- 6 months ago
A look into Israel's struggles with image and democracy on the 20th anniversary of the Six-Day War.
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00:00Funding for Frontline is provided by this station and other public television stations nationwide, and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
00:11Tonight on Frontline, Israel.
00:15Twenty years ago, the Six-Day War was supposed to guarantee freedom for the Jews.
00:20What has happened to that promise?
00:22On the seventh day of the Six-Day War, we became a different country.
00:26The founding fathers of Zionism dreamed of a Jewish state on Jewish land.
00:31But today, Israel is a country divided by politics, religion, and the Arabs, who still live on soil many Jews consider theirs alone.
00:40I see no place for the Arabs in this country.
00:43Tonight, Israel, the price of victory.
00:47From the network of public television stations, a presentation of KCTS Seattle, WNET New York, WPBT Miami, WTVS Detroit, and WGBH Boston.
01:07This is Frontline with Judy Woodruff.
01:14Good evening.
01:15It was one of the most stunning military victories ever.
01:19The tiny country of Israel, surrounded by enemy nations, had struck preemptively.
01:25It was 1967.
01:27In just six days, the country went from being a beleaguered nation to a major power.
01:33She quadrupled in size, gaining the Golan Heights from Syria, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Desert from Egypt, and the West Bank from Jordan.
01:43That was exactly 20 years ago this month.
01:46And much has happened to Israel in the time between.
01:50The Sinai Desert has been returned to Egypt.
01:53More wars have been fought.
01:55Israel is embroiled in international scandal.
01:59And today, the country is still not at peace with its neighbors or with itself.
02:05Frontline producer Alfred Bikel lives in New York and has traveled the world making films.
02:11But tonight, she goes back to the country in which she was born and raised.
02:16This is her personal essay on what happened in the last 20 years in Israel.
02:22It is a film from inside.
02:25A film not about war with the Arabs, but about Israel and Israelis.
02:31And about the price of victory.
02:35On the first day of the war, the Israelis demolished 70% of their enemies' aircraft.
02:55By the fourth day, they conquered the Sinai Peninsula and at 9.30 at night reached the Suez Canal.
03:05In the first four days, they had entered the old city of Jerusalem and conquered the West Bank of the Jordan River.
03:13On the fifth and sixth day, they ascended the mountains to the north and conquered the Golan Heights from the Syrians.
03:24It was total surrender of Israel's enemies.
03:28It was a great victory.
03:31It was the end of what was called the Six-Day War, which broke out between Israel and the Arabs on June the 5th, 1967.
03:49On the seventh day of the Six-Day War, we became a different country.
03:54Nothing was ever the same again.
03:58I mean, the border changed.
04:01Society changed.
04:04Perceptions changed.
04:05Perceptions of ourselves changed.
04:07And at first, it was intoxicating.
04:10Only later, much later, we understood what price we paid for that victory.
04:17Looking back, it was everything everyone had dreamed of.
04:23The state of Israel, young, only 19 years old, was delivered from mortal danger.
04:35Its people were now free, free to live and go about the business of building their country.
04:41The Zionist dream was not a mirage anymore, but a reality.
04:56a Jewish home for the children of Israel.
05:01And at last, a safe home.
05:03A sanctuary from the storms and vicissitudes that visited the Jewish people for generations.
05:20Life seemed carefree.
05:33The future looked good.
05:37And the young state was finally reunited with its ancient past.
05:44The holy places.
05:47Jerusalem.
06:00And then, there were the territories.
06:03Most importantly, 2,000 square miles of the west bank of the Jordan River, conquered from King Hussein.
06:11This land, most Israelis firmly believed, would be the bargaining chip to be exchanged for peace.
06:20But the Arabs wouldn't bargain.
06:23And the Israeli government wouldn't push.
06:27So eventually, for most Israelis, the only thing that seemed certain was that Jerusalem must remain Jewish.
06:34The politically active left wanted to give back the land, and the right wanted to keep it.
06:40Mehran Benvenisti was deputy mayor of Jerusalem between 1974 and 1978.
06:47Ideologically motivated people always know what they want.
06:51Therefore, the right and the left knew what they wanted after 1967.
06:56It's the normal people, the center, who is always hesitant between the two.
07:03And that center, represented by Israeli governments, decided not to decide.
