00:00When the October 7th attacks happened, Israel was a very much divided society over the government's
00:07judicial overhaul. Far-right coalition partners of Benjamin Netanyahu with their eye on more land
00:16inside of the West Bank. The attack itself caught everyone by surprise. Now, one of those who over
00:22the years has probed those divisions in his movies is acclaimed director Amos Gittay.
00:29Thanks for joining us here on France 24. Do you remember your October 7th? I think we all remember
00:37it and we will never forget it. It's a collective shock and I think unfortunately these kind of
00:45shocks nourish the ongoing Middle East situation. I actually just opened at that time a big exhibition
00:53about the Yom Kippur War which was as you know 50 years earlier in October. A war in which you fought?
01:00A war where I was a soldier actually and we opened a big exhibition in Tel Aviv Museum
01:07thinking that maybe that would teach the lessons 50 years later but then the October 7th proven that
01:16history has been been retold and retold again. And just a few weeks after October 7th the U.S.
01:23president arrives in Israel he gives this warning look what we did in Afghanistan we overreached in
01:29our response and we paid for it. Paraphrasing a bit what Joe Biden said at the time that that advice
01:37was not heated though. I mean actually before speaking about the political level because
01:42with all due respect I think that the October 7th and the butchers who killed peace-loving
01:50kibbutzniks who actually crossed the border to save sometimes children in Gaza bring them to hospitals
01:57this is has resonance until today actually it has an impact on the political kind of blockage in Israel
02:06where you have actually as you mentioned in your introduction it's a divided society
02:11between people who have a vision who wanted to be liberal rights of speech dialogue maybe trying to solve
02:20in a peaceful way the Middle East and others and I think the fact that people like Vivian Silver
02:26who is a woman who spent her life trying to save children in Gaza was found burned in her home in the
02:34kibbutz and my friend Odette Lifshitz was kidnapped with his wife she came back but he was butchered and
02:42just his body came this is a big resonance to everything which will happen from now on so this event beyond
02:49what you mentioned the political thing the president Macron the Americans and so on this is still a big weight
02:55even the day we're speaking and and to your friends who've worked for striving for peace do they make
03:02that distinction today like they did before between radicals and ordinary Palestinians I think we have to
03:09you know we have to I think that the the project which started with Rabin 30 years ago this this month we are
03:16marking 30 years for the killing of Rabin this is a story which should be told it means that we have
03:23to strive to find a new modus vivendi the Pacific one between us and the Palestinians I think the
03:30speciality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict it's different than any other Middle Eastern conflict
03:36Israel-Iran I consider Iran don't have any reason or any pretext to attack Israel to ask for its destruction so if
03:43Israel attacks back it's part of the of the necessary response the same with Hezbollah there is no
03:49territorial conflict with Lebanon but the Palestinians it's also their country and we have to find a
03:55peaceful way to change to shape a new future for the Middle East there was the Oslo Accords
04:02it came to naught is it possible to do what you're describing it's not possible it's obligatory what is the
04:08alternative alternative is destruction death we have seen the terrible destruction of Gaza which is
04:15shocking and we have to find the ways to live together we have to find modus vivendi to live
04:21together we have to to think also about the suffering of the other at this point one of the
04:27things which blocking any advance is that each group it's consumed by its own suffering and each group has to
04:33look at about the suffering of the other we the Israelis have to be aware of what is happening in
04:39Gaza and the Palestinians have to be aware of the impact of this brutality of the rape and the
04:45brutality of the Hamas of October 7 exactly two years ago is it possible to make that happen while
04:51there's still fighting going on it's obligatory I mean you know years ago in 1982 I went to interview the
04:58mayor of Nablus the Palestinian mayor of Nablus the Palestinian mayor of Nablus Bassam Shaka who was himself
05:03a subject to Atanta by Israeli radicals and I asked him are you optimistic or pessimistic and I loved his
05:13answer he said to me Amos we cannot afford to be pessimistic it's a luxury when we look at it from outside you can
05:21say okay let's let's say it will never be resolved then what is the option if Israel want to stay in
