Behind Enemy Lines (2003)

Countries - United Kingdom, Israel  |  
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Synopsis by Josh Ralske

In 1999, the Japanese government invited a group of Israelis and a group of Palestinians to come together for a meeting in Tokyo to get to know each other on a personal level. Israeli journalist Dov Gil-Har documented the event in his film, Sleeping With the Enemy: An Israeli-Palestinian Journey to Japan. Less than a year after the group's return, the second Intifada broke out. In 2004, Gil-Har tracked down two of the participants, Palestinian journalist Adnan Joulani and Israeli police commander Benny Herness, and brought them together again. Behind Enemy Lines documents their reunion, as Adnan and Benny each select several sites in Israel and the occupied territories to visit, in order to make a case for his side of the conflict to the other. Benny brings Adnan to the sites of various suicide bombings, and to a Holocaust memorial, while Adnan brings Benny to the dangerous destroyed refugee camp of Jenin, and to the location where his beloved cousin was shot and killed by an Israeli settler. The two begin on friendly terms, but their opposing ideologies create conflicts that cannot be breached easily. Behind Enemy Lines was presented by the Jewish Museum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center as part of the 2005 New York Jewish Film Festival.