07:08They were not pushed to decide.
07:11But in that vacuum, forces who knew what they wanted, stepped in.
07:18And they were mainly the religious chauvinistic forces, who pushed the country towards settlement and towards annexation.
07:28They called themselves Gush Emunim, the bloc of the faithful.
07:35And in the early 70s, they set out to claim the West Bank.
07:38The government sent in the army to dislodge them.
07:44Scenes like this were repeated time and time again, as neither side would give up.
07:59Thirteen years later, it's clear who won the battle.
08:04The settlement of Ofra was established in 1976.
08:08We met Aharon Chalamish there, one of its founders.
08:12We came to Ofra 11 years ago, because at that time, the government, the labor government that was running the country,
08:19they were fundamentally opposed to a Jewish settlement on the mountain region of Judah and Samaria.
08:26And we, in support of the Gush Emunim, we wanted to establish a new political reality of establishing settlements here.
08:34And I think we succeeded in doing this.
08:37They have succeeded because of the firm belief that God had given the land to them, to them and not to the Arabs.
08:48I think the Arabs had a role, which they fulfilled up till now, of being a sort of passive custodian of the country
08:55at the time when the majority of the Jews were no longer living here.
08:58Now I think their job is more or less over.
09:01And if they were to understand what their real role is, I think they would, of their own volition, leave the country.
09:06Because they would realize that this is the country of the Jews.
09:09It's never been a question in my mind if it was our land, Jewish land or Arab land.
09:14It was always clear to me that this was part of the historic homeland of the Jewish people.
09:19I think if I had had a problem like that, I wouldn't have been rushing out here so quickly.
09:24In the minds of those who came here, there were no two ways about it.
09:29It seems very improbably illogical that God, having gone to so much trouble to return his people to their country after 2,000 years,
09:38would decide that they're going to now share it with some other people who have come here during this time.
09:43The way I see it, this is the Jewish people's country, and this is the land for the Jewish people only.
09:49I see no place for the Arabs in this country.
09:52But the Arabs were there in the territories, over a million of them, officially citizens of Jordan, but controlled and ruled by Israel.
10:04A hostile community, resentful not only of their occupation, but of the threat to their land.
10:17As over the years, the Israeli government let the Jewish settlements grow,
10:25and then became itself an active participant.
10:29There are now 135 settlements, cities and communities across the West Bank, housing 70,000 people.
10:38Many of them have been built by the government to attract young families looking for a decent place in which to raise their children.
10:50The government offers them low mortgage rates to bring them here, where they can buy or build their homes.
10:56The government offers them low mortgage rates to bring them to the people of Israel.
11:03We've started working for them and we saw an ad in the paper saying Ariel,
11:06I want to speak for them.
11:09So we decided to go and look.
11:11So we started working for the village's houses and we came here.
11:14And we came here.
11:17We liked what we saw, the terms were good, and so we bought it.
11:21bought it. The economic factor was much more important than the political factor. There
11:33was no political factor. It was a matter of having no choice. Some of them came in spite
11:40of their political beliefs, like Amos. It was foreign to me. It went against my political
11:49views. I would have loved to live in Tel Aviv, but we couldn't afford it, so we had to compromise.
12:03Did you compromise on your political beliefs? Yes, I compromised on my political beliefs.
12:12Because I always wanted a house with a garden, a separate house. And the terms enabled me
12:17to achieve this dream. The government offers very good terms here because it wants to settle
12:29this area, to make it difficult to return to the Arabs. I'm sure that they are not going
12:38to return this place. Even if one believes in peace, and we all want peace, I don't want
12:46my kids to fight. But to remove people from their homes in order to make peace, this is
12:54beyond me. This is my home. There is no question of returning it. They are all aware, they told us,
13:03that living in the West Bank, or Samaria, as it is called in Israel, has caused them to shift
13:09politically to the right. Today I would vote for the right wing, the Likud, because I live here,
13:18not because I like their politics.
13:20I too would vote for the Likud, but I hope they become more decisive. Otherwise I would have
13:29to move more to the right. Today I have doubts whether to vote right or extreme right.
13:36I feel the same. If the Likud, the right, will not become more decisive, I will vote extreme right.
