With us tonight, I'm delighted to be welcoming Interphone, who is joining us from the Department for Development Studies and of course, having done a brilliant undergraduate degree at Oxford. Our friendship dates back to that. And Ed will be here to introduce our speaker and lead the discussion with Julian. Now, you've all had the chance to view the film. And so I hope that you've come with your questions and can put them directly to the director.
But now, without further ado, if I could hand over to and take over. Thank you very much, Eugene. And thanks to everyone for coming to join us today, especially when so many of us are suffering close to Zoom's fatigue as we get to the end of time. So, as Eugene said, the focus for this evening is really the opportunity for all of you to speak directly to Jilian, to ask your questions and to share your thoughts and comments on this very thought provoking and informative film.
How we're going to organise this evening is I'll introduce Gillian in a moment. She'll speak for a few minutes. Give us an overview and an introduction to her work and how she came to make this film and anything else she would like to share. And she and I will then have a brief conversation for a few minutes. And then we welcome and invite all of you attendees to submit your questions by simply entering there in the Q&A box.
And you can start doing that almost immediately so we can get through as many as possible. But now, without further ado, I will introduce Gillian. So as some of you will already have seen, Gillian Mosley is a first time director who has spent much of her working life producing documentaries for television during this time, her passion to make films with a strong social purpose and which is hybrid genres to connect different worlds, has grown, as has her interest in independent film.
Gillian has created, developed and produced high end documentaries for the BBC, Channel four, ITV, PBS, Discovery History, amongst others. Quite an impressive list. In 2017, Gillian produced her first feature documentary, Manola The Boy Who May Choose Benefits. But of course, she is here this evening to speak about her latest documentary, The Tinderbox Out. Gillian. Over to you. Thank you, Anne, and lovely to be here.
So I thought I'd just start with a little bit of an overview of how I came to make the film. I had decided that I really wanted to try and make a film that made a difference and a film that was close to my heart. And as a Jew who became very close friends with a Palestinian at quite an early age, Israel Palestine is a place situation that I have long been hyper aware of and have spent a lot of time travelling through, scratching my head about and talking to people a basin.
Several things struck me. First of all, many friends, particularly here and in the States, who have asked me on a number revocations to explain to them the situation in Israel and Palestine. And I think there's a fair amount of either fatigue or just complete confusion around the issues that surround Israel Palestine, which is understandable because, of course, it is complicated.
But when I went to look for a film that I could recommend that could encapsulate the situation fairly quickly, I couldn't find one. So rather than refer my friends to 700 page tomes, which I've read and enjoyed, I, I thought I'd make that film. So the tinder box is my best attempt to show people who know nothing what is going on there. And as you will see, it's very history driven. Much of my career has been as a historical filmmaker.
History is a complete passion of mine. And I strongly believe that any situation or almost any situation we find ourselves in today will be far easier to understand if we give it its historical context. And Israel Palestine is absolutely that story, not least because probably in most places other than where I'm sitting right now, this story seems to have been lost in the mists of time. And certainly here in Britain, very few people that I speak to realise what sort of role Britain played in.
You know, the events that continue to play out to this day. So that is the reasoning. And I also feel that or believe strongly that it's critical that people take this context into account when trying to. Address the situation in any positive manner. And a lot of the quote unquote, solutions that we've seen in the last. Twenty thirty years seem to me perhaps not to take this context into account as well as they might. So film can punch through. It can get into the mainstream narrative.
And I was certainly fervently hoping that this one does so that people actually start to talk about how and why this all started happening and how that relates to today and indeed how that then shows us how we might be able to unpick some of what's happened. And move forward. And I think that's probably why I want to say at the moment to please ask questions.
Thank you very much, Julian. And I'm obviously talking about the importance, the critical importance of history is music to my ears as a historian. I'm sure the same goes for Eugene as well. I'm delighted to see we've already got questions actually starting to come in from the attendees. Just a reminder, you can post them in the Q&A box. If you haven't already. But before we get to those, I just have a couple of things I wanted to chat to you about myself.
