Khadijeh Habashneh, Knights of Cinema: The Story of the Palestine Film Unit (New Texts Out Now)

Khadijeh Habashneh, Knights of Cinema: The Story of the Palestine Film Unit (New Texts Out Now)

Khadijeh Habashneh, Knights of Cinema: The Story of the Palestine Film Unit (New Texts Out Now)

By : Khadijeh Habashneh

Khadijeh Habashneh, Knights of Cinema: The Story of the Palestine Film Unit (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023).

Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book?

Khadijeh Habashneh (KH): The main reason behind writing this book stemmed from a sense of moral responsibility towards a group of young Palestinian filmmakers who dedicated their lives in service to the Palestinian people’s struggle for liberation. This group of exceptional and pioneering filmmakers were the first to join an armed national liberation movement from the beginning. They documented their people’ struggle for future generations and to preserve the Palestinian national memory. This book also presents their interactions with their surroundings: the fighters, life within refugee camps, and the people who accompanied the struggle through social, economic, and cultural works and activities. This is the first book that narrates the history of the Palestine Film Unit (PFU). 

The second reason for documenting the journey of the PFU is because its history has been forgotten and its leading role during the 1960s and ‘70s has been marginalized. Many people do not know the founders of the Palestinian cinema nor the contributions and the sacrifices they made for their people’s struggle and national memory. Most of the book is narrated through the voices of members of the unit who are still alive, or their close friends and relatives who lived during the early days of the PFU and its development. I have also relied on segments of what members of the PFU have written or said in interviews, and some writings by their contemporaries, in addition to my personal experiences with them. 

Ultimately, this book is about preserving Palestinian national memory, which is vital to our national identity.

These filmmakers transformed how Palestinians viewed themselves at the time, shifting their image from helpless and weak refugees to freedom fighters.

J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures does the book address?

KH: The book addresses the personal and practical journeys of the founders of the PFU, who are no longer with us. It highlights their ideas about revolutionary cinema and their belief that cinema and cultural production was a weapon alongside the armed struggle. Even though they were educated and trained in cinema approaches taught in Cairo and London, they were committed to producing their own revolutionary language in cinema that was inspired by the people and for the people. These filmmakers transformed how Palestinians viewed themselves at the time, shifting their image from helpless and weak refugees to freedom fighters. Whenever a film was screened in a refugee camp, most people attended the screening, and many were excited to see their young sons and daughters featured in these films. They became the stars that they liked to see, rather than the usual film stars they were accustomed to seeing in Arab and world cinema. To these filmmakers, cinema was an important medium to reach large segments of society irrespective of class, educational background, and age. 

Another important aspect of the book is its exploration of the role the PFU played in documenting the role of the revolution among Palestinian people, and its interactions with Palestinian and Arab people. They also documented the relations and interactions of the PLO with other liberation movements, progressive parties, and solidarity movements and groups. They documented the battles they faced with their people from Israeli aggressions, including air raids and bombardment on different refugee camps, and the near genocide of Nabatiyyeh, the Palestinian refugee camp in south Lebanon. They presented, for the first time to the world, the image and the real narration of the Palestinian people’s cause and their struggle. 

J: How does this book connect to and/or depart from your previous work?

KH: The defeat of the 1967 war was a big shock, not only to me, but to my entire generation. Soon after, when I was starting my career as a clinical psychologist, the armed Palestinian liberation movement, which had been underground, was launched. I realized at that moment that the individual work I was doing was not enough to change the reality from which I was suffering, and I felt the need to join a collective effort for change and liberation with the Palestinian revolution. I believed it was a hopeful path to create social change and to struggle against the Israeli occupation, in order to liberate our land. Thus I became part of the political movement.  I focused on mobilizing and organizing women, because I believe that the right place to create social change is with women. I volunteered at the PFU, and later produced films. In parallel, I was researching, documenting, and analyzing the context of which I was part. In 1973, I wrote the first study of a group of Palestinian women who participated in the revolution in the early period of 1967-1971 and kept publishing research on the changing role of women in society and in the struggle. I see writing and documenting the experience of the PFU as a continuation of my commitment to making the Palestinian experience accessible to the masses and to future generations. 

