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I was ready to hate. Fauda. The Israeli political thriller about counter-terrorism agents who disguise themselves as Arabs during an operation has received a lot of critical buzz since its debut on Netflix in 2016. However, I thought that the premise was a concern, Fauda (Avi Issacharoff, Lior Raz, 2015) transfixed me.
As the name suggests, it means chaos, disorder, disorder. Fauda This is a tumultuous descent into chaos and lawlessness related to Israel’s more than 50 years of forced occupation of Palestinian territory. The relentless brutality was painful to watch, but I couldn’t turn away from the painfully familiar sights and sounds of Palestinian life.Maybe it was Fauda‘s unexpected, and perhaps unintentional, linguistic and cultural connections between its protagonists make the series both heartbreaking and perverse, imbuing the daunting confusion with a glimmer of hope. is focused on.
Fauda It’s not about coexistence. This is an Israeli story, made by Israeli producers. Mystalvim-Israeli undercover troops disguised as Arabs to track down, kidnap, and kill suspected Palestinian terrorists in front of an Israeli audience.it is It unflinchingly recreates what is happening at the tip of the occupying army’s spear. Brutal scenes appear one after another, Mistarabim—A Hebrew verb noun meaning “those who become Arabs.” They sneak into Palestinian mosques, hospitals, swimming pools, and maternity clinics to capture potential informants and carry out extrajudicial executions at close range.
The series makes no effort to hide the scale of the massacre or its heartbreaking impact on the victims and their families. But even though the series suggests that the terrorists may also love their own mothers, children, and siblings, there is no apology for the troops’ tactics or the collateral damage they inflict on the population. . On the contrary, the show never misses an opportunity to remind viewers why these troops exist. The Israelites are being killed, and their deaths will not go unpunished. Palestinian casualties, on the other hand, are presented as unfortunate and inevitable.
To be fair, unlike the more chauvinistic variants of the “counterterrorism as entertainment” genre; Fauda‘s Palestinian characters have prominent and compelling roles and are played by skilled Palestinian actors.It also shows Israel Characters violate norms and make morally questionable choices. Despite this, the series never truly deviates from the Israeli story, ensuring that the audience can distinguish between the tragic hero whose excesses must be forgiven and the terrorist whose immature humanity has been tainted by fanaticism. I will spare no effort in my artistic endeavors.
For example, Israeli protagonist Doron Cabirio, Faudaproducer and veteran of Mystarif Lior Raz makes his first appearance basking in the warm green sunlight, playfully spraying children with a garden hose. In contrast, the Palestinian “Panther,” the nickname of Abu Ahmed, also known as Hamas leader Tawfik Hamed, played by Hisham Suliman, literally emerges from the darkness and unties the keffiyeh from his face. The Palestinian heroine, French-educated doctor Shirin El-Abed (played by Laetitia Eid), prefers the affections of Delon, a winemaker, to marriage to the shaggy-bearded henchman of “Panther.” No wonder. She happens to be her cousin.
But despite these thinly veiled metaphors; Fauda They also speak Arabic. In some episodes, more than 70 percent of the dialogue takes place in Arabic, a provocative move at a time when the 2018 Israeli Nation-State Law demoted Arabic’s status from an official language to a “special” language. That’s a statement. Arabic is not only the spoken language of the Palestinian characters, but also the lingua franca of the show.matches Faudaconceptual premise, Israeli characters also speak Arabic – not just a few phrases, but enough to blend in at a family wedding or pass as a member of the Palestinian police or preventive security services. And although it wasn’t made clear until season 2, the reason the Mistalvim are so attuned to the language, culture, and social norms is not because they are Israelis who “could” be Arabs, but because they are Arabs. It is. Like the producers and some of the series’ actors, the members of the unit likely grew up speaking Arabic at home. Perhaps it’s because their parents, like Delon’s father Amos, immigrated from Baghdad and other parts of the Arab world. The world, or rather the family, has always been part of the multi-religious fabric of pre-mandate Palestine.
what Fauda It also suggests, albeit very subtly, that the protagonists’ Arabness is both the reason they are conscripted into the elite forces and the reason for their marginalization within broader Israeli society. There is. If they weren’t in the unit, the commander jokes, they’d probably “still be out on the streets stealing radios.” However, within the unit, they are expected to do the dirty work as well. Compared to uniformed soldiers in a command and control center, agents in a force always seem a little more unruly, a little less rational, and a little more prone to destruction. In other words, the creators Fauda It is not just their knowledge of Arabic that suggests their Arabness is what gives them that status. Mystalvim At the forefront of the occupation.