I mean, as you just said, so much of this film is engaged with and centred around the longer trajectory of the situation in Israel Palestine today. And one thing you say, I think, quite early on is that it dates much further back than you had initially realised. I'm curious to hear in terms of your own reflections now having having done so much research and having made this film, how do you think we we might perceive the situation today differently if we do take this longer historical view?
Oh, Beston, to start your very small points. There are different ways. So I'm actually going to start. Not in Israel. In Palestine and I'm going to start in BRISON. And it's ironic in no small measure that we are looking at a period where. There is discussion around our colonial legacy on a number of levels with certain people in the government, certainly having suggested several years ago that we must return to the sunny uplands.
And one has to assume that those are our empire. I'm not quite sure what else they're referring to. And then, of course, last year, we had a lot more discussion around dealing with our colonial legacy. So I think here in Britain, it's really important to understand what our colonial legacy produces. And, you know, Israel Palestine is such a good example because so much continues to happen to this day. So, yes, I think that's that's probably my.
My answer, yes, yeah, I know, absolutely, and it's very it's very effective in the in the film how you very deliberately trace it far back beyond the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, when you look at its roots really beyond that. Something else I was thinking as I watched as I watched the film, was it so much of the politics around this issue and the contentions around it get really entangled with with who gets to speak and whose voices are heard as well?
And obviously, there's a lot of power inequities caught up in that. So one thing I was curious to hear about for you as a filmmaker and to some degree as a storyteller, how did you choose whose voices to feature? You speak to several individuals in this films. How did you approach who you wanted to include and maybe who you were going to end up excluding? Well, that was I mean, that was actually an incredibly interesting process.
So I started with my own red line, which is that I didn't want to include anybody who is actively, as far as we are aware, perpetrating violence at the moment. So that was the parameter. But beyond that, I did. I was originally looking for archetypes and I certainly found them within Israel, but within Palestine it was actually harder. So, you know, originally I thought I was going to get myself a left wing Jew, a right wing Jew, a left wing Palestinian and a right wing Palestinian.
And the the Jews, as I said, came fairly quickly and easily. And, you know, they are who they are. And in Palestine, I don't know, you know, how you would define the people I spoke to. But what I discovered is, is pretty much everybody that I was talking to. Without going to great lengths to find people who were different from them, had very similar views about this subject, which is certainly not the case with the Israelis.
So that was a real learning curve for me. What I didn't do, and I'm very aware I didn't do it, is I didn't go into Palestinian villages. You know, I was mostly in cities. And had I gone into Palestinian villages, maybe I would have gotten a different view. Was there any particular reason you did it or was it more kind of practical restraints? It was more practical and yeah, it was more practical logistical issues. I'm kind of a related question.
Something else that came to me when I was watching is something I think anyone who engages with this area grapples with. I know I definitely grapple with this in my research, in my teaching is the fact that this subject is so controversial that even the very words you use can be loaded and can be seen to be significant.
Right. The very terminology is contested. So it's curious again, how did you approach that and how did you grapple with it when choosing what kind of language you were going to use very carefully? I mean, there's one section of the film that I think was actually rewritten 17 times. And, you know, we've come out of this and it will not surprise you to know that I have been both lauded and abused by both sides,
not by people from by side. So, you know, I've had to scream at me, ask me if I'm worried about my safety and others who love it. And I've had Palestinians who've said this is the film all Palestinians have been waiting for and others who've said no Palestinian will ever watch this film. So for somebody who's used to making broadcast shows, that's actually a way in as far as I'm concerned, because as long as we're offending everybody equally, then I think I've done my show out of curiosity.
And obviously, I don't have to tell us that. What was the section that was ratio 17 took off? Hamas and Hezbollah? Yes. I am going to go to a question from the attendees. Now, please do continue to post them in the Q&A box and then I'll I'll chip in as we go through the question from Chenda AM, a pilot who is MSA student in migration studies in the Department of International Development.
And he asks, How do you think your positions as a British Jewish woman differ from those of Israeli Jews who live with the Israeli Palestinian dynamic in their day to day? And did you feel any resentment from Israeli Jews who might feel that your parachuting in from outside to pass judgement on their livelihoods, land situations? So, I mean, that's an interesting question, because there are lots of things that I learnt about Jews while I was making this film that I hadn't necessarily known.