J: Who do you hope will read this book, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

KH: Well, I would like everyone to read the history of the PFU! But especially filmmakers, scholars, and students. The PFU’s journey is a valuable lesson that would be beneficial for current and future generations who continue to fight for Palestinian liberation and who believe in the importance of cinema in anti-colonial struggles and movements. 

I would like this memoir to introduce readers to the films that were produced by the pioneer filmmakers and to encourage them to keep their memories alive. 

As a filmmaker who is also trained in psychology, I believe that cinema is a powerful medium for most people of different ages and educational levels, even as a medium to literate people. It awakens and enhances human imaginary and visual thinking, which is central to our people’s struggle for dignity and freedom.

J: What other projects are you working on now?

KH: With the ongoing Israel-US genocide in Gaza, there is a great interest in and many requests to screen the films that were produced by the Palestinian revolutionary cinema, the films that narrate the actual story of Palestinian people and their struggle. I have spent a good part of my life making the effort to collect copies of films whose originals were lost with the Palestinian Cinema Archive after the withdrawal of PLO forces from Lebanon in 1982. These are the films produced by the PFU which developed and expanded in the middle of the 1970s into what became known as the Palestinian Cinema Institution (PCI). So, I am currently providing these films to film festivals and solidarity events, with Gaza and Palestinian people, worldwide. In addition, I have had a lot of requests from filmmakers, students, and scholars who are interested in screening the films and having conversations about them.

In the near future, I plan to return to writing my autobiography, which I started writing a few years ago. Given that I accompanied the Palestinian revolution since its inception in the late 1960s, I believe it is my duty to write about my journey and make it available to my people and future generations. I hope they will find in it experiences and perhaps lessons relevant to their personal lives that encourages them to continue on the path for national struggle and liberation.

J: What would you say have been your main achievements to date? 

KH: To answer such a question, I can say I am satisfied that I could live according to my beliefs, living and feeling myself alongside the man I loved. I was able to practice and write down some of my thoughts and beliefs. Yes, we gained some victories through our work and with our people’s struggle. We even felt happy during battles, which I hope will lead to a forward step for Palestinian freedom. I worked hard to achieve some balance between the needs of work and the needs of family. 

Looking at the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, I can say that the Palestinian cause has endured a very long time and is taking an eternity. At the moment, I am in my late 70s, and it seems that people like me who are working for peace and justice for the Palestinian people need two or more lives.

 

Excerpt from the book (from Chapter 8, “The Search for the Lost Films of the Palestinian Cinema Institution”)

In the summer of 2015, while I was searching for the films of the Palestinian Cinema Institution (PCI), I received a phone call from the militant Daoud Barakat who had worked as the head of the PLO Office in Geneva during the 1970s and 1980s. He insisted on getting in touch after learning about my efforts to search for and collect the lost films of the PCI, suggesting that he had information that would be useful for the search. When we met, he informed me that during one of his visits to Beirut at the end of 1981 or the beginning of 1982, he had received a call from Mustafa who inquired about the possi­bility of leaving several films of the PCI for safekeeping in the Swiss Cinema Archive that had recently been established in Switzerland. And as it so happens, Daoud added that he had returned to Geneva with fifteen films from the PCI, which he deposited at the cinematheque in Switzerland. Daoud and I started reviewing the names, phone numbers, and addresses of friends and comrades who were living in Switzerland at the time, looking for ways to initiate a search for the films. I contacted the administration of the Swiss Cinematheque in Lausanne, which was under renovation, and we were delayed for some time because of this. The pro­cess of the search lasted nearly two years, as we were able, through com­munication with the administration of the cinematheque in Lausanne, to recover only four of the original fifteen films. I think the cinematheque was unable to locate the films because of the difficulty in identifying an accurate date when the films were deposited, and the titles under which they were labeled, in addition to being poorly organized since its begin­nings in the early 1980s. I didn’t ask for copies of the films the cinema­theque claimed to have found, because I already had copies of them. This issue requires further follow-up.

