The Israeli anti-war film “Lebanon” won the top Golden Lion prize at the Venice film festival. The award was handed out by president of the jury filmmaker Ang Lee, and accepted by director Samuel Maoz.

The war is about Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon - an invasion that killed roughly 20,000 Lebanese and Palestinian civilians - and it told through the eyes, literally, of an Israeli tank unit navigating through a town. It is quasi-autobiographical since the director, like his Waltz with Bashir counterpart, served in Lebanon:

This film actually looks really good (not necessarily in a normative sense) and I look forward to seeing it. But one thing that really bugs me about it is the whole - yet again - complex of the “anguish” of the Israeli occupation soldier. Maoz’s comments are just that:

“But making this film has got me my life back and that is more precious than any award. Without fully knowing it, I have been deeply traumatized since 1982, as has a whole generation of Israelis, people who are now running the country. Making ‘Lebanon’ and finally confronting what happened in that war, has given me my true feelings back and I can cry real tears once more.”

He’s traumatized?! What about the Arab civilians that were killed? What about their loved one, are they not traumatized? It is so uncalled for to put the focus more on the victimizer rather than the victim.

There is in Israeli and American “liberal” culture an obnoxious and racist obsession with the so-called anguish of the Israeli occupation soldier. This logic runs like this: Israeli occupation soldiers are really nice guys and they do not want to kill children, but the fact that they have to brings them such great anguish. This view is, of course, racist for it places a higher value on the life of the victimizer Israeli occupation soldier over the victims of their crimes. Instead of your attention being on those who are suffering and feeling sympathy for them, proponents of the “anguish” complex seek to make us feel sorry for the Israeli occupiers whom directly facilitated the massacre of Palestinians. Pure and simple, this is nothing but racist liberal trash that seeks to humanize the Israel solider and seeks to forgive him for his crimes while ignoring the suffering of the Palestinians and the Lebanese at the direct hand of Israel. It seeks to absolve the guilty party of responsibility. And if Israel was so innocent in, for example, Lebanon in 1982 why did it still occupy the country until 2000 even though its objective of forcing out Palestinian militias was completed?

Further, why do Israelis make such films nearly three decades after the fact? Is that when they finally see the error of their ways? I guess we can expect a regretful, “anguish” film about Gaza 2008-2009 from an Israeli in 2035.

Maybe this film has sympathy for Arabs too. The trailer give an impression somewhat. I’ll wait and see, and then I’ll post my review.