So on I don't particularly practise anymore. And we I grew up in the States and so I stopped going to synagogue care when I was about 10 other than in summers. And so I hadn't quite appreciated how conservative the British Jewish community is until I started making this film. And now I know that's not to say that they're all conservative. And obviously, you know, I, I know a lot, too, who are not.
But, you know, certainly the synagogue where I grew up, where, you know, my forefathers were chief rabbis and translated the prayer book into English for the first time are not receptive to the messages in this film. So that was that was a bit of a shock. And in Israel, I found the opposite, actually. I found a lot of people who were quite willing to go there. And in a way, we're more chilled about the situation. But there is a caveat there.
And the caveat is that even the most left wing Jews were. Asked me if I was worried about my security when I was sort of wandering around the West Bank and, you know, we had some Israeli partners and when I asked if we could go into Gaza, they just said, no, no, no, definitely not too difficult. Well. So, you know, I knew I probably had way too much material for this film anyway, so I didn't push that.
But I think the separation wall, unfortunately, has done way too good a job of on making it difficult for people to actually see each other as people, regardless of whether they agree with Israeli governmental policies or not. And that's very sad. Eugene, your your hand is up. Never one to miss the opportunity to put a question to a filmmaker. Jillian, I really enjoyed the way that you brought archival footage.
The artistry of your editing, though, is when you have archival footage with contemporary footage running the very same kind of images of soldiers going down the street. But it's you know, it's really soldiers here, British soldiers there or there were there was something wonderful about the way you cut and spliced past and present to give you a sense of we've been in this market for 100 years now. So could you talk a little bit about the image matching that went into the filmmaking?
Because it really is striking. Thank you. Yes. I mean, I do genuinely believe that, you know, we are exactly where we were 100 years ago, more or less, with couple of minor things, you know, details different. And I just I knew I wanted to do that, so I set about looking for that imagery. You know, I just thought I wanted to show how. Nothing has changed as visually as I possibly can.
But, you know, one of the most joyful aspects of making this film was the amount of time I spent with the archive. And, you know, the archives available is extraordinary. And. It really tells the story. And, you know, it's also pretty striking that with two exceptions, I really struggled when looking for images of people who were obviously Jewish prior to nineteen. And, you know, there were only two of those and everything else were you know, we're not much more Arab looking people.
Of course, they could be Jews, but. Yes. So, you know, I found that an extraordinary thing to be a actually matching images can be quite challenging. I mean, I'm a regular reader of Private Eye, and there's always that comic, you know, where they they they take, you know, famous person because the images, they look alike. Or I think about the way George W. Bush was compared to a chimpanzee at certain photographs.
So you're like somebody spent time finding the image that looked like Bush's face in the face of a chimpanzee. How did you go about actually matching your images? Did you have contemporary footage that you had already gathered and then you went to the archives looking for something that was the same feel, the same Drowner Bocian? Lots of archives and I'm sorry. This is a trade secret that they work very helpfully label themselves. So you might get soldiers with barbed wire or soldiers in jeeps.
So I had some help. Much as I'd like to think much more than that. Some. Yes. And, you know, I mean, it didn't take me so long to come up with a list of contenders for that less time than than you'd think. The other thing that I should have said at the beginning that I forgot to say is that an hour and a half's worth of history has actually come out of the film because we just out there is a limit to what people can take on board when they're watching a 90 minute film.
And I think the film is already potentially pushing those those boundaries. So, yes. Yeah, I'm sorry not to take more credit for that than take the credit silly and take the credit and you still say a story is always going to push you for history. I was wondering also whether there was a generational aspect that you originally had wanted to explore, because one gets a sense that you were looking at reaching out to people of different generations.
Were you curious to see whether that was part of the dynamic? Is it getting harder? Is the line getting harder and people's views? Or is there hope that the younger generation where's that going? I mean, that, again, was interesting. I mean, you know, in terms of my main characters, the people who cropped up are all, you know, certainly over 35 for the four main characters. And, you know, obviously Israel's much older than that in terms of the Vox Pops.