The journey in search of the films was a difficult one, and it consumed about a decade of effort. During that time, I was the planning and execu­tion manager, and the secretary who typed and responded to letters. I carried the film reels that arrived through the Palestinian embassies and looked for a 16 mm projector or 16 mm editing machine (Moviola) to watch the films, check their contents, and assess the degree of damage that had accumulated over time and in the absence of proper preservation con­ditions. Currently it is very difficult to find 16 mm machines because everything is digital, especially in Jordan where there is no cinema indus­try. Although filmmaking began there before the start of the television industry, it was stopped in the beginning of the 1970s. It took a long time before I discovered that the Jordanian Television had repaired an old edit­ing machine, as a means to search for some old films. I collaborated with them by coordinating the search with the Palestinian embassy in Jordan. Unfortunately, we were obliged to move the films to Cairo to continue watching and cleaning the films.

At the end of 2018, in an old office of Fatah in Cairo, I accidently found two film reels, and what I suspect is Newsreel No. 3 and a copy of the film The Key, which I hope is in Arabic. I have many copies of the film prepared in different languages, such as French, German, and Spanish. I have not yet seen the reels because they were discovered the day before I left. They are kept under paid custody, alongside a Palestinian (Arabic) copy of the film Tal Al-Za‘atar at the Cinema Company (formerly the Sound, Light and Cinema company) that is now affiliated with the National Cinema Institute in the area of Al-Haram [in Giza].

Most of the films that were produced nearly forty years ago were found buried in storage or forgotten cellars amidst dust and rust. At the end, we were able to find 80 percent of the films whose negatives were lost with the archive. And the journey in search of funding to restore the films ensued. A number of successive ministers of culture were contacted, and every national Palestinian organization and institute related to culture was contacted to contribute funding. All of them, however, have budgets lim­ited for their own programs.

A few films have been digitized, restored, and translated through per­sonal initiatives because they were in demand at forums and festivals of Palestinian films around the world. The film They Do Not Exist and Newsreel No.1 were digitized and color-corrected through support from the Palestine National Fund in 2014. With Soul, With Blood and Scenes from the Occupation of Gaza were digitized and restored in collaboration with the French Cinematheque.

Some films were never missing. Palestine in the Eye was found with Hani Jawharieh’s family. Palestinian Visions and Children Without Childhood were with their directors, Adnan Madanat, and myself, respec­tively. After participating in the Moscow Film Festival in July 1981, Madanat and I arrived in Beirut right after the Israeli air raids on Al Fakahani, when the PCI was thinking of moving the archive to a safer place. This is the only reason why our films were spared.

In mid-2013, I started to hear whispers of news from the Israeli art historian Rona Sela, who suggested that there is a strong possibility the lost Palestinian Cinema Institution archive is housed in the Israeli Army Archive, which was inaccessible to researchers and historians unlike other archives in Israel. I had also heard this from the Israeli director Eyal Sivan when I participated in the London Palestine Film Festival in 2007. Sela made a film in 2017 entitled Looted and Hidden, and an extensive article about the topic by Israeli writer Ofer Aderet was published in Haaretz newspaper under the title “Why Are Countless Palestinian Photos and Films Buried in Israeli Archives?” on July 1, 2017. Then, Sela published a book about the Israeli Army’s theft of everything related to Palestinian cultural and political heritage, entitled Made Public, especially after she found and conducted an interview with one of the soldiers who helped transport the archives of the PLO Office in Beirut in 1982.

The investigation and search for the missing archive is ongoing until further notice.

New Texts Out Now: Mandy Turner and Cherine Hussein, guest eds. "Israel-Palestine after Oslo: Mapping Transformations in a Time of Deepening Crisis." Special Issue of Conflict, Security & Development

Conflict, Security and Development, Volume 15, No. 5 (December 2015) Special issue: "Israel-Palestine after Oslo: Mapping Transformations in a Time of Deepening Crisis," Guest Editors: Mandy Turner and Cherine Hussein.

Jadaliyya (J): What made you compile this volume?

Mandy Turner (MT): Both the peace process and the two-state solution are dead. Despite more than twenty years of negotiations, Israel’s occupation, colonization and repression continue–and the political and geographical fragmentation of the Palestinian people is proceeding apace.

