But there’s another side to the story: the Palestinians.
“Miral,” based on a true story, will tug at your sense of helplessness over a dispute
that’s been going on since….well, Sarah and Hagar.
1947. The country of Israel is carved out by U.N. resolution, by concession of the
British, formerly the occupiers of Palestine, but as in Joshua’s biblical mandate, Israel
operates on the “holy war” mindset that its God-given destiny is to inherit the land of
Canaan, never mind who might now be living in it. In the aftermath of the Holocaust,
the world seems to want to give Jews the world over some place safe to be. They start
out having to fight to defend their right to be there, and they’ve been fighting ever
since.
1967.
The Six-Day War. Israel not only defeats the Arab coalition, it occupies
the Gaza Strip and the West Bank as “buffer zones.” This displaces many Palestinian
civilians, but their side lost the war, so they don’t get a say.
1987
Israel and Palestine agree to recognize each other’s right to exist, but the
treaty is never really enforced. Israel continues expanding unauthorized settlements
in occupied territories. There are now generations of Palestinians who have never
known anything but occupation and displacement. And we wonder why this pressure
cooker incubates terrorists?
“Miral” is the personal story of a girl who grew up in an orphanage. It establishes the
back story of how the orphanage was founded, and how it was that the girl wound up
with an absent mother and a father who came to visit her on weekends. Of course,
anyone who’s as good-looking as Freida Pinto is going to attract plenty of attention.
(Never mind that she’s actually Indian, not Palestinian. Does anyone else suspect a
bit of implied racism, that we stupid Caucasians can’t tell the difference?)
“Miral” (Pinto) is the name of a wild red flower that grows plentifully on the side
of the road. In other words, her story is supposed to be typical, but this character,
of course, is anything but typical. Aside from being a world-class beauty, she is so
intelligent she easily converses in several languages, and earns a college scholarship
which takes her away from all the madness, and prevents her from prematurely
perishing as one of those anonymous suicide bombers with explosives on her back
and revenge gutting her soul.
Yes, of course, the Palestinians can tell stories about Jewish oppression and
aggression, but do you suppose there’s an Israeli family there that doesn’t have its
own horror stories? How about the Irish? Serbs? Shiites? Armenians? Hutu?
Apache? Maya? Aboriginals? This list could go on forever. And probably will.
But “Miral” is just one story, just one point of view. As such, it is by definition not
a complete picture. But then, maybe that belongs only to the God in whose name
everyone slays the infidel. Or wishes they could.
Ronald P. Salfen is co-pastor of United Presbyterian Church, Greenville, Texas
