On July 28th, at the Left Bank offices in Tel Aviv, a party celebrating thirty years of artistic and political work by Mohammad Bakri took place. Another reason for this celebration was a recent decision by a judge who ruled that Bakri cannot be sued for making the film Jenin Jenin, a documentary of interviews with residents of the Jenin refugee camp after an Israeli invasion in April of 2002. Bakri is a well known Palestinian actor and a director who acted in many movies. After producing Jenin Jenin, however, Bakri has been blacklisted by the movie industry in Israel and sued by a group of Israeli soldiers. The film was banned by the Israeli state censor on the grounds that it is one sided and does not take into account the viewpoint of the occupying army. It was allowed to be screened after an appeal to the Israeli High Court; meanwhlie three Israeli movies describing the attack on Jenin from the Israeli military point of view were aired on two TV channels.

Bakri and Israeli cinemas that showed the film were sued by a group of Israeli soldiers who participated in the Jenin invasion. Recently, an Israeli judge has ruled that although the movie has presented untrue information, its accusations were directed at a whole population and not at specific people, and therefore specific individuals cannot sue Bakri. The judge also ruled that Bakri has not brought to court any of the Palestinians who commented in the movie to testify, or human rights organization to back up the assertion in the movie. And that therefore the movie is untrue. But many have wondered how Bakri was supposed to bring to court residents of Jenin who are living under occupation and are not allowed to enter Israel, and might be afraid of an Israeli retaliation. Furthermore, Amnesty international and Human Right Watch has written extensive reports on what happened during the siege of Jenin in 2002 that details many of the stories that were describe in the movie. Homan Rights Watch, for example, has accused the Israeli military of committing war crimes in Jenin. Some of the incidents described in the reports and the movie were of houses being demolished with residents still inside, and helicopters firing missiles into civilian’s houses. 4000 people, more than a quarter of the population of the camp, become homeless due to the demolishing of their houses by the occupying Israeli army.

Bakri stated after the ruling that the movie was an attempt to give voice to the residents of Jenin, to allow them to speak about the assault on the camp. The soldiers who sued Bakri claimed that they were just trying to defend their homeland, not to assault a refuge camp. But Bakri in an interview responded that “They are not fighting for their homeland. They are fighting for settlements. They are fighting to defend the occupation. They mustn’t be there. They mustn’t be in the West Bank. They mustn’t be in Gaza. This land was occupied in 1967” and that “this is not the right way to fight terrorists, by demolishing whole houses and by that very cruel invasion.”

Bakry has recently finished another movie called Since You Left. The movie is personal documentary describing Bakri’s harassments and experiences in Israel since making Jenin Jenin.

Israeli soldier testimony on what actually happened in Jenin, by one of those who did it and are proud of it. || Jenin: IDF Military Operations, Human Rights Watch || Israel and the Occupied Territories: Shielded from scrutiny: IDF violations in Jenin and Nablus, Amnesty International || Mohammad Bakri defense committee || Mohammad Bakri official Web Site. || Acclaimed Palestinian Actor Mohammad Bakri Faces Trial in Israel for Documentary “Jenin, Jenin", Democracy Now! || Mohammad Bakri: “I will never apologize!” || Galway IPSC protests against the political show-trial of Mohamed Bakri, Director of Jenin Jenin, Indymedia Ireland