In some respects, Fauda This is almost a confession about the limits of Israel’s vast military and technological superiority in terms of military and technological enhancement. Profession. Yes, an extensive network of drone, internet, and phone surveillance allows us to track Palestinians’ every move. But to translate that information into “tranquility,” an opportunity for Israelis to enjoy a normal, prosperous life on their side of the wall, the people Avichai (played by Boaz Conforti) calls “dogs,” i.e. , we need to send in people who don’t. Don’t pause or ponder the moral implications, just barge in and carry out the killing.
In addition to brute force, Mystalvim It also imposes devastating psychological pressure. Some of the series’ most disturbing scenes are the interrogation sessions, usually conducted by the ruthless Captain Ayoub (played by Israeli actor and former drag queen Itzik Cohen). With terrifying precision, Captain Ayoub determines which nerves to press to bring his victim to submission. He sometimes dangles a carrot or reveals devastating information that could serve as a stick. Or he plays with internal divisions with various Palestinian factions to give informants legitimacy to denounce former rivals, or to coerce confessions from the wives of Hamas activists, which already exist. I’m just gradually chipping away at the weaknesses I feel I have. She always knew that as long as she remained in Palestine, she and her children would never have the chance to live a normal life.
Of course, the weaponization of familiarity goes both ways.Israelis weren’t the only ones who deepened their understanding of their adversaries and used that knowledge to their advantage. For their benefit. In a particularly brutal interrogation scene, Hamas operatives reveal that they know Captain Ayoub’s real name and sabotage him, but much of Season 2’s plotline actually revolves around trying to take down Captain Ayoub. The story revolves around Palestinian characters. Mystalvim At our own game. Such actions are consistent with the Panther’s successor, “Abusaif Al-Makdassi” (played by Firas Nasser), who learns Hebrew and dresses as an observant Jew in order to pass through Israeli checkpoints. It is carried out by a small group of young Hamas defectors. They also conduct surveillance, recruit informants, and succeed in penetrating the deepest sanctuaries of unit life. As expected, their efforts backfire with deadly consequences for themselves and their families.
Throughout the series, Captain Ayoub also meets “Abu Maher,” a thinly veiled caricature of Jibril Rajoub, the former head of the Palestinian Security Agency. During the conversation, the two circle each other like gladiators. They drink coffee, exchange pleasantries, cautiously offer snippets of information and promises of cooperation, always trying to reveal less than they learn, and get more than they give. . Ironically, Abu Maher often has the upper hand. He heeded a request from Captain Ayub to use it against Hamas, and cleverly tricked Captain Ayub into revealing that the Israeli captured in Nablus was one of his operatives. But while the relationship is tense and carefully staged, there is also a genuine level of respect, if only reluctantly.
And in most cases Fauda is about It shows the many ways in which familiarity breeds carnage and occasional acts of cooperation, while also encouraging connections, however brief and bittersweet. After it was revealed to Dr. Shirin that Delon had been sexually assaulting her and she advised him to help her capture her cousin, she had to marry her cousin. Mystarif Since she is not a member of the Palestinian security services, Doron decides to take her to her father’s house in the Negev desert to await deportation. Delon’s father Amos warns her son that nothing good will come from a secret meeting with Dr. Shirin, but he is clearly pleased with her presence. They chatted over coffee, and he asked her about the taste of her own cooking and shared stories about her upbringing in Baghdad. She then prepares him a sumptuous breakfast. As Amos approaches the spread, he traces her hand over the embroidered cloth she has placed on the table, feeling nostalgic awe. “How many years has this been here?” he muses. She shrugged her shoulders and replied, “I found it in the drawer.”
What appears to be a touching but innocuous exchange between two putative strangers actually reveals something very deep about the nature of the Israeli-Palestinian tragedy. On the contrary, audienceColumnist James Delingpole argues: Fauda By presenting Israelis and Palestinians as two peoples “incredibly torn apart by a set of hostile values,” he “fails to tell the truth about the conflict.”Instead Fauda In fact, it becomes clear how much they have in common and how fundamentally alike they are, right down to the contents of their kitchens.
Regardless of whether this is an unconscious recognition of reality, Palestinian characters Fauda They look like mirror images of each other. Both are driven by deep bonds of honor and loyalty, and can quickly become enraged or thirsty for revenge when faced with loss or betrayal. And yes, both love their families and are ready to make sacrifices for the country.
Also, Fauda It wasn’t intended to be a story of coexistence, but once we finished filming and listened to how the characters were talking and what they were saying to each other. Fauda The film reminds us that there is more than controversy that unites the characters.
Alison Hodgkins He is an assistant professor of international security and conflict management at the American University in Cairo (AUC). Prior to joining AUC, he directed the CIEE Research Center at the University of Jordan from 2006 to 2012 and was Academic Director at the Middle East Peace and Conflict Studies Program at the School of International Training from 1995 to 2001. I served as He attended Jordan University, Bentley University, and Northeastern University. She is a regular contributor to Political Violence @ a Glance. On Twitter: @abhodgkins.
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