This is not news, nor is it surprising to any keen observer of the situation. But what is surprising–and thus requires explanation – is the resilience of the Oslo framework and paradigm: both objectively and subjectively. It operates objectively as a straitjacket by trapping Palestinians in economic and security arrangements that are designed to ensure stabilization and will not to lead to sovereignty or a just and sustainable solution. And it operates subjectively as a straitjacket by shutting out discussion of alternative ways of understanding the situation and ways out of the impasse. The persistence of this framework that is focused on conflict management and stabilization, is good for Israel but bad for Palestinians.

The Oslo peace paradigm–of a track-one, elite-level, negotiated two-state solution–is therefore in crisis. And yet it is entirely possible that the current situation could continue for a while longer–particularly given the endorsement and support it enjoys from the major Western donors and the “international community,” as well as the fact that there has been no attempt to develop an alternative. The immediate short-term future is therefore bleak.

Guided by these observations, this special issue sought to undertake two tasks. The first task was to analyze the perceptions underpinning the Oslo framework and paradigm as well as some of the transformations instituted by its implementation: why is it so resilient, what has it created? The second task, which follows on from the first, was then to ask: how can we reframe our understanding of what is happening, what are some potential alternatives, and who is arguing and mobilizing for them?

These questions and themes grew out of a number of conversations with early-career scholars – some based at the Kenyon Institute in East Jerusalem, and some based in the occupied Palestinian territory and elsewhere. These conversations led to two interlinked panels at the International Studies Association annual convention in Toronto, Canada, in March 2014. To have two panels accepted on “conflict transformation and resistance in Palestine” at such a conventional international relations conference with (at the time unknown) early-career scholars is no mean feat. The large and engaged audience we received at these panels – with some very established names coming along (one of whom contributed to this special issue) – convinced us that this new stream of scholars and scholarship should have an outlet.  

J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures do the articles address?

MT: The first half of the special issue analyzes how certain problematic assumptions shaped the Oslo framework, and how the Oslo framework in turn shaped the political, economic and territorial landscape.

Virginia Tilley’s article focuses on the paradigm of conflict resolution upon which the Oslo Accords were based, and calls for a re-evaluation of what she argues are the two interlinked central principles underpinning its worldview: internationally accepted notions of Israeli sovereignty; and the internationally accepted idea that the “conflict” is essentially one between two peoples–the “Palestinian people” and the “Jewish people”. Through her critical interrogation of these two “common sense” principles, Tilley proposes that the “conflict” be reinterpreted as an example of settler colonialism, and, as a result of this, recommends an alternative conflict resolution model based on a paradigm shift away from an ethno-nationalist division of the polity towards a civic model of the nation.

Tariq Dana unpacks another central plank of the Oslo paradigm–that of promoting economic relations between Israel and the OPT. He analyses this through the prism of “economic peace” (particularly the recent revival of theories of “capitalist peace”), whose underlying assumptions are predicated on the perceived superiority of economic approaches over political approaches to resolving conflict. Dana argues that there is a symbiosis between Israeli strategies of “economic peace” and recent Palestinian “statebuilding strategies” (referred to as Fayyadism), and that both operate as a form of pacification and control because economic cooperation leaves the colonial relationship unchallenged.

The political landscape in the OPT has been transformed by the Oslo paradigm, particularly by the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Alaa Tartir therefore analyses the basis, agenda and trajectory of the PA, particularly its post-2007 state building strategy. By focusing on the issue of local legitimacy and accountability, and based on fieldwork in two sites in the occupied West Bank (Balata and Jenin refugee camps), Tartir concludes that the main impact of the creation of the PA on ordinary people’s lives has been the strengthening of authoritarian control and the hijacking of any meaningful visions of Palestinian liberation.

The origin of the administrative division between the West Bank and Gaza Strip is the focus of Tareq Baconi’s article. He charts how Hamas’s initial opposition to the Oslo Accords and the PA was transformed over time, leading to its participation (and success) in the 2006 legislative elections. Baconi argues that it was the perceived demise of the peace process following the collapse of the Camp David discussions that facilitated this change. But this set Hamas on a collision course with Israel and the international community, which ultimately led to the conflict between Hamas and Fateh, and the administrative division, which continues to exist.

