A critical look at the beloved land: Two west German documentary films made by israelis in the 1960s and 1970s

Two documentary films by Israeli film-makers produced and shown in aWest German setting in the 1960s and the 1970s are unique critical documents of Israeli and Palestinian society of those years. The films are: Sabra - Ein Israeli sieht sein Land ('SabraçAn Israeli looks at his country', Kobi Jaeger, 1965) and Fur die Palestinenser - Eine Israelin berichtet ('For the PalestiniansçAn Israeli reports', Edna Politi, 1974). These two German-language films have never been screened or broadcast to the public at large in Israel, but their broadcast in West Germany generated an intense public debate. The article aims to explore the context in which the films were produced and broadcastçand suppressedçin West Germany and Israel respectively. I would argue that the absence of these documentary images and the diversity of voices heard in the two films are a powerful testament to a 'lacuna in audiovisual political knowledge' within Israeli society of the time. Moreover, I would argue that the thematic and formal choices of the filmmakers, related to the political dialogue they sought to create with West German viewers, were bound up with critical and even ethical meanings as they bear on the German and Jewish pasts.