We literally stopped people in the streets for 85 percent of them. And it was a question of who would speak to us. But I did get a fairly strong impression of a couple of archetypes again. And I think they're. There were a number of of younger Israelis who were far more Right-Wing than I was expecting. So when I was saying that, I was I was pleasantly surprised by Israeli Amstutz. But that is probably above a certain age, below a certain age.
There were some people that I encountered who, you know, just weren't interested. And then there were some people who who were like the guy in the red t shirt. And the thing about the guy in the red T-shirt, that is a bit. Well, the thing about the guy in the red T-shirt is that he is actually a teacher. So that needs to be borne in mind as well.
And I guess if you think about who's been ruling governing Israel for the last several decades, it makes sense that perhaps people have swung to the right in their attitudes. Having said that. You know, Netanyahu is on, you know, election numbers at six and he still can't get a majority. You know, he's been in in purgatory for several years at this point. And those demonstrations are getting louder. So perhaps things or, you know, things are changing.
I'm not sure. Actually, I am going to take my chair's prerogative to piggyback on this because I had a related question. I mean, the films obviously very subconsciously reflective. And one thing you talk about is how you hadn't actually been to Israel for quite a long time when you came to make this film. You had your own apprehensions about going there in view of that.
I'm quite curious to hear your your observations on how you found Israel had changed because since your last visit began, because so often we hear increasingly nowadays that it has become more right wing, more religious. Much more overtly anti Palestinian in times of both the Israeli state and Israeli society. I'm curious of your experiences. You observe those changes as well, or whether you found something, maybe Messiah?
Well, I mean, you know, the big one of the biggest changes was the optics. So, you know, the first time, you know, I went to Israel with my grandmother when I was 13 and then when I was 21 with a bunch of uni friends, our graduation trip, we took a bus from Cairo to Jerusalem. And then a couple of years later with my sister, we took a taxi from Jerusalem to the Allenby Bridge and then went into Jordan and went and did a trip with a friend from Jordan.
And so what you see there is not that freedom anymore. I was there again, just as they were starting to build the wall. The walls are everywhere now. And, you know, for me, I think they're just they're metaphors for the situation, and so I think, you know, for me, it was quite difficult to get past that. And when the lovely, well-meaning left wing Israelis were asking me if I was scared, you know, I sort of felt like I no, you know, Palestinians have two heads in pink and purple like adults.
I mean, you know, what do you think is kind of, you know, going into Nablus or, you know, whatever it is? And, you know, obviously we've got some looks because it's not that often, I suppose that. You know, people who were obviously western with cameras go, go wandering around. But, yeah. So I think there was that and I don't think I got enmeshed enough to notice or talk to many right wingers per say. But the other thing is, I had never been to Hebron before and I was horrified.
I mean, I've never seen anything like varsities. Absolutely. You know, it's it's the symbol of the entire situation. As far. You know, as far as I. I experienced it and, you know, we encountered or, you know, we were filming Isa and he encountered this settler who apparently is notorious and she's so notorious that I was talking to other friends back here about her and they all knew her name. But it was like watching a seven year old playground bully her, passing a succession of people.
So she started with a serve and she started on the school teachers, and then she started with the ecumenical accompaniment people. And she's sort of champing at them and, you know, you know, trying to take their phones because they were trying to film. And I can you know, that that was that was horrifying.
Did you kind of soft-boiled Hebrew on, though? I mean, in a sense, that story does need to be told, because the way in which the settler community, the heart of the old town of Hebron has bifurcating the city and literally terrorised the Arab inhabitants is one that goes beyond the wildest imaginings of the Western audience you're trying to reach. Why did you pull the punch of that?
Because it sounds like you actually had the kind of material that might have conveyed even more strongly the horror that is Hebron. We didn't. I'm going to probably shouldn't say this. I was I sat down with each set having this encounter, and my camera man was very safely back up, quite high above on a long lens. And I thought he was filming everything, but he didn't. So so we don't have as much as I would have liked.
