Pallywood: According to Palestinian
Sources
18 minutes, 2005 (Documentary)
Directed by Richard Landes ‘67
Screening: Sunday, 12:45 p.m.
In
2005, Professor Richard Landes of Boston University produced an 18-minute
online documentary video called Pallywood: According to Palestinian Sources. Landes and other pro-Israel advocates argue that the
Israeli government is insufficiently robust in countering Palestinian accounts
of events in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In his video, Landes shows
Arab-Israeli conflict-related footage that was taken mostly by freelance
Palestinian video journalists. He argues that systematic media manipulation
(which he dubs "Pallywood") dates back to at least the 1982 Lebanon
War, and argues that broadcasters are
too uncritical of the veracity of Palestinian freelance footage. He focuses in
particular on the case of Muhammad
al-Durrah, a 12-year-old Palestinian
who was widely reported to have been killed by Israeli gunfire in the Gaza Strip on September 30, 2000 at the beginning of the Second
Intifada. The shooting was filmed by
a Palestinian freelance cameraman and aired on the France 2 television channel with narration by the veteran
French-Israeli journalist Charles
Enderlin, who was not present at the
incident. It made worldwide headlines and the conduct of the Israel Defense
Forces was heavily criticized internationally, severely damaging Israel's
public standing on the world stage Landes questions the authenticity of the
footage and disputes whether al-Durrah was killed at all, arguing that the
entire incident was staged by the Palestinians. He asserts that the incident
shows that "Palestinian cameramen, especially when there are no Westerners
around, engage in the systematic staging of action scenes." (Source:
Wikipedia)
Filmmaker Bio:
Richard Landes '67 (Pallywood:
According to Palestinian Sources...) is an American historian and
author, specializing in Millennialism. He currently serves as an
Associate Professor in the Department of History at Boston University.
Landes is the director of the Center for Millennial Studies. (Source:
Wikipedia)
