Director's notes

[Joel]

Why did I make this movie?

My interest in Israel stems from my past; my parents are survivors of the holocaust. They ingrained in me the importance of Israel, of a Jewish homeland, a place of hope and refuge that they could only dream about in the dark days before World War II. In time, after college, and after my first year of law school, I decided to visit Israel. What was supposed to be a three-month visit prior to returning to law school turned into six years? I studied Hebrew, worked on a Kibbutz, and, subsequently, I joined the Israeli Army.

After the 1973 Yom Kippur War I was stationed in the Sinai desert for a year and was directly involved as Israel, in stages, returned all of Sinai to Egypt. Once out of the army, I decided to go into filmmaking and moved to Hollywood. Over the years as a writer and producer I have on occasion tried to sell some project or other to the studios or networks that was Israel related, but with no success. Israel isn’t a popular topic given the divisiveness it conjures up not only in the world but even within the Jewish community, and especially the Jewish community in Hollywood.

The major point of contention surrounding Israel over the past 30 years has been the issue of the settlements. Are the settlers Zionists resettling the land of Israel, or are they occupiers of Palestinian land - and what are the borders of Israel? This debate has raged prominently around the world and, of course, in Israel as well, and in the summer of 2005 it had the potential to lead the country into civil war. A year earlier, in August of 2004, Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister of Israel, presented to the Israeli Parliament a plan to evacuate 21 Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip and another four settlements from the West Bank (Judea and Samaria). Israel would simply leave Gaza and parts of Judea and Samaria and cut itself off from a majority of Palestinians.

About this time, in 2004, my friend and partner, Arnold Peltz and I decided to start a film production company. We both realized the historic significance of the removal of so many Jews from their homes, by Jews, and decided to visit the settlements about five months prior to the scheduled evacuation to gauge the potential for a documentary. We visited every settlement scheduled for destruction and what we found was a thriving community of mostly religious Jews who were determined to remain on the land. Given their almost messianic dedication to the biblical land of Israel and their resolve to defend their homes, and given the fact that the Israeli public was completely polarized over the issue of settlements, if in fact the plan was to be carried out, there was potential for violent confrontation between Jewish settlers on the one side, and the Jewish soldiers and police sent to remove them. Arnold and I decided to make the film mainly because we felt that how Israel handled this potentially traumatic event would tell a lot about the character of the people of the State of Israel.

In June, 2005, two months before the scheduled withdrawal, I arrived back in Israel, hired an all Israeli crew, and began my battles with Israeli military and governmental bureaucracy over permits to enter Gush Katif (the name given the Jewish settlement bloc in Gaza) and Northern Samaria. Initially I’d been told I would be granted the permits, but when it came time to pick them up in Jerusalem I was duly informed that despite the fact that the government had granted permits to thousands of journalists from around the world, including Al Jazeera, the permits were only meant for reporters, and as a filmmaker, I didn’t qualify. I guess they must have seen some of my films. I panicked and started throwing around names of actors I’d worked with; Charles Bronson, Jodie Foster, Sharon Stone, Scott Baio… maybe I should have left out Baio. In any case, no amount of name dropping, arguing or begging helped. I came back a few days later, after having used some connections, with letters from an Israeli newspaper and the American TV network, Showtime, asserting that I was actually doing reporting for them, but those wily bureaucrats knew by now that I had produced a Scott Baio film and responded with the Israeli version of “You’ll never work in this town again!” by telling me I would never be allowed in Gaza and Northern Samaria.

But even without a permit I knew I’d have no problem getting into the West Bank so the first three days of the shoot were spent there. Traveling in armored cars and with two bodyguards, we made the journey from Jerusalem to Sanur, the furthest Jewish outpost in Judea and Samaria. With no camera car, I tied a camera to the hood of our pick-up truck so as to have traveling shots of the magnificent landscape. Sanur was situated on a small hilltop surrounded by Arab villages. It was comprised of no more than a few dozen Jewish settlers. A tent camp had been set up to accommodate sympathizers who had come to help them block the evacuation. Here we met Miriam and Yaron Adler, a young, attractive couple with six children. Orthodox and committed to the establishment of the State of Israel in its ancient borders (from the Nile to the Euphrates), the Adlers were possibly the most militant of all the settlers. In fact, shortly after my interview with them they were both arrested as a preventive measure and not released until the withdrawal was complete. They were the only two people arrested during the entire withdrawal.

Filming in Judea and Samaria proved to be no problem, but now how was I going to get into Gaza? Since all the members of my crew were Israelis with press credentials I had no trouble getting them the proper authorizations, but I myself couldn’t get into Gush Katif. The only thing left to do was find a way to sneak into Gaza, past the half dozen or so army roadblocks that seemingly were set up to keep only me out. Since all the members of the crew were, like myself, ex-Israeli soldiers, we decided to plan the mission of infiltrating me into Gush Katif like a military operation. I guess there was a reason that none of us ever advanced past the rank of sergeant as the best plan we could come up with was for me to hide in the back of our truck covered by equipment.