The special issue thereafter focuses, in the second section, on alternatives and resistance to Oslo’s transformations.

Cherine Hussein’s article charts the re-emergence of the single-state idea in opposition to the processes of separation unleashed ideologically and practically that were codified in the Oslo Accords. Analysing it as both a movement of resistance and as a political alternative to Oslo, while recognizing that it is currently largely a movement of intellectuals (particularly of diaspora Palestinians and Israelis), Hussein takes seriously its claim to be a more just and liberating alternative to the two-state solution.

My article highlights the work of a small but dedicated group of anti-Zionist Jewish-Israeli activists involved in two groups: Zochrot and Boycott from Within. Both groups emerged in the post-Second Intifada period, which was marked by deep disillusionment with the Oslo paradigm. This article unpacks the alternative – albeit marginalized – analysis, solution and route to peace proposed by these groups through the application of three concepts: hegemony, counter-hegemony and praxis. The solution, argue the activists, lies in Israel-Palestine going through a process of de-Zionization and decolonization, and the process of achieving this lies in actions in solidarity with Palestinians.

This type of solidarity action is the focus of the final article by Suzanne Morrison, who analyses the “We Divest” campaign, which is the largest divestment campaign in the US and forms part of the wider Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Through attention to their activities and language, Morrison shows how “We Divest”, with its networked, decentralized, grassroots and horizontal structure, represents a new way of challenging Israel’s occupation and the suppression of Palestinian rights.

The two parts of the special issue are symbiotic: the critique and alternative perspectives analyzed in part two are responses to the issues and problems identified in part one.

J: How does this volume connect to and/or depart from your previous work?

MT: My work focuses on the political economy of donor intervention (which falls under the rubric of “peacebuilding”) in the OPT, particularly a critique of the Oslo peace paradigm and framework. This is a product of my broader conceptual and historical interest in the sociology of intervention as a method of capitalist expansion and imperial control (as explored in “The Politics of International Intervention: the Tyranny of Peace”, co-edited with Florian Kuhn, Routledge, 2016), and how post-conflict peacebuilding and development agendas are part of this (as explored in “Whose Peace: Critical Perspectives on the Political Economy of Peacebuilding”, co-edited with Michael Pugh and Neil Cooper (PalgraveMacmillan, 2008).  

My first book on Palestine (co-edited with Omar Shweiki), Decolonizing Palestinian Political Economy: De-development and Beyond (PalgraveMacmillan, 2014), was a collection of essays by experts in their field, of the political-economic experience of different sections of the Palestinian community. The book, however, aimed to reunite these individual experiences into one historical political-economy narrative of a people experiencing a common theme of dispossession, disenfranchisement and disarticulation. It was guided by the desire to critically assess the utility of the concept of de-development to different sectors and issues–and had a foreword by Sara Roy, the scholar who coined the term, and who was involved in the workshop from which the book emerged.

This co-edited special issue (with Cherine Hussein, who, at the time of the issue construction, was the deputy director of the Kenyon Institute) was therefore the next logical step in my research on Palestine, although my article on Jewish-Israeli anti-Zionists did constitute a slight departure from my usual focus.

J: Who do you hope will read this volume, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

MT: I would imagine the main audience will be those whose research and political interests lie in Palestine Studies. It is difficult, given the structure of academic publishing – which has become ever more corporate and money grabbing – for research outputs such as this to be accessed by the general public. Only those with access to academic libraries are sure to be able to read it – and this is a travesty, in my opinion. To counteract this commodification of knowledge, we should all provide free access to our outputs through online open source websites such as academia.edu, etc. If academic research is going to have an impact beyond merely providing more material for teaching and background reading for yet more research (which is inaccessible to the general public) then this is essential. Websites such as Jadaliyya are therefore incredibly important.

Having said all that, I am under no illusions about the potential for ANY research on Israel-Palestine to contribute to changing the dynamics of the situation. However, as a collection of excellent analyses conducted by mostly early-career scholars in the field of Palestine studies, I am hopeful that their interesting and new perspectives will be read and digested. 

J: What other projects are you working on now?

