By Bruce S. Ticker in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Perhaps New York Times columnist M. Gessen will be as afraid to see a movie about Matilda as much as the movie about Hind Rajab.
In an opinion piece headlined “The Movie I Was Afraid To See,” Gessen recalls his experience of watching the film The Voice of Hind Rajab, which chronicles the frantic efforts of rescue-center workers at their office in Ramallah to obtain clearance for an ambulance in Gaza to pick up Hind for an eight-minute drive.
The film, released a few weeks ago, ends with Hind’s death from Israeli shelling.
Months from now, what if a movie is released depicting a tiny white coffin holding 10-year-old Matilda’s body being carried out of a synagogue near Sydney?
Matilda was the youngest of 15 people slaughtered by two gunmen during a Hanukkah celebration on Dec. 14 at Australia’s popular Bondi Beach. Another 40 others were injured. Matilda’s family did not want her identified by her last name.
Will Gessen write of her movie – The Silence of Matilda? – that he was afraid to see this film? Will it be a commentary that occupies the top half of a page in the Times Sunday Opinion section, as was his piece about Hind Rajab?
The deaths of both Hind and Matilda were horrific. Hind died in a war that should never have been started. Matilda was likely killed because of a violent ideology that should have been suppressed long ago.
One should not try to justify Israel’s shelling; it is Israel’s place to account for itself, if it can. The massacre at Bondi Beach was sheer lunacy.
Yet The Voice of Hind Rajab has all the earmarks of a propaganda project. From Gessen’s description, the film seems to be saying: “Witness the evil of these Zionist infidels.”
Hind Rajad’s story could send the message that this is what Israel is all about: to kill or drive the Palestinian people out of Israel. That is not true.
Extremists in the Muslim world could be trying to trigger more support for their cause by shocking people with Hind’s death. Do they mention that Hamas led the invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, murdering 1,200 people and kidnapping 250 others? Do they mention that Israel needed to respond with military action?
Viewers who go to see The Voice of Hind Rajab must enter the theater keeping in mind what they already know about the conflict.
We are all aware of the influence of media. If Israel ever makes a movie about Oct. 7, it will probably alter the sympathies of many people outside Israel. The same if Australia, home to a highly respected movie establishment, produces a film about Bondi Beach.
The liberation of 100 Jews and others at Entebbe in Uganda in 1976 was the basis for three television movies, one starring Charles Bronson. Two of the films were produced in America and the third in Israel.
Until 1978, the murder of 6 million Jews during World War II was kept under the public’s radar. Then the TV miniseries Holocaust aired, and the Holocaust has since been under constant examination.
A threatened shooting at a synagogue in Colleyville, near Dallas, was foiled a few years ago when the rabbi tossed a chair at the gunman. What a powerful scene that would be.
If films based on Oct. 7 or Matilda are ever produced, then hard-core supporters of Hamas and other terrorists should be afraid. Very afraid.
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Bruce S. Ticker is a Philadelphia-based columnist.