I think that somebody is actually making a film about Hebron you would be pleased to hear at the moment. You're right. It, of course, is a story that needs to be told. But I think the other side of it is that, you know, when all is said and done, this is a film about the British mandate. And much as I would have liked to have gone on further. You know, first of all, we would have need to needed to film differently. And we've been quite tricky in terms of everything else we were trying to do.
I have a question coming in now from Benjamin Brown, who asks, Do you believe that by focussing on the historic roots of the conflict, contemporary issues, for example, regarding security concerns can adequately be taken into consideration when trying to understand the Israeli narrative. I'm not sure I quite understand. So I as I understand it, but Benjamin, feel free to let me know in the chat box if I'm getting this wrong.
Is there, I suppose, is there a. A risk that if we focus on the historical roots of the conflict, we might do so to the point of obscuring contemporary issues, such as the fact that many Israelis today have heartfelt concerns about issues around security. And are we going to risk overshadowing those concerns and therefore not being able to understand the Israeli narrative today? Benjamin, feel free to write if I've got that wrong. He says, I got it right.
I'm with you. I mean, as it happens, I've just been reading this book called Human Kind, which is by a Dutch academic, and he's talking about how there is a narrative that most people are basically evil, but that when you look at research on that, it it doesn't stack up and that his his contention is that most people are basically good. I think that the security issues for me, I'm not saying there are real security issues.
But to me, a lot of them arise from the historical context directly and from a misconstrue all of the historical context. So I'm not saying that there are no security problems facing Israelis. I'm certainly not saying that there are no security problems facing Palestinians. But I I'm not sure that the patterns are any different than what was happening in the history. And I think if you look at the history that tells you.
Why they're happening and if you know why they're happening, it's easier to address them. Sorry, I'm not even sure that makes sense. But if the sort of long, long winded way round it does, does that answer your question? Benjamin? We'll be waiting for Benjamin to type in a or a day, and he says it does. There were two points there. I think you were bringing history in to the dinosaur experience of Israeli Jews.
And it both times that made the people you were talking to very uncomfortable and once was when you asked Israel to compare Gaza to a ghetto. And the second was at the very end when you asked the young man who basically denied the Palestinians had a claver, a right, whether that was in any way reminiscent of what the Jewish people experienced when their legitimate clients had been, as it were, not recognised by the international community or what not. And he's just silent.
So I wonder whether there's something in the history which is still too raw a nerve for Israelis when their experience in diaspora is being compared to the Palestinian experience of knuckler. I mean, I think you're I think you're right. But I think because the history has been so. Swirled up and churn churned up and sparks out, not necessarily in a comprehensible form, so that it's almost impossible for most people to understand what happened.
That. Those concerns are divorced from the context again. I'm sorry I keep coming back to the context. And, you know, Israel was interesting because Israel is actually a historian. He loves history. And in a certain way, he's very well informed. It's just that he he's got work arounds that he has devised in in his head and.
I mean, you know, psychologically, it's fascinating because, of course, you would you know, if you know what happened, if you know that there were only 10 percent of the population is Jewish in 1917. And yet here we are today. You'd have to come up with with something. I I don't know, because I didn't talk in more depth to door. But my guess is that the context for him is something that's probably quite different to what I see as the historical context.
And therefore, he starts from a different place. And so, yes, of course, it's completely raw. Whether people are ready to sort of face this openly is it is another question. That's that's quite an interesting point you make, Father, about the location where people's narratives begin, because it's it's, as you say, probably very consequential.
If you have someone like Dore, let's say is his personal narrative, perhaps we don't know, but perhaps begins with his assistance in Europe facing incredibly brutal existential anti-Semitic persecution. And it's always some kind of part of Kuwait if his narrative doesn't actually begin in Israel Palestine. Well, actually, actually, that's an interesting point as well. So Dore's family, first of all, apparently his family is very left wing and they are Arab Jews.
And actually, I did run across a nice handful of Arab Jews who are far more conservative than I am of the masses, you know. And in theory, you know, one on one side of my family where our Jews as well. But we were in Spain. So it's a different, different narrative. But, yes. So I think there's a rudeness there as well because, you know, basically. DuSable obviously lived in the Arab world for a very, very long time and very happily.
