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DOCAVIV 2022

Crítica: Tantura

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- El documental de Alon Schwarz explora la masacre a manos de las fuerzas israelíes en el pueblo árabe del título en 1948, tratando un tema tabú en una cultura del silencio

Crítica: Tantura

Este artículo está disponible en inglés.

Every year, there are several new Israeli documentaries dealing with various aspects of the occupation of Palestine. Now a massacre in the titular Arab village in 1948, during what the Israelis call the War of Independence and what the Palestinians call Nakba (“the catastrophe”), is the subject of Tantura by Alon Schwarz, which won the Research Award at Docaviv, following its world premiere at Sundance (see the news).

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The film is based on the research of Teddy Katz, whom we meet in a wheelchair after he has had several strokes, one of which he says was caused by the precise circumstances around his MA thesis at the University of Haifa in the late 1990s. Investigating the event shrouded in silence, he interviewed 135 Israeli soldiers and former Arab inhabitants of Tantura, which the army “depopulated” following the battle. Seven of the soldiers admitted to witnessing or committing war crimes, including executions, torture, rape and looting, only to retract their testimonies as the case blew up when news about the thesis was published in a daily paper. A trial ensued, and Katz was forced to sign an apology, without the judge (who is also interviewed in the film) having reviewed his tapes. Ostracised and demonised, Katz comes across as a tragic figure. His paper was removed from the university library, which, according to one of the Haifa professors, still holds copies of Mein Kampf.

Schwarz and his team went back and interviewed many of the surviving witnesses, and by combining these interviews with Katz's, a clear picture emerges. The film never says it outright, but even the attitude of those former soldiers who deny that any war crimes happened confirms there can be little doubt that the military operation was far from clean. And at least three of the soldiers bluntly say that they killed without qualms. An anecdote about what effect the torture and dismemberment of four Israelis had on the forces once again proves that it is difficult to establish clear-cut lines between what can be defined as combat or war crime.

One of the university professors, describing how the Tantura bloodshed was literally marketed as a PR stunt intended to portray the Israeli army as particularly moral by staging a “battle” for international journalists, including MGM newsreel makers, refers to the idea of Jews as an exceptional “Chosen People”. But this notion is hardly unique – every nation has used it to justify its war crimes, and every nation has its taboos and a culture of silence around them that individuals, often tragic ones like Katz, dedicate their lives to dispelling.

Tantura is an extremely well-researched film and is very competently put together, with numerous expert testimonies and priceless, previously unseen archive footage and photographs that leave little doubt as to what essentially happened, even if the exact details might vary. However, it remains just an important document that is insufficient to inspire a real reckoning. It was, and is always going to be, an uphill struggle, and every step is significant in its own right, but for many such small steps to add up and eventually lead to a national conversation, there has to be a political will to deal with the past on the official scale, and Israel is nowhere near it yet. Just like almost all other nations in history which have waged conquest-driven wars.

Tantura is a co-production by New York-based Reel Peek Films and Israeli broadcaster HOT 8.

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(Traducción del inglés)

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