THE OSLO DIARIES
Israel, 2017, 97 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan.
This is a sobering documentary to watch. Audiences who remember the 1990s, will know of the hopefulness for some kind of peace in Israel-Palestine?, the talks which began in Oslo and continued for several years leading to the signing of peace documents – as well as uprising against the leaders, being and Yasser Arafat.
The makers of this film have gathered a lot of footage of the period, the personalities involved, their role as mediators and negotiators, interviews with them, filming of aspects of the meetings, the ceremonies for signing, the visuals of the uprising, the reactions of the Palestinians, reaction of the Israelis, riots and the number of dead.
Here are excerpts from the diaries of the various participants are dramatised, spoken over visuals of the characters concerned. It opens with two professors commission to go to Oslo secretly and met with three Palestinian representatives. They worked in secret for some time, only lately the media getting the information and becoming the subject for television news headlines.
The film is interesting in the perspectives of the particular diaries, the wariness of meeting the opposition, the steps in negotiation, their getting to know one another, the beginning of friendships. In the film, the Palestinian representatives seem to be initially more open than the Israelis although a number of the Israelis changed during the negotiations.
From the Israeli side, the film indicates how Prime Minister Rabin had promised peace but there was reaction against his not achieving it. Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, was the contact for the negotiations. Yasser Arafat and the PLO were exiled in Tunisia but Arafat embraced the negotiations. Ultimately, agreements were made, there is a ceremony with Bill Clinton in the White House and the signing of documents.
As regards the peace process, it continued despite a number of popular uprisings against it. Ultimately, there is a formal ceremony hosted by Pres Mubarak of Egypt which seemed to falter at the last minute with Arafat not signing a page with a map, Rabin being advised about it, some tension but a final resolution.
The film shows the peace rally, attended by so many, in Israel with singing, including Rabin and Peres both singing – and this was the occasion when Rabin was assassinated.
The peace process lingered for some time but ultimately there was the intifada around 2000, harsh conditions for Palestinians in the occupied territories despite plans for Israel to withdraw.
The situation is complicated by the 1996 Israeli elections when Shimon Peres did not win and the victor was Benjamin Netanyahu, hawkish, righteous about Israel’s traditions, and continuing as prime minister of Israel as this film was released. (Four further information about right-wing religious fanaticism in Israel, The Jewish Underground is well worth seeing, indicating at the end of this film the stances of Netanyahu.)
The director also made the questioning documentaries about veterans of the six day war and retrospect, Censored Voices, and Kings of Captiol Hill a critique of American- Jewish relations, especially in the Trump era.
