Artist-turned-director Julian Schnabel latest film, Miral, based on Rula Jebreal's novel about growing up as an orphaned Palestinian girl after the Arab-Israeli conflict, premiered earlier this week at the United Nations, in spite of the American Jewish Committee's attempt to shut it down. The AJC believed the movie's goal was to portray Israel in a "negative light," leading the film's distributor Harvey Weinstein and Schnabel, who are both Jewish, to encourage protesters to see the movie first; Schnabel also said, "I love the State of Israel. I believe in it, and my film is about preserving it, not hurting it. Understanding is part of the Jewish way and Jewish people are supposed to be good listeners. But, if we don’t listen to the other side, we can never have peace."
Schnabel expanded on why he wanted to show the film at the United Nations in an interview with Deadline:
SCHNABEL: That’s the platform for dialogue for the whole world. It’s the place where conflicts are sorted out, and it’s where Israel was born in 1948. There is a global non-violent revolution going on in the Middle East, with dictators falling everywhere because people want to be free. It’s true not only in countries that have been in the news, but also in Israel. I think a non-violent Democratic revolution is coming. Young people are tired of their leaders, tired of Hamas, tired of leaders who have been representing the Palestinians. Israelis are tired, and many Jewish people are tired of the leaders leading that country. We need a statesman over there, not a politician. Netanyahu isn’t going to solve anything when he exacerbates things by saying they’re going to build more settlements because people are killed."
DEADLINE: You mean his reaction to the terrorist murder of a Jewish family in the settlement while they slept?
SCHNABEL: I feel terrible those people were killed, but to justify it with that creates more hate. For President Obama to veto the notion that it would be illegal to do that, I’m extremely disappointed in him. He’s a guy I believe in. I loved when he came out initially against the settlements and his speech in Egypt generated the sense of possibility for democracy. He gives great speeches, but what the hell is going on? We can’t let the Jewish lobby create this blind, blanket support of something that’s inhumane. We’re not free, as long as that continues.
My mother was the head of Hadassah, and I believe in the Jewish homeland as a democratic place, but for everyone who lives there. You shouldn’t have to be Jewish to be free in Israel. The Palestinians are not our enemies. The whole civil society is held hostage by fanatics on both sides. Young people, Israelis and Palestinians, just want to be able to go to school and come home at the end of the day and not get blown up. There are a lot of young people who are soldiers and don’t want to be soldiers. Does anyone want to be a soldier?
