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Abstract
This article traces the foundations of the struggle for international recognition at the level of cultural production within the Palestinian movement for self-determination. Both the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) used innovative rhetorical strategies in documentary film-making to argue for the international status of the Palestinian struggle, in the process revealing themselves intellectually capable of the challenges of leadership. The two films examined in this article, The Palestinian Right and Declaration of World War, participate in the construction of differing visions of Palestinian statehood. Where Declaration of World War insists on the obligation of the international community to respond to the demands of propaganda, The Palestinian Right stages an intervention into debates on the worth of international bodies and transnational legal frameworks. Both films rigorously investigate the connections between colonialism, imperialism and Zionism, arguing for a more trans-historical and transnational approach to the struggle for Palestine.
Notes
1. This slogan is from The Red Army/PFLP: Declaration of World War (Citation1971). See the Barbican website for more information on this film and its screening in the UK: https://www.barbican.org.uk/film/event-detail.asp?ID=10630.
2. ”In the 1960s, ‘camp and exiled Palestinians’ gained a new understanding of themselves as jil-al-thawra, the revolutionary generations. The jil-al-thawra was to turn the humiliating experiences of the jil-al-nakba to assertiveness and action” (Schulz Citation1999, 37).
3. Such images were a staple in documentaries such as the 1949 Sands of Sorrow. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ6lIsl-pHU.
4. Yasser Arafat, the leader of Fatah, was elected chairman of the PLO in 1969.
5. Joseph Massad points out that “The Palestinian revolution paid attention to cinema since its early years. The Palestinian Film Unit (Wihdat Aflam Filastin) was founded in 1968 under the auspices of Fatah and undertook its revolutionary mission of recording and documenting the Palestinian revolution for the future.” Other revolutionary groups also founded film units between 1970 and 1973 (2006, 35).
6. As Pearlman notes, however, “fragmentation [in nationalist/liberation movements] invites outside interference, which can encourage more fragmentation and violence” (2011, 19).
7. The episode at Karameh is central to Palestinian historiography regarding self-representation. “The Battle of Karameh (March 1968) between the Palestinian commandos, assisted by units of the Jordanian Army, and a large attacking Israeli force” (Hamid Citation1975, 99) helped to forge a new image for Palestinian revolutionaries. “The Palestinians had fought back and Israel had lost 21 men, but the attack’s objectives were achieved. In the Arab world however, the encounter became a legend. Karama means honour in Arabic and Fatah’s battle there appeared heroic next to the Arab armies’ apparent cowardice and incompetence a year earlier” (Pearlman Citation2011, 19).
8. For example, the events at Munich in 1972 were to implicate Black September, the armed wing of Fatah in international “terrorism” and this would change the way in which commando action was reported in the media.
9. See http://www.filmaffinity.com/en/film404129.html. Accessed August 5, 2013.
10. A little-explored event also occurred at around this time: Godard and Gorin had been working on a film about the Fatah struggle in Palestine, called Till Victory. “Till Victory was to have been a défense et illustration of how the Fatah Movement’s thorough, patient, and systematic planning and organization made it a model of revolutionary preparedness. The sudden turn of events which saw Hussein’s troops rout the Palestinian guerrillas in Fall 1970 and decisively in Spring 1971, however, came as a great surprise and disappointment to Godard and Gorin – as well as to many international observers” (MacBean Citation1972, 31). The making of the film was indefinitely postponed and finally appeared as Ici et Alleurs (Here and Elsewhere) and addressed very different issues.
11. The JRA and the PFLP collaborated for some years in international hijacking and bombing activities (Gallagher Citation2003, 37).
12. Between 1967 and 1968, Mustapha Abu ‘Ali, Hany Jawhariya, and Sulafa Jadallah founded a film unit that was connected to Fatah.
13. Photographs of the canisters have been placed online and a public call for translations of the labels
has been quite successful. See http://afilmarchive.net/about.
14. Recently released CIA documentation clarifies the extent to which the collaboration between the JRA and the PFLP was seen as a threat to international and regional security (CIA Citation1970, Citation1972, Citation1974).
15. See Valassopoulos (Citation2007, 101).