13:48Gradually, since the end of the Six-Day War, we have been turning towards the right. The center
13:58has turned into the right, and the left has turned into the center. You can put it in another.
14:08Dr. Mayor Pail is a historian and a general in the Israeli Army Reserve.
14:14We say that the nationalists turned to be gradually chauvinists, and the chauvinists turned into racists.
14:24So the existing process in Israel is we proceed towards the right. We are getting more and more
14:36nationally fanatics. We are, I think, almost crossed the bridge of racism. I won't say racism,
14:48excuse me, chauvinism, and we face racism. Kahana is not an accident. He is an outcome of the objective situation.
15:03We found Mayor Kahana not in the West Bank, but in a small town in the northeast of Israel. Kahana is a New York-born
15:10rabbi who immigrated to Israel in 1972. He was voted into parliament in 1984 on a platform which called
15:20for the expulsion of all Arabs from Israeli-controlled territories. His constituents are the angry and the
15:28disaffected, disaffected, wherever they are.
15:37There is no word to describe my life. Hard is not the word for it. For me, it's hard enough.
15:47But I have three youngsters who want to go to the movies once in a while. And they can't, because I don't have the money to give them.
15:54It's very hard.
15:57Fima is an Oriental Jew. He was born in an Arab country, Morocco. In the past 30 years,
16:04hundreds of thousands of Oriental Jews came to Israel. They now constitute 55% of the country's Jewish
16:11population. Here in Bet She'an, almost everyone is an Oriental Jew. When they first came here close to the
16:19border, they suffered from enemy shelling and lived in tents and shacks. Many, like Fima, fought in the
16:26Six-Day War, but didn't share in the prosperity that came after it. Industry never came to Bet She'an,
16:33and its people feel abandoned and left out.
16:43I see myself as a fifth-class citizen, period. I'm not asking for special privileges.
16:51I just want to be treated as a regular citizen.
16:53We have the highest unemployment rate in the country. And it's getting worse.
17:05They have invested in other places and neglected us.
17:1260% of the people are unemployed and nobody gives a damn. And when there is work, they pay you 180
17:18dollars a month. 130 dollars they pay women. A dollar 20 an hour. Two people with experience.
17:2970 families left this town last month. Nobody gives a damn. Let them go.
17:35Instead of opening up plants for us, they let the people leave.
17:38Bet She'an is simply not on the map. It's a far away town. Nobody knows its name.
17:53I think it would be better if they just gave it away as a present to somebody.
17:57Maybe then it would develop. I know I sound bitter.
18:01I feel that the Oriental Jews are being discriminated against.
18:18I've always felt that way since I came to Israel as a child.
18:23I've always felt that the Oriental Jews were inferior, especially the Moroccan Jews.
18:32The Western Jews feel that they are one nation and that we are another nation.
18:38That is the way we see it in Bet She'an.
18:43When we came here in 1962 from the Arab countries,
18:50you didn't hear of any VIP, member of parliament or prime minister,
18:54come to greet us at the airport.
18:56They simply dumped us here in the middle of the night.
19:06Today you have a Russian coming from the Soviet Union, like Sharansky.
19:11I think that with the money that they spent on his reception,
19:13they could have built a whole plant in Bet She'an.
19:15It was a wonderful reception, but it hurts.
19:25Because I am sure that if an Oriental Jew were to come,
19:27just as intelligent as Sharansky, they wouldn't have received him like that.
19:31Every Monday and Wednesday, Hanania checks into the local employment agency.
19:45The few jobs that exist are low paid, yet they require a knowledge of English
19:49and 12 years of schooling, which Hanania doesn't have.
19:59But there are Arabs working there.
20:01Surely they don't have these qualifications.
20:06Well, we will certainly check into that.
20:09We'll see what we can do about it.
20:10I have worked in a factory for 19 years.
20:22Then I was fired and they hired an Arab in my place.
20:26I think that all these years that I've been unemployed is because of the Arabs.
20:32They conquered this country without a war, because they work and we are unemployed.
20:35They don't come to work for the money.
20:41They do it in order to break the Jewish people.
20:44It's for their flag, for the PLO.
20:49It's to these sentiments that Kahana appeals when he addresses his audience.
20:54He tells them of other unemployed people he has met,
20:57and about the Arabs who had replaced them.
20:59Then he talks about co-existence.