The day of our planned “incursion” we met at a gas station a few miles east of the main Gaza crossing point, the Kissufim Junction, and immediately another problem arose. A few members of the crew refused to enter Gaza because the armored trucks I had hired were only armored against rocks, not bullets. They’d gotten used to the real armored cars we’d driven in the West Bank and they wanted the same thing in Gaza. They knew full well that the settlers of Gush Katif receive a steady diet of mortar shells and sniper fire, as well as the occasional ambush by neighboring jihadists. I argued with the crew members that the armored trucks were expensive and anyway I had taken out insurance on all of them so if something unfortunate should happen, their families would be taken care of, probably in a lifestyle better than their current one. My stubborn Israelis didn’t budge. Armored cars or they were going home.

We waited six hours for the armored cars to arrive, but while we were waiting we perfected our mission. We hired, Aharon, an Israeli driver of Iraqi descent who was well known for his ability to drive people insane in any number of languages. We figured that if he kept talking while the guards were checking the crew’s permits, by the time they’d checked three or four they would have had enough of Aharon’s patter and simply wave us through. The plan worked to perfection. Aharon talked us past all the checkpoints and the next thing I knew I was in the Gaza Strip.

Gush Katif was overrun with hundreds of reporters when we arrived. Many of them had simply come to the area with no prearranged lodging and were left to share rooms, five or six to a room, in the main municipality building. Fortunately, I had made arrangements months earlier with a family in the settlement of Atzmona by overpaying them for a vacant 2nd story apartment above their home. My crew and I had the best accommodations in Gush Katif, but we also had need of backup in the event Atzmona was one of the first settlements evacuated. I rented a trailer from one of the settlers and had it outfitted with beds and a shower. Later I rented another place which turned out to be almost perfect in terms of location. It was a solitary home on the road next to the gates of Neve Dekalim, the largest settlement in Gush Katif. I knew the army would have to pass right by us in order to enter the settlement and that’s exactly what happened. At 3:00 a.m.on the 25th of August we heard the first rumbles. By first light, thousands of soldiers and police had already set up camp right across the street from us. When other reporters and camera crews saw how well we were positioned they offered our landlord five times what we were paying him but he honored his contract with us.

The weeks prior to the withdrawal were spent filming the settlements; the synagogues, the schools, the greenhouses, the guard towers and walls and barbed wire fences that surrounded each settlement… but mostly the time was spent interviewing dozens of settlers and soldiers.

Each day proved to be a logistical and physical challenge. I wanted to shoot as much film as possible but it was midsummer and blazing hot. The crew never complained, no matter how hard I pushed. At one point, I wanted to position the camera on the highest rooftop in Gush Katif, the only problem being we would be completely exposed to sniper fire. We got the shot without getting shot.

I hired a young settler to drive the film outside of Gaza each evening. On his return one night he was ambushed by terrorists but escaped, his car totally riddled with bullets. The car behind him was less fortunate; an elderly couple were both shot and killed. Even though the Jews were voluntarily leaving Gaza, the Palestinians had to take their parting shots.

One major difficulty that I had to overcome was getting the settlers to cooperate and allow me to interview them. They were suspicious of the press and felt that they would be portrayed in a bad light, and from what I saw of the world press, I could understand why they felt as they did. What I saw was a press mostly interested in portraying the settlers as wild-eyed fanatics. The only thing close to a wild-eyed fanatic I met was a man named Yitzhaki. Well, fanatic may be giving him to much credit. Yitzhaki was the only settler not to turn in his weapon. He vowed to fight to the end and even blow himself up when the soldiers arrived. The BBC chose to do a documentary on Yitzhaki. But anyone who knew Yitzhaki knew he was all show. Out of 8500 settlers, the BBC chose to spotlight the one settler interested only in his own aggrandizement. In the end Yitzhaki’s “fight to the end” lasted all of seven minutes, most of it spent drinking coffee with the soldiers.

90 hours of film; dozens of interviews, emotional confrontations between settlers and soldiers, mortars and gunfire every night… the actual evacuation only took about 24 hours where many felt it would take weeks. The army and police were well organized and prepared and the settlers were no match for them. There was no civil war. There was violence but it was more emotional than physical. The soldiers and police maintained their calm and the settlers were removed and their homes destroyed. Gush Katif, a thriving vibrant community with homes and schools and synagogues and an agricultural industry that led all of Israel was dismantled, destroyed, and returned to the sand from which it sprang.