It’s time to talk about Palestine.
You may not think that conversations change minds anymore, but I still do.
I’ve been working with my longtime collaborator Tim Palmer on a documentary project called Where is Palestine? that explores the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank and Jordan, and in the course of our work, we’ve received questions — lots of questions. And in each case, we’ve entered willingly into what are sometimes difficult conversations. From those, I’d like to highlight a couple of clear issues that I think people on both sides of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict can converge on, and of which you may not be aware.

Palestinians and Israelis rarely meet face-to-face.
The separation wall works both ways. Israeli citizens are actively prohibited from entering the Occupied Territories, just as Palestinians are restricted from leaving. This barrier to interaction and humanization means that the decades-long struggle for consensus in the region is almost a purely political one, taking place not at the individual level, but at the state level among politicians who, in almost every case, benefit in some way from the power structures that are already in place.
Our current project aims to humanize a Palestinian population that, as one journalist we spoke to described it, is often viewed only as a collective; while Israel, on the other hand, is typically viewed by the West in a very private and passionate way. Only by pulling back the curtain to expose injustice at the individual level will the tide of sentiment turn, not just among those in the West, but among Israelis themselves, some of whom today remain shielded, unaware of the struggles of their Palestinian neighbors and the systematic oppression being meted out by their own government.
The Israeli Defense Forces are currently destroying the homes of Palestinian families in the West Bank.
One Palestinian man we spoke with during our time there had a large family with young children, and he had so far rebuilt his home not once, twice or three times, but four times. Another family we met had their home destroyed in the dead of night with four hours’ notice. I’ve heard American friends of mine suggest that Israel’s demolitions are carried out primarily to combat terrorism, but this stated aim actually only accounts for a small fraction of the IDF’s demolitions. Rather, in each case we encountered, the reason Israel gave for demolishing the structures was the absence of a building permit — a grotesque charge given that only between 1 1/2 and 5 percent of Palestinian applicants in the affected areas are granted permits to build on the land they own. The residents of one small town we visited had a whopping 50+ court cases pending against the Israeli government to decide the fates of homes in their community. One family we spoke with said their most recent demolition notice had been left hidden near their door in such a way that they were clearly not intended to discover it in time to fight it.
Let’s talk.
There’s much more to explore, but for now, I encourage you to take part in our work by sharing this post and the accompanying trailer.
We’re getting out in the coming months to talk about this stuff in person and show some more in-depth clips from our time in Palestine. If you’d like to host the two of us for a group screening and discussion, please reach out. I’ve come to believe the world changes one hard conversation at a time, and this conversation has never been more important.
Addendum: As if tearing down homes wasn’t bad enough, just this morning (Aug. 29, 2017), I found out they’re tearing down schools too.