21:16Co-existence?
21:19There is no co-existence.
21:21It's either them or us.
21:24They have 22 countries.
21:26Terrific!
21:27Let them co-exist there.
21:29But this is our country.
21:35This is the Jewish country.
21:37And that's it.
21:40They like it? Fine.
21:42And they don't like it? Fine.
21:45They get out.
21:46Where? Who cares?
21:48They can go to Disneyland.
21:50Just not here.
21:53A good Arab is one that is 20 feet underground.
21:57I don't trust the Arabs.
21:58If I were allowed to slaughter them, I would slaughter them.
22:04So why not give them back the territories, I ask?
22:07Let them create their own state and they won't bother you.
22:13No, I'm not ready to return these territories.
22:16But I think that we should get the Arabs out of these territories.
22:18What shall we do with the Arabs?
22:24Let them go.
22:25They have enough places to go to.
22:27But rather than leave, Arab from the occupied territories pour into Israel.
22:37More than 100,000 come to work in Israel every day.
22:45Performing most, if not all, the menial work in the country.
22:48This is not what the founding fathers of Zionism expected when they dreamt about Jewish work by Jewish hands in a Jewish land.
23:01At the top of the echelon, there are the Israeli Arabs.
23:18Arabs whose families stayed on through 1948 and became Israeli citizens.
23:23They speak Hebrew.
23:30And here they offer Israelis the one thing which is truly shared between Arabs and Jews.
23:37Arab food.
23:38What else do they share?
23:49How does the average Israeli in the cafes of Tel Aviv feel about the occupation of the West Bank, the Arab work?
23:57Some people we asked seem to take it for granted.
24:00Others said it was unfortunate, but necessary.
24:04Only a few found it painful, but they weren't doing much about it.
24:08They had fought and lost their political battles, they said.
24:14Ronit Weiss is 33 years old.
24:17She has two children.
24:20I live my own life, not active in anything today.
24:25Only raising the children and working and going to the university.
24:31We call it in Hebrew, play a small head.
24:34It's not trying to change anything, although you criticize what you see around you.
24:41It's keeping your low profile and not to get involved.
24:48This is the thing.
24:48Maybe I'm not better than the people around me, but it's not the kind of society that I think my parents wanted to build in this country.
25:02You see, they came from the Holocaust.
25:05And I think that they wanted to make a better people from the Israeli nation.
25:12But for example, what I dislike most of all is us being rulers in this country and having second class citizens, which are like the shadows in the background of our life.
25:33I mean the Arabs, and I'm raising children in this country and I see that they don't know that once Jews are used to clean the streets and wash the dishes in restaurants.
25:48I mean, it's a kind of world that I don't like to be part of it.
25:57And sometimes I feel like emotionally I immigrated from this country.
26:06Rabbi Weinberg.
26:08A thinking man in Israel has two options.
26:16Either to leave this country, to immigrate,
26:19or to go back to religion,
26:26back to the Torah,
26:30to rebuild himself and the nation, according to the Torah.
26:38Israel is a secular, non-religious state.
26:42And that, says Rabbi Weinberg, is the cause of the country's crisis.
26:46It's not the occupation of political tensions.
26:48It's living a life with no firm Jewish foundation.
26:54It is a theory which is hotly debated in Israel.
26:58But unquestionably, the number of the religious fundamentalists and their influence
27:02has grown tremendously since the Six-Day War.
27:06The conquest of the holy places sparked a religious awakening throughout the country.
27:11Young people turning to Orthodox religion became a commonplace phenomenon.
27:17And this brought with it deep divisions and new tensions between the non-religious and the very religious.
27:24Yeshivot, religious seminaries, abound.
27:35With many who had left contemporary society and turned to fundamentalist religion.
27:40Leading a quasi-monastic life of studying Jewish law.
27:45Arguing, interpreting, and re-interpreting.
27:47Egal Miller is 34 years old.
27:59He used to be a social worker.
28:01I first began to think of turning to religion at the time of the Six-Day War.
28:14I was a boy of 14.
28:17And all of us in Israel were hypnotized by the victory.
28:20We were beside ourselves with joy.
28:30But as for me, I couldn't see what right I had as a Jewish boy to live here in Israel.
28:37And do I have more of a right than any Arab boy who lives here?