And then all of a sudden they're not welcome anymore. And so there's this sort of. Double issue to contend with. One is why am I no longer welcome in Morocco or wherever it is? And then if you actually want to answer that question, you might have to look at the correlation of timing between Israel's declaration as a state and the time when you became not welcome. And I would imagine that Max is a very different, difficult place for some people to go to.
We have a question coming in now from Paul Lewis, who asks, Are you more or less optimistic that there can be a solution in the Middle East? In a post Trump world? I have to tell a story about Trump as well and how he came to be in the film. I had remarked to my editor very innocently that I never actually listened to anything that Trump said while he was in office because I just couldn't, you know, I just read about it after. And so next thing I know, he's stopped Trump.
And of course, when you make a film, you have to watch it and re watch it. I think the answer to that question I'm actually not unoptimistic having made the film, which is a separate thing to the question that Paul has asked. I think it depends on whether Biden is ready to engage with the context, because I just genuinely believe that this will not be properly solved until people take the context into account. So, you know, which again, is why I've made this film. I really would like this.
This story tabled front and centre so that anybody who comes to deal with. Israel Palestine and try to make a positive difference actually starts from the history rather than, you know, random perceptions of the history which often bear absolutely no resemblance to what's recorded. Good, maybe two, maybe. OK. Well, it's maybe building on that it might be. It might be interesting to talk a little bit about, you know, and you alluded to this earlier.
All of these initiatives that have been put forward in the name of peace over the last 30 years or so. And you've said and I would largely agree with you, that they've often been done almost a historically. They've been formulated historically. But I wonder when you think about that, what comes to mind as one or two, you know, concrete cases, whether you would say the history hasn't been put front and centre or the context has not been put front and centre and what that's actually meant.
Well, Donald Trump and Jared Kushner be prime example. The problem is I probably back in 92, I was not that interested. You know, I wasn't that interested. And so I would have to go back and read up very comprehensively on the Oslo situation in order to answer that. The perception I've gained, however, is that the Americans were aware but couldn't quite navigate past it. Whether they tried or not is another question, and I may be completely wrong about that.
So, yes. No follow up ban yet they're in effect. The question about where to go. Is maybe one of the questions you don't answer in the movie, you leave us in the end with a rather soft message. Of peoples who have to come to appreciate what life looks like if you step on the other person's shoes. But you don't really come down on what that's going to mean in terms of resolving the political aspirations of the two sides.
And you make a passing reference to a two state solution looking increasingly unlikely. You never actually pronounce on the one state alternative. And I don't know that there is anything besides one or two states except apartheid and continued occupation. So the status quo as I guess, option three.
So, you know, again, given the audience you want to reach, Julian, I don't know whether you don't want to make a stronger statement at the end here about where you think a resolution lies because you can't actually expect people to just say there is equal merit to both claims. You know, Jews and and Palestine's or not could agree on that. So there's going to have to be something of a political concession or what's in a what is the end game here.
So we we made a deliberate decision not to because, as I said, this film is really for, you know, my often Anglo-Saxon liberal British friends and my American friends who are confused don't understand it, and when they see the film are absolutely horrified. So all I wanted was to get people's attention and understanding and. At the very end of the film is our Web site. And on our Web site are is is a fair amount and that is really that includes sort of how you can engage with this issue.
And. I think, you know, I don't want to tell people what to think, I want them to form their own conclusions from the film. Do I have an opinion? Yes, I have an opinion. And some of that comes up in what you can do. So I sort feel for me personally as somebody who doesn't have skin in the game. This is not my decision, you know. I don't get to choose what people who currently live in Palestine, in Israel. Should want. That's their choice. I personally am a massive fan of citizens assemblies.
And I would love to see a proper independent fulsom Israel palace, Israelis and Palestinians, citizens assembly process along the lines of what happens in Ireland all the time. Given that what happens in Ireland is often on a par with the level of emoted, miss, you know. Yeah. It's just not for me to decide. Two states, one state. I mean, you know, as a historian and only as a historian, I lean towards one state because kanon for its entire history was a single melting pot state.
