The self-image that the Israeli armed forces are the most moral army in the world is part of the DNA of Zionism in Israel. This is what critical Israeli historians say, whom director Alon Schwarz interviewed, as well as ex-soldiers of the Alexandroni Brigade. In 1992, these men were interviewed once before, by history student Teddy Katz. It was about an allegedly massacre, perpetrated by Israeli soldiers in 1948, during the Israeli war of independence in the fishing village of Tantura, in which between 40 and 200 Arab men (unaccounted for to this day) were shot after the surrender of the village. The film shows how at first this academic work of Katz was accepted and seen as a significant proof to be reckoned with in Israeli society as a process of self-criticism and reflection. Years later, a major news outlet published his findings and generated a storm in the debate over the morality of the Israeli forces during the 1948 war.
Director Alon Schwarz revives Teddy Katz´s research, digging up the whole story once again. He not only questions the Israeli self-image, but also shows how the various traumas of the founding of the Israeli state are reflected in the social as well as in the very personal way of dealing with history.
On 15.6. at 19:30 at Kino Krokodil, researcher Alon Sahar will be present for a film talk after the film.