28:44Any claim that I examined could have been put forward by an Arab.
28:50Our forefathers are buried here, so are theirs.
28:59Our forefathers fought here, so have theirs.
29:03No claim that I examined convinced me that I have more of a right than they do.
29:15In his anguish, Egal Miller turned to God.
29:17He is not alone.
29:22There are hundreds, some say thousands of young people.
29:27Lawyers and engineers.
29:30Filmmakers and fighter pilots.
29:32Who have left their work and their homes.
29:34To look for guidance here.
29:36Where the word of God is the answer.
29:38Now, I look at every moment of my life through the eyes of the Jewish law, the halacha.
29:47So this too is a problem of Jewish law.
29:50Is an Arab allowed to live here?
29:52Am I allowed to sell him land?
29:56Those are problems.
29:57And we have clear verdicts for them throughout our history of 3,500 years.
30:01We know exactly what the answers are.
30:03It's that certainty that the answers are the right ones.
30:13And the fervor of this belief that has led some of them to take their families and move to that part of the land which they say, God has bequeathed to them in the Bible.
30:24Go over this Jordan, thou and all these people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel.
30:32Every place that the soul of your feet shall tread upon, that have I given unto you.
30:39Even if it means settling here, in the heart of a hostile Arab city, Hebron.
30:44A city rich with Jewish history and tradition, but now populated only by Arabs.
30:5338 families live here, opening a new front in the battle for this ancient land.
31:02Being here is a statement to the Jewish people and to the world, saying that we've come back.
31:15And Hebron is part of the land of Israel and always was and always will be.
31:20We feel that we live here not for our own sakes.
31:27We are the messengers of this nation.
31:31The people of Israel who have returned to their land must naturally return to Hebron.
31:37And we are simply the messengers.
31:42Self-appointed messengers of the nation.
31:45They live protected by the somewhat reluctant army of that nation.
31:49By their will and strength of their belief, they have held Israeli governments hostage.
31:54Not daring to dislodge them, the government must surround them and protect them.
32:06Israeli soldiers constantly patrolled the streets and alleys of Arab cities.
32:10Almost every Israeli citizen doing his military reserve duty will find himself at one time or another policing hostile Arab streets.
32:20For some, it is the only real contact they would ever have with the Arab population.
32:26I see a real threat and a real danger and a real impact on the Israeli society out of occupation of the West Bank.
32:38What happened to the Israeli individual who goes to serve on Miloim, on reserve, and he has to be very brutal in the Kasbah of Shechem or in the Kasbah of Hebron.
32:50And he comes back to his own society, to his family, to his social circles, to his work, to his job, to his city, with this experience of brutalization.
33:02Avram Bull, advisor to the foreign minister.
33:05The Israelis are being exposed to an experience which is bad for themselves back home.
33:12More than that, I will say.
33:13The fact that we are engaged in a permanent war situation, conditions, since 1948, it became much more deeper since 1967 because it's next door.
33:28Prevent us from investing the resources, the fiscal resources, the physical resources, the fiscal resources, the manpower, the cultural resources to build the Israel that we want.
33:43I want to achieve whatever I have to achieve, spiritually, morally, etc.
33:57And I cannot do it.
33:59Why?
33:59Because I'm engaged in this kind of occupation.
34:02And if I have to decide, and you always have to decide, and it's a very difficult decision, if I want to give back part of myself, part of my land, part of my homeland, in order to restore my people, I will do it.
34:25As painful as it will be.
34:27But to give back what land?
34:33When Israeli leaders talk, as they often do, about negotiating a territorial compromise with King Hussein, which means land for peace, how much land is there to give back?
34:45The question of territorial compromise, which is what to return, is not a problem anymore because they know that what they can offer the king, he will never accept.
34:56He said it even in 1970, when there were very few settlements.
35:03To say it now, when at the same time governments, even labor governments, say that they will not allow the uprooting of any settlement, means that there is nothing to give back.
35:15And therefore, the whole notion of territorial compromise is dead.
35:19But they need the jargon.
35:22They need to say, knowing full well, that they'll never get to a point when they'll have to draw maps.
35:29Because they will always stay on the procedural phase and will not go to substance.
35:35Therefore, I don't think that it is important.
35:37It's only rhetorics.
