Everything Including the Israeli Bloodhounds Snapping at Their Rear Ends

That's a fair summation of the fare at this year's Toronto Palestinian Film Festival, an annual event, paritally funded by the province, that begins Friday. To whet your appetite for the fete, here are synopses of two flicks. The first--Occupation Has No Future--was made in the U.S., and sounds like it'll be a sure-fire hit with lefties who comprise a large (dare one say the largest?) segment of the TPFF audience:

Through conversations with Israeli conscientious objectors, former soldiers, and Palestinians living under occupation, the film explores the Israeli social environment that creates heightened militarism and leads to attitudes of fear, exclusion, racism, and ultimately aggression; and examines the consequences of Israeli policies both for the Palestinian people as well as for Israeli civil society. Additionally, the film looks at the Israeli anti-militarist movement and Israeli youth refusing conscription, refusing orders, and choosing to partner with a growing grassroots Palestinian campaign of civil disobedience to defeat the occupation. This film aims to track the hope of a growing number of Israelis and Palestinians to live together, free from occupation, with peace and justice.

In other words--and in song: All we are sayin' is give a defunct Jewish Israel a chance...

Also on tap: Into the Belly of the Whale. A short (25 min.) Jordanian flick, it makes a hero of one of those guys who smuggles arms and other stuff intended to counter the "occupation" of Israel (that is, Palestine) by Jews:

This gripping short film takes viewers underground and into the tunnel system that is a lifeline for Palestinians under siege in Gaza. However, in addition to bringing in essential goods from Egypt, the tunnel also brings harm to the smugglers who dare to make the dangerous journey 100 feet below the surface. Younis is one such smuggler who, on his last tunnel run, ends up trapped in the middle of the “Whale” tunnel after an Israeli attack. Stuck, Younis is left to ponder existential questions about fate and being alive underground. The tunnel also serves an analogy for Palestinian existence: trapped and suffocated, with no light at the end of the tunnel.

"Existential," huh? Sounds very J.P. Sartre. Oddly enough, the tunnel analogy could be extended to the Jews, too, Israel being the one that's "trapped and suffocated, with no light at the end of the tunnel."

Think I'll make an existential film about it.