Anatomy of a hate crime
HBO series tackles sensitive incident in the Israeli-palestinian conflict
JERUSALEM When the parents of 16-year-old Palestinian Mohammed Abu Khdeir first reported to Jerusalem police in the early hours of July 2, 2014, that their son had been kidnapped by a group of Jewish settlers, few in authority took it seriously.
For most Israelis, the idea that Jews would go into an Arab neighbourhood and kidnap a boy was incomprehensible. In the days that followed, even after Abu Khdeir’s body was found torched and abandoned in the Jerusalem forest, it remained unthinkable that Jews could carry out such a brutal hate crime.
The realization that Abu Khdeir was murdered by Jews solely because he was an Arab — and the atmosphere of extremism and racism that enabled it to happen — are the central themes explored in a highly charged HBO series out this week.
“For me, I already knew about Arab terror, but the murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir created more questions than answers. I just couldn’t believe that Jews could do this, and I wanted to know why they did,” said Hagai Levi, who with Joseph Cedar and Tawfik Abu Wael wrote, directed and produced the show.
Our Boys, the first show entirely in Hebrew and Arabic to air on the U.S. cable channel, is a co-production of HBO, Keshet International and produced by Movie Plus. In its dramatized recounting of Abu Khdeir’s death, the show weaves together original reporting with inside information from Israeli police and the Shin Bet internal intelligence agency as well as the reenacted stories of those involved in the episode.
The summer’s events had been sparked by the June kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers by members of a Hamas terrorist cell in the occupied West Bank and culminated in a 51-day war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
The creators say they are aware they will probably draw fire from all sides here because of the way the events in Our Boys are depicted.
“We’ve prepared ourselves for the backlash,” said Levi, anticipating criticism from the right wing in Israel that an Arab victim from that summer was spotlighted and not a Jewish one; outrage from the left wing that Abu Khdeir’s murderers are given human personas; and possible unhappiness by Palestinians that the show largely glosses over the wider story of Israel’s ongoing occupation.
“We know showing this side of the conflict will be hard for the Israeli public to accept,” said Cedar. “But I think any backlash will have some value by sparking discussion of a very difficult subject.”
The Washington Post