MT: I am currently working on an edited volume provisionally entitled From the River to the Sea: Disintegration, Reintegration and Domination in Israel and Palestine. This book is the culmination of a two-year research project funded by the British Academy, which analyzed the impacts of the past twenty years of the Oslo peace framework and paradigm as processes of disintegration, reintegration and domination – and how they have created a new socio-economic and political landscape, which requires new agendas and frameworks. I am also working on a new research project with Tariq Dana at Birzeit University on capital and class in the occupied West Bank.

Excerpt from the Editor’s Note 

[Note: This issue was published in Dec. 2015]

Initially perceived to have inaugurated a new era of hope in the search for peace and justice in Palestine-Israel, the Oslo peace paradigm of a track one, elite-level, negotiated two-state solution is in crisis today, if not completely at an end.

While the major Western donors and the ‘international community’ continue to publicly endorse the Oslo peace paradigm, Israeli and Palestinian political elites have both stepped away from it. The Israeli government has adopted what appears to be an outright rejection of the internationally-accepted end-goal of negotiations, i.e. the emergence of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. In March 2015, in the final days of his re-election campaign, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visited the Jewish settlement of Har Homa in Palestinian East Jerusalem, which is regarded as illegal under international law. Reminding its inhabitants that it was him and his Likud government that had established the settlement in 1997 as part of the Israeli state’s vision of a unified indivisible Jerusalem, he promised to expand the construction of settlements in East Jerusalem if re-elected. And in an interview with Israeli news site, NRG, Netanyahu vowed that the prospects of a Palestinian state were non-existent as long as he remained in office. Holding on to the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), he argued, was necessary to ensure Israel’s security in the context of regional instability and Islamic extremism. It is widely acknowledged that Netanyahu’s emphasis on Israel’s security—against both external and internal enemies—gave him a surprise win in an election he was widely expected to lose.

Despite attempts to backtrack under recognition that the US and European states are critical of this turn in official Israeli state policy, Netanyahu’s promise to bury the two-state solution in favour of a policy of further annexation has become the Israeli government’s official intent, and has been enthusiastically endorsed by leading ministers and key advisers.

[…]

The Palestinian Authority (PA) based in the West Bank also appears to have rejected a key principle of the Oslo peace paradigm—that of bilateral negotiations under the supervision of the US. Despite a herculean effort by US Secretary of State, John Kerry, to bring the two parties to the negotiating table, in response to the lack of movement towards final status issues and continued settlement expansion (amongst other issues), the Palestinian political elite have withdrawn from negotiations and resumed attempts to ‘internationalise the struggle’ by seeking membership of international organisations such as the United Nations (UN), and signing international treaties such as the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court. This change of direction is part of a rethink in the PA and PLO’s strategy rooted in wider discussions and debates. The publication of a document by the Palestine Strategy Study Group (PSSG) in August 2008, the production of which involved many members of the Palestinian political elite (and whose recommendations were studiously discussed at the highest levels of the PA and PLO), showed widespread discontent with the bilateral negotiations framework and suggested ways in which Palestinians could ‘regain the initiative’.

[…]

And yet despite these changes in official Palestinian and Israeli political strategies that signal a deepening of the crisis, donors and the ‘international community’ are reluctant to accept the failure of the Oslo peace paradigm. This political myopia has meant the persistence of a framework that is increasingly divorced from the possibility of a just and sustainable peace. It is also acting as an ideological straitjacket by shutting out alternative interpretations. This special issue seeks a way out of this political and intellectual dead end. In pursuit of this, our various contributions undertake what we regard to be two key tasks: first, to critically analyse the perceptions underpinning the Oslo paradigm and the transformations instituted by its implementation; and second, to assess some alternative ways of understanding the situation rooted in new strategies of resistance that have emerged in the context of these transformations in the post-Oslo landscape.

[…]

Taken as a whole, the articles in this special issue aim to ignite conversations on the conflict that are not based within abstracted debates that centre upon the peace process itself—but that begin from within the realities and geographies of both the continually transforming land of Palestine-Israel and the voices, struggles, worldviews and imaginings of the future of the people who presently inhabit it. For it is by highlighting these transformations, and from within these points of beginning, that we believe more hopeful pathways for alternative ways forward can be collectively imagined, articulated, debated and built.