Ford Transit
Hany Abu-Assad

Nathalie Rothschild

Director Abu-Assad follows the young cab driver Rajai around as he brings people to their destinations in Jerusalem and Ramallah, dodging road blocks, taking risky detours on dirt roads and stopping to pick up counterfeit CDs that he sells on to earn some extra cash.

The Ford minivan taxis that seem to dominate the roads used to be Israeli police cars, but were handed over to the Palestinians during the Oslo peace process. They now provide a means of transportation and a source of livelihood as well as interesting meeting spots for their various passengers. In Rajai's Ford the passengers are diverse; children with face paint, a lawyer, the mother of a female suicide bomber, a Canadian PhD student, French women's rights activists as well as filmmakers, politicians and others. The more famous passengers, such as former Palestinian politician Hanan Ashrawi and Israeli filmmaker BZ Goldberg, are introduced with name and profession and for some reason are the only ones to ride alone in the minivan. This does not seem to be pure coincidence, but rather reveals the director's intervention.

In the film we get to hear some interesting reflections on the conflict and on occupation, such as a Palestinian politician drawing a connection between 'American right wingers' and 'Zionist freemasons' and stating that in suicide attacks the Palestinian proletariat (the suicide bombers) are killing the Israeli proletariat (those who have to use public transport). Another man thinks that American politicians should be required to pass an IQ test before running for president. In an excerpt from an Arabic news report on a suicide bombing the news anchor recounts the number of 'Zionists' killed in the attack, as opposed the number of Israelis or Jews.

The film gives us, as the cliché has it, 'the people behind the figures' and their opinions. The road blocks, the young soldiers with attitude, the politicians condemning suicide bombings are now standard images endlessly reproduced to the extent that we Europeans think we know the position of all Israelis and Palestinians: soldier/civilian occupier/occupied, oppressor/oppressed, powerful/powerless, rich/poor and so on (with a few, compulsory, exceptions of course). But interspersed with these stereotypes and recycled slogans, including the parallel drawn between the Israeli and the Nazi and between the Israeli/Zionist state and the Apartheid state, are humane, frustrated, angry, funny, caring, insightful and sarcastic conversations and encounters.

Much can be said about the comments and events recounted in 'Ford Transit' and also about its format, which, although not very original (for example Kiarostami's Ten and Jarmusch's Night on Earth use the location of the taxi as an opportunity to explore differing characters and stories in a single setting), does provide an interesting set for encounters between people and filmmaker and for an insight into the daily life of Rajai and others. However, aside from the specific qualities and narratives of this film, it is worth noting that it will be part of an International Human Rights film festival with a total of 25 films showing over the course of 9 days. Six of these are on Israel/Palestine.

The preoccupation, near-to obsession, with the Palestinian cause and the Israeli occupation is rarely mentioned or explained, but is a complex and important issue that calls for debate. Why is it that the young Canadian PhD student in Rajai's taxi believes that the struggle of the Palestinian people is representative of people's struggles all over the world, and why is she not alone in this belief?

This blindness to social and historical particularities for the sake of upholding a principle or trend to always side with the weak does harm both to the identified 'perpetrator', 'victim' and 'supporter of the victim'. A less patronising and more productive approach to 'the Palestinian people and their cause' would be to reject the victim card. If their popular support continues to rely on their position as underdog, what will happen to that support and empathy when the victim either refuses to fashion himself according to that image or when he, against all odds, founds his nation-state, when he is non-passive? We already have a scenario where the only active measure by Palestinians that is continually reported on is that of the suicide bomber, which from all kinds of directions is repeatedly condemned as an act of terror, ignorance, hatred, desperation, frustration etc.

Of course, we have to place the role of Israel and Israelis and attitudes towards them within this situation as well. What happened to the Left's support of Israel in the post-Holocaust 1950s and 60s? And why this continuing focus on, and singling out of, Israel as an illegal state? In fact, have not all modern nation-states been founded violently and a-legally? Moreover, what about the role of those countries which have a shared responsibility in Israeli/Palestinian history, those countries where much criticism is now expressed as if the course of events in this part of the Middle East have only happened elsewhere? Maybe turning the camera to all these directions would defy the tendency to think that conflicts and problems are played out elsewhere and are alien to the free, democratic part of the world, which in various ways has to step in to correct the situation.

Another point is the constant call on slogans such as that of 'another Holocaust', 'another Apartheid regime' and so on. This devalues and dishonours the terms' original meanings and points of reference. In the process, the specific historical, political, social, economic circumstances of those events are muddled up and used to legitimate support derived from easily drawn conclusions and selective memory.

This is not to say that solidarity is impossible or that one cannot or should not take a stance and express both opinions and support. It is however important to question why such a geographically small part of the world dominates foreign policy agendas, the media, demonstration banners and university unions and why other events with complex histories and conflict-ridden presents do not get the same coverage or generate the same kind of interest and preoccupation.

Ford Transit is the winner of the 2003 HRWIFF Nestor Almendros Prize for courage in filmmaking and of Best Documentary, 'The Spirit of Freedom', Jerusalem Film Festival 2003. It had its London premiere on Friday 19 March at the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton and is part of the 2004 Human Rights Watch International Film Festival.