35:38Everybody respects King Hussein extremely, and we do hope to meet him and talk to him.
35:45I myself, I'm ready to go to Amman.
35:49I'm sure Israel would like to see if King Hussein would like to come to Jerusalem.
35:59Peace will come by talks between the two parties.
36:03We are prepared to consider any proposal put forward by the Jordanians.
36:16Israel wants peace and not war.
36:24And if there should be war, few people in Israel worry that Israeli children will be outgunned.
36:29The worry is that with the occupation, they will be outnumbered.
36:36The danger is not to their lives.
36:39It's to their way of life.
36:44Zvi Kese is a sociologist.
36:47Now, from the year of 14 down, there is a majority of Arab citizens in the greater Israel area.
36:55It means that in 25 years, they will amount to about 50, maybe more percent of the population.
37:02And then we are stuck.
37:04Either we are going to be a bi-national country.
37:08It means non-Jewish country, which contradicts the whole Zionist idea.
37:13Or we are non-democratic states.
37:16And for me and many of the Israelis, the democracy is our temple.
37:21And we are not ready to live in a non-democratic country.
37:27Israel can be a democracy, but democracy will be limited to the Israeli citizens.
37:35And there is a very convenient way of evading the issue.
37:40And that is the Palestinians are occupied.
37:43They are not citizens.
37:47And they don't demand the vote.
37:49They are disenfranchised, but this is occupation.
37:54So you are not faced with a dilemma.
37:56Because you need the Arabs to demand the vote.
37:59And Israelis cannot demand the vote for the Arabs.
38:02If the Arabs don't want that vote.
38:03And they don't want the vote because they don't want to be part of the Israeli system.
38:07They want to have their own system.
38:08They want to have their own government.
38:10So the problem, the dilemma, and the moral problem doesn't bother the Israelis.
38:17Because there is no problem.
38:18Democracy is therefore limited to the Jewish segment.
38:22Referencing reflects on your mind.
38:25Who's right?
38:27What have you done for me lately?
38:32Democracy, war, peace and occupation.
38:35Should all be of paramount interest to these young people.
38:40All of whom will be called to serve in the army.
38:43To defend the country and its policies.
38:48Who would support the peace process at any price?
38:55Do you believe that we should give up some of the territories for peace,
39:01such as the territories in the West Bank?
39:03I think we don't have to give back all these territories.
39:08I wouldn't give up the territories.
39:10Giving up territories won't bring us peace.
39:12I think there is no limit to give up.
39:14We can give up Sinai, we gave up already.
39:16And we can give up Stromroni, we can give up Jerusalem.
39:19And we can give up all the country.
39:20And we don't get anything by it.
39:23If you are against giving up territories, how do you believe peace will come?
39:27I don't see peace coming very soon.
39:31I don't think peace will come.
39:33And so between war and peace, the Israelis live the normal life of a modern consumer society.
39:58A life fueled by more than three billion dollars a year of American aid.
40:12Professor Ishajau Leibovitz.
40:14It's a very agreeable situation.
40:19Highly agreeable situation.
40:23We have a very high standard of living.
40:30By the money of American taxpayers.
40:36A very comfortable life.
40:39Professor Leibovitz, scientist and philosopher, is one of the country's most important thinkers.
40:56The existence of the Jewish people of 60 or 80 generation Galut was a heroic situation.
41:04We never got from the Goyish world a scent.
41:09We supported ourselves.
41:15We maintained our own institutions.
41:20Now we have taken three million Jews, gathered them here, and turned them over to be parasites.
41:30We are parasites of America.
41:32And in some sense, we are even the mercenaries of America.
41:45To fight the wars of American interests.
41:49Or what the ruling persons in America consider to be American interests.
41:57The war in Lebanon was not fought for American interests.
42:03And many believe that it wasn't fought for Israeli interests either.
42:07That it was a culmination of Israel's feeling since the war of 67.
42:11That it was the superpower of the Middle East.
42:14For every single father in the world who lost his son in Lebanon was killed in the first battle of the first day of the war in June 1982.
42:26For every single father in the world who lost his son, I think the grief, the sadness, the pain is the same.
42:45But to my grief, to my sorrow, to my pain, I had also an enormous anger.
42:56However, we were convinced that all our wars were without any choice.
