“Israel Ltd.”
The film tracks a group of North American teens on a four-week Israel trip sponsored by the Jewish Agency for Israel.
Loushy was clearly outraged by what she found: impressionable youngsters being taught that Israel is surrounded by enemies who seek to destroy her; the vicarious thrill of a week of mock army training, during which some of the boys took to the shooting range with alarming enthusiasm; the veneration of Israel’s fallen in a visit to a military cemetery; and an introduction to the Jewish state in which, as far as the film tells us, Palestinians were scarcely mentioned at all.
‘Defamation’
Another Israeli film screening was “Defamation” by Yoav Shamir, who explains at the start that as an Israeli, he has never experienced anti-Semitism. So he set out to figure out what this demonic force is all about.
‘American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein’
The first thing to be said about the documentary “American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein” is that it is not as bad as it could have been. Given the politics of festivals like the one in Amsterdam, one could understandably have expected a fawning look at a man reviled by the American Jewish establishment and venerated by the left.