But I'm not sure that's enough of a reason to impose that on people living there today. You know, I think the opposition, the people you talked to, did they come down one side or the other? I mean, just as a little aside, I was at a meeting of Israeli and Palestinian businessmen on the sidelines of the Davos meeting. They'd been meeting for years. This is obviously one of those little things the Klaus Schwab thought was his solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict is bring business together,
very trumpet's solution. And they were talking about a generation gap in Palestine where if you were under 30, you no longer believed in two states. You wanted one state with full Israeli rights. You thought that Palestinian politics failed and you just wanted to get on with your life and bury nationalism. And so these were all people of an older generation who were very wedded to a two state solution.
And their whole point was, if we don't deliver something fast, you know, we're losing the younger generation. And so I'm just wondering whether the people you talk to reflected on these sorts of dynamics, again, intergenerational or whether there is a sense of one or other be more or less realistic. You may not edit it into the film, but just from your conversations with people. Where do you think the trend on that one it's going?
So interestingly, Israel madad the settler ones, the single state, and would be willing to be a Palestinian citizen. In order to stay where he is. If it was a city, if it was a two state. I didn't talk to. I didn't talk to anybody else about it. I mean, you know, money's just coasting. She's living day to day. They've got so many problems. She just wants it to stop. So, yeah, I mean, what what's.
Interesting is I can sort of see what you're saying, but I'm I think it's only part of the picture because I certainly know plenty of lefties here over a certain age and please don't take this amiss who are completely wedded to the two state solution. And then the other thing that I've noticed is that the Palestinian pro Palestinian contingency that I'm falling afoul law via the anti normalises are also very much in favour of a two state solution, and they tend to be much younger.
So, you know, as against, you know, I certainly know plenty of Jews and Palestinians who are also young, who want to see a single state. But I think they're it's it's the it's not the age so much as the who they you know, who they represent. Certainly, as far as I found, there's an up of forthcoming book, actually, by an academic who did her HD at Oxford in international development a couple of years ago, and specifically a study of this these into generational shifts amongst Palestinians.
And she conducted a lot of fieldwork in East Jerusalem where she found and this this ties in with what you were saying, Eugene. She found that a lot of the younger generation of Palestinians in East Jerusalem are now applying for citizenship for Israeli citizenship. And this is something completely taboo amongst the older generations.
And it's a very interesting study of not only changing views on the way forward, but also changing views on what it actually means to hold Israeli citizenship, that amongst the younger generation, this is is no longer seen as some kind of Sell-Out. It's actually seen almost as liberatory because it's a way to claim your rights. Just a reminder to everyone. We've got Julian for a few more minutes, so please do take the opportunity to post your questions in the Q and A box.
I know my students in Jordan two hours of me talking about Israel Palestine this week. So is your chance to hear someone else talk about it for a change? I had a question or I guess to some degree sort of the flip side of Eugene's question about the way forward, which is I was really struck that I think was the beginning of the documentary. You say, you know, well, everyone says they want peace, so everyone wants peace.
What why does it remain so elusive? That's kind of the core question. And I'm I'm just curious to hear. Now, having made the film, how or how you might reflect on that question or how you feel about it now, not that there's obviously an easy answer, but what you might say to that now. Well, that you know, I'm sorry, because it does sound very simplistic, but it's what what Eugene picked up on earlier, which I do say. I do think, as I said, that the wall has been.
It has done its job far more than simply as a physical barrier and has made understanding of the other. So much harder than it was, you know, even even 20 years ago. And I think that's. That's a problem. You know. I mean, you know, I have said to several of the Israelis that I was with, you know, not just the ones on film when filming, you go to the West Bank, go and meet people, go and chat to people. And some of them are actually scared. They're really scared.
And that is because, you know, the government propaganda campaign or whatever has convinced them that these people are different to that. And then, you know, on the Palestinian. Side, you know, again, there's this there's this kind of alien group, people over on the other side, if you will, that they they only get to see as soldiers and. You know, how in that circumstances is this situation going to resolve? I mean, that has to stop. People have to have to know each other.