43:04That we are standing with a back to the sea and we are defending our wives, our children, our homes.
43:12This war and the Prime Minister Menachem Begin, he himself wrote that this was a war with choice.
43:22This I will never forgive them, never, never, never to my last day of my life.
43:30They murdered our sons.
43:36The dream of the Israeli free country for the Jews is not just my dream.
43:43It's the dream of my grandfathers.
43:46It's the dream of my father.
43:48It's my private deep dream.
43:50With the Lebanese war, with the murder of my son, and what's going on now, in recent years, recent months, recent days,
44:04I think that slowly but surely, somebody is killing our dream.
44:14It was a dream which first turned into reality for Gutermann when he came to Israel in 1950, having survived the Holocaust in Europe.
44:26He joined a kibbutz, where he became a teacher and raised the family of two boys and two girls.
44:33A life embarked upon with so much hope and optimism.
44:36Till the fall of our son, I was a very optimistic person.
44:47The optimism is escaping from me piece after piece.
44:52And when I see every single new settlement in the new territories and intolerance and the hatred to the Arabs, I'm less and less optimistic.
45:06And when he looks at his daughter, Michal, who is 12, and Ranit, who is 16, he thinks of his eldest son, who would have been 26.
45:17I wanted him to live in a country that was as near as possible to my dreams.
45:34Nice, free, democratic country, attractive to the Jewish people.
45:47Young people will come from all over the world to live here, to work together with us.
45:57To enjoy the life, to go to the sea.
46:04To enjoy our beautiful sun, our beautiful landscapes.
46:13As every human being in the world is right.
46:18What's going on now with the cycles of war every seven, every eight, every ten years?
46:26Young Jews are not coming to Israel, they are escaping from Israel.
46:30This is the beginning of our end.
46:45For years, Israelis have paid the price of living a life of no war and no peace.
46:54Bomb threats and acts of terror have become a part of the Israeli reality.
47:00There has always been Arab terror in the Israeli street.
47:01But then, something new happened.
47:03There has always been Arab terror in the Israeli street, but then, something new happened.
47:29Terror was taken into the Arab street.
47:39Arabs were maimed and killed and bombed by Jews.
47:45And new terms began to appear.
47:49Jewish terrorists and the Jewish underground.
47:52Haggai Segal was part of the Jewish underground.
48:05He planted a bomb in the car of the Arab mayor of Ramallah, who lost his leg in the explosion.
48:12Segal was sentenced to three years in jail.
48:15He got out after two, in May 1986.
48:18As I said in the trial, I am at peace with what I have done.
48:26A few of our friends said they were sorry.
48:28I was not one of them.
48:29I feel that the people who we hurt deserved what they got.
48:37It was in 1980.
48:41The security situation on the roads here was at its worst.
48:46Every one of our trips was accompanied by stones thrown at us and hand grenades.
48:49And it ended with the murder of six men in Hebron.
48:58That's when I decided that something had to be done.
49:04Some people came to me saying there was a plan for reprisal.
49:08Will I join?
49:09I said yes.
49:09Then we did some intelligence work in the field.
49:15And then we planted the bombs.
49:20He doesn't see himself as a terrorist.
49:24I see myself as someone who is fighting for his home, his children.
49:28If that's a definition of a terrorist, then I am one.
49:31If not, then I'm not.
49:33Were you horrified when you heard about what happened?
49:37If you mean by horrified that suddenly my son is in prison,
49:44maybe that fact horrified me, but the reason for it, not at all.
49:49I thought that that was the natural conclusion of the education that he's received since he was born, one can say.
49:57Namely?
49:58Namely that we've always understood that this country belongs entirely to us.
50:05And if we can't get it in peaceful ways, we have to get it in other ways.
50:12Were you proud of him?
50:13I was proud of him, definitely.
50:16And there wasn't one single second from the time I heard until this minute that I wasn't proud of him.
50:23This mother is not proud.
50:25I have a son who is 19.
50:31He was in the army.
50:34And he's been in jail for the last year and a half for taking part in the murder of an Arab cab driver.
50:39It was a time of unrest in the country.
50:50And a Jewish cab driver was murdered near Jerusalem by three Arab youths.
50:57And two days later, an Arab cab driver was murdered.