05:27this region and I would love it stay because I love my country I think we have to find inroads
05:32and to find peace agreements over the last two years in this studio we've had guests who said to us look
05:41you can't project how people will take the Palestinian the two-state solution more seriously until the
05:50fighting stops it's too difficult to project that right now because everybody like you say is consumed
05:56by their own suffering is it too early though to start thinking about and start talking about it aloud
06:02not at all I think it's very good it's very good that the Europeans the Americans others try to help you
06:09you know it sometimes I compare it to when you see scenes of domestic violence let's say your
06:15neighbor you hear a noise that there is some violence you have to knock on the door and try to help the
06:21people and stop it so we need the intervention of the world to help us to pacify this conflict we need
06:28it it's necessary and it is welcome about what is the exact political solutions I don't wish the
06:35politicians to be unemployed they have not been so successful let them try again you have a new movie
06:41by the way on the editing board right now what's what we're going to show in Tokyo international
06:47and we were just had the great news that we are selected to the big competition in Tokyo and so from
06:53here I'm flying to Tel Aviv we'll do a big performance a memorial to Rabin on the very day of his killing
07:01the first of November Shabbat Saturday in the big hall the Philharmonie something that we did already in
07:08Paris in the Philharmonie of Paris with Barbara Hendricks and others and I will do it in Israel in
07:13Hebrew and then from there on I'll fly straight to Tokyo to show Golem in Pompeii and we're very happy and proud
07:20of the group that we are going to show it on that assassination of Yitzhak Rabin 30 years ago as you say
07:26and it is something that you've revisited that this division within Israeli society your the movie that
07:35made you a household name if you will here in France is is Kadosh from 1999 about a people in a
07:43conservative orthodox community trying to break out of that mold that was 1999 it's still relevant
07:50today is it still the exact same divisions or have those divisions changed sometimes they become worse
07:56but I think that cinema is a way to you know the best honor I consider that an artist can make to his
08:03culture is to be critical because you want it to be better we have too many objects of a bit kitsch flowery and so we have also
08:12to speak the truth to our people because we love them and Kadosh, Kippur, Free Zone, I mean all these many many films
08:19which are shown in Cannes and Venice and Berlin, New York and so on are a way of me to say culture have to create a dialogue
08:28and to remind people that the work we did around the story of the killing of Rabin is actually sometimes also in France with the Bibliothèque Nationale and soon we will do also a performance in Paris.
08:41I saw the mayor of Paris and she wishes us to do it it's really to remind people that history is also it's not only advancing by machine guns or money but also by ideas we have to speak about ideas that's the that's where culture comes in.
08:56Okay so let's play your game here let's leave the politicians out of it how do you see the relationship evolving between those who are secular those who attended the supernova festival those who are ultra-orthodox religious who don't serve in the military actually right now those who are hawks how's that mix going to evolve now?
09:19I think it's a mosaic of all the people you mentioned and more also we have Arab citizens that I think are important as many as religious so people tend to forget them I think it's very important they have equal rights they share all the good thing of the Israeli society social security and they keep their identity in the language and that we have Hebrew and Arabic as languages so I think that it will be always a
09:49inside debate like you have an inside debate like you have here in France let's I mean I'm sure that your news is full of the extreme right-wing climbing and then the extreme left answering and then the center so I think that this is the nature of modern societies which are I think we are in the age of composite societies people have been displaced all over the planet just not not just the middle east refugees wars
10:19and they have to find new identities and they have to find new identities and I would rather that they will find a peaceful identity
10:24okay let's hope that we're going to be talking about it later in the France 24 how these composite identities coexist I want to thank you so much Amos Gattai for being with us here on France 24
10:35stay with us there's much more to come including the day's business and sports
10:39stay with us
10:46you
10:46you
10:48you
10:50you
10:52you
10:54you
10:56you
10:58you
11:00you
11:02you
11:04you
Comments