but the very position they are placed in makes them monstrous. "It's not my decision," they constantly insist, echoing the famous Miligram and Stanford Prison Experiments of the 60s and 70s (and several incidents at Abu Ghraib), in which situational or systemic factors are shown to mould individual personalities to such an extent that soldiers/wardens become increasingly violent, cruel and abusive, their actions even taking on a sexual turn (forcing prisoners to simulate sex acts or sodomy on one another etc). Meanwhile, the film puts a human face on Palestinians, whose plights are routinely ignored.
Interestingly, the checkpoints have made heroes of Palestine's elders. Whilst young Palestinian men are effectively neutered or rendered impotent by Israeli soldiers, fearing to speak up lest they be shot or charged, Palestine's elders, because of the stigma of abusing the elderly, are given a certain carte blanche. Much of the film involves elderly men and women standing up to Israeli soldiers, while youths stand by on the sidelines, fearful of retaliation.
Today there are over 700 "checkpoints" or "closures" in the West Bank. Seventy four percent of the main routes in the West Bank are controlled by checkpoints or blocked entirely. In addition to this, Israel has employed a complex system of roadblocks, gates, walls, and compulsory permits (echoes of WW2 era "Jewish Stars"). With the movement of Palestinians severely restricted, the Palestinian economy swiftly underwent one of the worst recessions in modern history – heightened due to new laws banning economic interactions with Israel - resulting in a chronic increase in unemployment and poverty. The checkpoints have also seriously affected Palestinian access to medical care and emergency medical treatment. Indeed, over the past few years, it is estimated that over a hundred and fifty deaths have resulted from soldiers stopping ambulances and patients. In addition to this, according to the World Health Organization, at least 69 women have given birth at checkpoints since the outbreak of the Second Intifada (between 2000 and 2006). Out of these 69 cases, 35 of the newborns have died, and a total of five mothers have also perished. Meanwhile, the numbers of checkpoints increase.
8.9/10 – Worth one viewing.
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