And, you know, I know it sounds simplistic, but, you know, put themselves in other people's shoes. You know, consider consider the humanity of other people in the moment. That's just not really what's happening. But then again, if you speak to older Israelis, they many of them will remember going to Gaza to go to the market because, you know, it had they had really good fresh food and it was cheaper going.
Going to visit places in the West Bank. And if you speak to older Palestinians, many of them worked in Israel. They speak Hebrew. They spent time with Israeli. And that's a complete contrast with younger generations on both sides who are only really encountering each other in situations that are overtly hostile. So we think this that's another there's a generational aspect at play there as well.
I mean, I remember reading an interview with a man in Gaza who said, you know, I used to work in Israel. I see Hebrew, I. I had Israeli, if not friends and certain Israeli acquaintances means that I actually I understand where they're coming from, even though I don't agree with it. He said that my kids have absolutely no possibility of any connexion or empathy whatsoever.
And that's a very difficult place to be. And, you know, I have a huge empathy, sympathy for people living in Gaza and cannot even begin to imagine. But. That needs to change know that attitude needs to change, too, because, you know, we are where we are and, you know, whatever solution has to be practically doable.
Well, one of the most depressing things I found in the in your documentary was when you interview this, the younger Israeli gentleman who's his and his main take away from Gaza is that withdrawing the settlements was wrong because that's encouraged this rocket movement. And that's really disheartening to see that that's that's the kind of lesson he's taken.
Well, especially because he's a teacher. Did you did you decide explicitly not to say that he was a teacher in the film, or was it just the time? It was it. It fell down to what what his role in the film was. OK. So, you know, he was a vox pop. So, you know, the only exception to introductions for Vox Pop that I made was Mrs. Monzur from Hamas, because it felt important to explain who she was.
But otherwise, you know, the whole idea was that these are random people that I've encountered who were just telling me what I think. Running short on time, but I would be very interested to hear a little bit about the history of the film itself. Have you actually gone to air with the film? I was under the impression that we were sort of in a pre release phase of the film. What are the plans for release? Where are you hoping that you could take the message?
So I spent two years making the film and last set of February, I was sure that I was on the home run only to get stopped in my tracks with the final technical processes by Kovik. So we thought we would be circulating the film by April and in the end. We got the film ready to circulate by September. It's been doing some festival rounds. It has been turned down by every German Palestinian film festival we've applied to until about a month and a half ago.
And we are going to show in the Boca Raton Jewish Film Festival in Florida. With a Q and A as well. And that's next month. So I think that'll be really interesting because my my attempts to engage with the Jewish community direct on this have been systematically struck back at every turn. So I'm looking forward to that. We are just engaging. Are our distribution policies distribute distribution plans? We have somebody in Britain who will be organising sort of event screenings.
And I hope on the run up to cinema screenings. And then after that happens, it'll go on television and then online and wherever. And then we're speaking to a worldwide distributor to sell round the world. And then someone separate four bits of the American market. So it's it's a it's quite a long process. And I would expect, you know, it'll it'll proper if it comes out in the cinema. It'll be towards the end of this year as and when Koven makes this possible.
And I would expect to see it on television next year or the year after. Where? Well, we feel privileged really to be gotten a sneak preview before everyone else of the world gets to see it. Well, thank you so much for bringing it to the Middle East community. Thank you so much. I really appreciate being invited and having a chance to have a fantastic chat with with all of you. And any final parting shots?
I mean, I would echo your thanks, Gillian, for giving up your time and for granting all of us this gene that the sneak preview. And I think I would also. Thank you. You know, as a historian, as someone who teaches this four and really centring the history and for really highlighting the importance of thinking about historical context when you're trying to approach this. So I'm looking forward to seeing where the film goes. Do let us know what kind of reception you get at the festival next month.
Be interested to hear and then we can hopefully keep in touch as well. Thank you very much again. And thank you to everyone for coming in to everyone who ask questions. Thank you. And again, lovely. Lovely to be with you. And with that, we bring the evening to a close. And thank you all for joining us for this conversation with Julia, Bursley, the tinder box, your daughter star on Friday for excerpt of.