3,000 Nights

Mai Masri’s 3000 Nights is an expertly made propaganda film. It’s better as a model for how to make one than as history. 

As in any “story,” the particular stands for the general. What may be a freakish occurrence in real life becomes — once turned into a story, film, play, whatever — representative of a common phenomenon. As Aristotle put it, “history” happens just once, “fiction” what happens always and everywhere. 

In this case, the story of one mother’s devotion to her son and to preserving his life despite her imprisonment is intended to speak to the values of her culture. In the case of Palestinians, however, this is a misrepresentation of their cultural values. Palestinian mothers openly extol their sons’ martyrdom. As we see on Palestinian TV and banners, their children are trained to become soldiers and martyrs from a disturbingly early age. Children are being trained to kill Jews.

As in any “story,” too, the meaning inheres in (i) what details are included within the “frame” and (ii) what details are framed out. Here, for example, an end title reveals that 700,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned in Israeli jails since 1948. What is discreetly omitted is why: Since 1948 the Palestinians have refused any offer of statehood that required them to abandon their plan to replace Israel, i.e., that would have required their peaceful coexistence. The current "intifada" is emblematic of their 70-odd years of relentless attacks upon Jewish citizens. 

There are other examples of “rigging” the story to suit the purpose, which in this case is to valorize the Palestinian and to demonize the Israeli. One clue is casting. The Jewish inmates are ugly, the Palestinians pretty. One Jewish warden is a vicious woman who speaks through clenched teeth. To appear even-handed there is a token liberal Jew, the lawyer who represents our heroine, a Jewish junkie whom she saves and is rewarded in return, and the doctor. 

Centering the story upon women emphasizes the drama of innocents victimized. Our heroine is abandoned by her husband, who flees to Canada and only returns to try to steal her son. But the prisoner who helps her and gives her son a carved bird promises a genuine fidelity. Guess you can’t trust the diaspora. 

For all we know, only one of the Palestinian woman prisoners is a terrorist, plus the older woman’s two “freedom fighter”  grandsons. The woman has been jailed for 15 years, has lost an arm, instigates the riot, and lies in the gas at the end, subdued but not conquered, banging her tin cup to restart the resistance. 

The film explicitly promotes the idea of kidnapping Jews to swap for prisoners. In the riot the prisoners capture six Israeli guards and negotiate the freeing of the same number of inmates. Our heroine stays in jail, to stoke our sense of injustice. 

The equal exchange is another misrepresentation. More typically, one or a few Israeli prisoners are exchanged for hundreds or even thousands of Palestinian prisoners. This is the Palestinian, not the Israeli, appraisal of the relative value of a Palestinian life. An end title reports an exchange of 6 Israeli guards for over 5,000 Palestinian prisoners. That promotes this criminal strategy.

By the way, for an alternative view of how Israeli and Palestinian prisons treat their respective charges, check the newsreel footage of the 2011 exchange of the one Israeli Galid Shalit for 1,027 Arab prisoners, of which 280 were serving life sentences for fatal terrorism. Shalit was haggard and under-nourished, the Arabs quite healthy. Of course, the Palestinian prisoners in this film are nowhere near that guilty.  

Some touches are subtle. References to Allah are translated to God in the subtitles, bridging the gap between Arab and non-Arab audiences.They become us. The Palestinians here are completely secular: not a hijab, no prayer, no religious barriers to inhibit our identification with them and our support. 

When the heroine is first taken prisoner she’s hung by the arms in a thin white slip, as if she were at sexual risk. Sex is excluded from the cells here, though a butch Israeli prisoner threatens her.

A couple of touches play on the unconscionable myth that Israel is the new Nazi. In an early scene Israeli guards have vicious German (i.e., Nazi) shepherd dogs. Later the JDF quells the prison riot with — what else? — canisters of gas, killing at least one young girl. 

Less subtle touches challenge credibility, like the Israeli doctor keeping the woman shackled on each hand and leg while delivering her baby. Fun fact: Israeli hospitals treated 180,000 Palestinians in 2015. Number of Israelis Palestinian hospitals treated: 0. Just the facts, ma'am. 

Even the time is carefully selected. The 1982 setting enables the TV news to report the infamous Sabra and Shattila massacres, where Israeli forces stood by as their Christian allies slaughtered Lebanese. 

The heroine’s trial is cut to a single question. When she denies having been threatened by the young terrorist she gave a ride to, she’s convicted and sentenced to eight years in jail. In fact, the Israeli justice system is independent of the government and famous for more circumspect conduct. It taxes credibility to suggest that a Palestinian schoolteacher just married would be convicted without any further questioning or evidence.

Propaganda also ignores alternative possibilities. After an Israeli soldier is killed, a wounded young terrorist is caught near the crime scene, being driven away by a Palestinian woman. Wouldn’t she be a logical suspect? We “know” she’s innocent because she’s played by a beautiful, sensitive actress, but terrorism is rife with innocent looking perpetrators and abettors. In a propaganda film, a plausible trial is sacrificed for the villainy of a brisk unfair one, however implausible.
     And it works. At the Palm Springs Festival screening, the gasps and moans of indignation and shock suggested a palpable swelling of rage against Israel. No matter it was based on lies and distortions. 

The heroine is pure virtue. She is too noble to claim the wounded boy threatened her, coercing her cooperation. Later she’s too noble to abort her child, even after her husband supports the warden’s insistence. She quits the Arab prisoners’ strike to feed and to keep her son, but rejoins it when he’s removed.
     With such a virtuous heroine — and such a stacked deck — it’s hard to watch this film and not be swept along. Propaganda aims to do an end run around your logic and the facts for a direct hit on the emotions. Abandon intelligence and responsibility ye who enter here.