51:05And one month later, they arrested my son for taking part in the murder of the Arab cab driver.
51:14Zehava Fuchs is a nurse.
51:17Her husband is a chemist.
51:18Nothing in her politics, her background, or the way she brought up her children prepared her for what had happened.
51:26It was a terrible surprise for us.
51:35We never expected anything like that.
51:39We are a home with non-extremist political views.
51:44And we never had any discussions at home which could give us a hint that any of our children may have an extremist point of view.
51:51But now she finds herself sitting with the members of the so-called underground,
51:58next to Haggai Segal,
52:01in a demonstration calling for the pardon of the six underground members who are still in jail.
52:07She doesn't share their beliefs, nor does she condone their acts.
52:12Yet she has thrown her lot in with theirs,
52:15believing that they will succeed in their fight to free their people, while she will not.
52:19But they have the political lobby and the sympathy of the public.
52:26When the underground members were caught,
52:28everyone said they were good people.
52:31The media described them as patriots.
52:35Even those who are against what they've done
52:39said maybe it's the wrong thing to do, but the motives were good.
52:43She believed that this had influenced her son,
52:47who, like other youngsters, regarded the underground as a role model.
52:55It is the underground's violent actions and the public's ambivalence towards them,
53:00for which, she feels, she is now paying the price.
53:04There is a very heavy price that we pay for no war, no peace.
53:14Because you don't know what norms to apply to the situation.
53:20At war, you kill an enemy and you get a citation.
53:26Humanistic values are suspended.
53:30This is an environment that is devoid of humanistic values.
53:35At peace, you kill a person, you go to jail, you are hanged.
53:40But when you are in a situation that is neither war nor peace,
53:44and you have no guidance,
53:46then you don't know what norm to apply to that situation.
53:49When I say, for instance, that situation is irreversible,
53:53what I'm really saying is, my friends,
53:55there is a price.
53:57You cannot think that all the time you can make mistakes
54:00and nothing is going to happen to you.
54:02Evil sticks to the hands.
54:07I feel like a Greek tragedy.
54:09This is not how we brought up our children.
54:12This is not what we had in mind for them.
54:14But suddenly, we find ourselves in a situation
54:16which has nothing to do with our beliefs.
54:19And as I heard her talk about her son,
54:25anguished over the past and wondering about the future,
54:29I thought of all the Israelis
54:31who are also anguished and wondering.
54:34This is not what they had in mind or what they planned.
54:38This is not the road they had set out to walk 20 years ago.
54:46Then, there was so much hope and expectations.
54:49of building a great future for their children
54:52in a country which was safe, independent, and just.
54:56Now, they feel that something's gone very wrong.
55:06But they don't know what,
55:08or how,
55:09or where to go from here.
55:10So, they just keep going on and on.
55:18I hope you'll join us again for Frontline.
55:33I'm Judy Woodruff.
55:35Good night.
55:35Coming up on Frontline,
55:39a girl from Minnesota becomes a star of porn films.
55:43She enjoyed the recognition.
55:45She enjoyed the money.
55:47Colleen Applegate did not like doing sex on film, period.
55:52She chose to do it.
55:55She could have stopped.
55:56A young life ends with a gunshot and questions.
56:00Watch Death of a Porn Queen on Frontline.
56:03She'll see you next time.
56:05She's back home.
56:05Don't know what a town she wants.
56:05If you think of this child,
56:06She's happy.
56:07Ha!
56:08Stop!
56:09A young life ends with a run.
56:10Here are you next time.
56:12It is always more
56:17andadia.
56:18Yes,
56:18this is not your climate.
56:22The one you need to know it.
56:24I'm done it myself,
56:25but you'll find you next time.
56:27And there are you next time .
56:28The film you came back and said this in a big part.
56:29Love said,
56:30that's the only expense of interest.
57:01For a transcript of this program, please send $4 to Frontline, Box 322, Boston, Massachusetts, 02134.
57:14Frontline is produced for the documentary consortium by WGBH Boston, which is solely responsible for its content.
57:20Funding for Frontline was provided by this station and other public television stations nationwide, and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
57:32Schools, colleges, and other organizations interested in purchasing or renting videocassettes of this program may call 800-424-7963 or write PBS Video, Post Office Box 8092, Washington, D.C., 20024.
57:52¶¶
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